February 2016
IN THIS REPORT –
- Review of the actions from the W.A. Government Safety Action Plan 2016-2020 and the Motorcycle Safety Forum 2015 Video’s on our website
- New video’s on our website
- Make yourself Visible Booklet
- Motorcyclist First Aid courses
On Tuesday 16th January Nicola Hill and I attended a meeting called by the Road Safety Commission as part of their stakeholder consultation to review and comment on the 40 actions proposed in WA Motorcycle Safety Action Plan 2016-2020. The actions also included some of the issues raised at the November 2015 Motorcycle Safety Forum arranged by the MRA. The findings, data, research and actions from the Government Motorcycle Safety Review Group that have been working on this for almost 12 months is a 68 page document and I won’t try and cover it all here.Most of the actions made sense from a motorcycle safety point of view but there are some that we queried. Including the suggestion that we all wear a red or white helmet and wear clothing that contrasts with the environment as much as possible? So we all have to carry extra different coloured clothing when we go out on our motorcycles. We thought this was just silly and let them know it.The majority of the actions where supported by us including the acceptance of the use of European international helmet standard ECE 22.05 to be added to the motorcycle helmets approved for use on WA roads. The legalising of motorcycle lane filtering within limits on WA roads. Support the production of a star rating for motorcycle protective clothing. Investigate additional training for learner and novice and returning riders. Improve the knowledge of road designers, engineers and maintenance workers of the needs and dangers to motorcycle riders on our road infrastructure. Promote the sale of added safety features on motorcycles ABS ATC etc.We did raise concerns on the over reliance of technology in cars that we believe will have the effect of having even less attentive car drivers when it comes to looking for motorcycle riders (blind spot detection) We also requested.All of the actions from the Action Plan still do need to be given approval by the Minister for Road Safety Hon. Lisa Harvey and we are hoping for an announcement in March.Our website guru Peter Butler has been working his magic on our website again. He has now added lots of videos from the Rider Risk series that we got from New South Wales along with the Road Safety Commission videos and the Safer Roads for Motorcycles videos. He has also added our booklets – Braking Habits and our newest publication Make Yourself Visible, which has now gone national through all the various State organisations in Australia. You can now download these publications free of charge directly from our website www.mrawa.org Thanks peter and all your team for Smarter Websites for all your help in building a great website.We now have two motorcycle specific first aid courses to choose from, after years of none they are Rider Down which is run by Janine Nicolas and First Aid for Motorcyclists which is run by Tracy Hughes. I have attended Janine’s course and thought it was very good and walked out with a heap of knowledge that I didn’t have before. I will be attending Tracy’s course in April and am looking forward to getting a different aspect if first aid for motorcycle riders. You can check out and book a course at their websites at www.RiderDown.com.au and www.firstaidformotorcyclists.com.auThat’s it from me for now, as always please feel free to contact me on any issues you may have
RIDE LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT