Motorcycle Safety Report September 2018
Hi All, Spring has well and truly sprung and I hope you are all enjoying the recent turn in our weather and are getting out and enjoying this fantastic time of year.Now down to business, the big news this week is the Star Rating for Motorcycle Clothing.The star rating for protective motorcycle clothing was launched yesterday Monday 17th September 2018 and the link is www.motocap.com.auThis has been a long time in getting to this point with a large push from all the motorcycle representative groups around Australian since 2004. It has been led by NSW with input and financial support from all Australian States and Territories.It has now been officially launched after several years of testing of randomly purchased garments and after giving the manufacturers the past twelve months to get there products assessed and improved. I was at the testing laboratories in Geelong last week and witnessed the testing procedure and I was very impressed by the level of blind testing to destruction on a purely scientific basis. This is just the first step and I feel confident that reputable protective clothing manufacturers will be all to willing to make improvements to their products to achieve a improved star rating as these tests will be ongoing, with retesting on a regular basis.So go to the website and see the results on motorcycle jackets and pants, I think you may be surprised at some of the results. Cost is not always the best indicator of the safest protective clothing.Once again the website www.motocap.com.au I attended the Australian Motorcycle Council Annual Conference last week in Geelong and my full report is on our website. I will however give you the short version here. The Chair man is once again Shaun Lennard who gave us his vision for a revamped AMC going forward with the restructure of the 12 sub-committees including infrastructure, helmets, autonomous vehicles, training and licencing, clothing, off road motorcycling, research, vehicle standards, road rules to name a few. These sub committees will report back to the AMC Executive Committee every three months, so if you believe that you can contribute to any of these sub-committees ,can you please contact me.At the conference we received reports and overview of the actions and issues in other States from the State Representatives. We also had presentations from Rhys Griffith from Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries as the manager of their motorcycle division, David Milling from ARRB who spoke on road designs and the need for road designers to be educated of the needs of motorcycle riders ,Katie Minogue from Maurice Blackburn Lawyers told us of the work they have taken on for motorcycle riders rights.I will be attend the Australasian Road Safety Conference in Sydney in October, I have attended these conferences for the past 8 years and always get a massive amount of information on motorcycle safety studies and initiatives from many sources both in Australian and overseas.This year I am being funded to attend this conference jointly by Motorcycle Riders Association of W.A. The Ulysses Club and WA Road Safety Commission and I would like to thank all three organisations for giving me this opportunity to attend for WA motorcycle riders.I will of course post my report on this conference when I return home. Remember to ride like your life depends on it.Dave Wright