BOHICA

I wondered if the ghost of Bob Brown's Ten Point Road Safety Plan would
return after Labor got up...

Didn't even take two weeks; http://tinyurl.com/2addcb

"The Queensland Government has asked motorcycle riders to permanently
use their headlights, even during the day, following a surge in the
number of fatal motorcycle accidents on the state's roads this year."

 

Your point is not understood. I ride a four year old motorcycle where the
headlights operate as soon as the ignition switch is turned on. I
understand that most motorcycles operate the same way. You may wish to make
rude remarks about the Queensland government but I am not like that.

John Dwyer.

 

In aus.motorcycles on Sat, 22 Dec 2007 09:13:24 +1100

THe NOrge's do too, annoys the hell out of me.

Because having gone through the studies, I think that in Australian
daylight conditions in urban environments the benefits are pretty well
nil and the dangers are more than nil.

Switches allow people to turn them on when needed and off when not.
Of course this does mean people have to learn when to do it, and take
responsibility - both are pretty damn hard to legislate.

(And there will always be unquestioning belief of "I didn't see him")

Zebee

 

I like your comment on studies review. Undefined members of the four
wheeled fraternity do not see me even with the lights on (and, by the way,
wearing bright and contrasting colours). We could have road rule
enforcement and assessment of riders and drivers when licenses are renewed,
but tax cuts seem preferred. We may understand that driving and riding are
complex activities, requiring significant skill development and application,
but not for a while yet.

John Dwyer

 

Agrand; the umbil certainly indicates the confect is actually jamming!

 

In aus.motorcycles on Sat, 22 Dec 2007 10:29:42 +1100

<Cue a certain firey's comment about being bright red, 16 tons, and
howling like a banshee>

When someone says "didn't see" they usually mean "didn't react
properly to the light waves hitting my retinas".

The legislators then decide the way to deal with this is to try and
get people's exception processing working. Try and bypass the filters
we all have so that we can cope with the visual pollution on the
roads.

Instead of working on getting people to have motorcycles entered in
that filter as "important, take note", they try and get them through
on "flashy thing that attracts attention". Just like advertisers do.
Advertisers have bright colours and nekkid women trying to attract
your attention[1]. Every second shop has a flashing light in the
window. So the filters get upgraded to filter out flashing lights and
bright colours except if the flashing light is attached to information
such as "cop car"[2].

You will note that people have very little trouble seeing cop bikes.
Or patch club bikes. The 'Orrible 'Onda Chop was very visible to all
in the road judging by behaviour despite it having a very small frontal
area, a tiny headlight that was never on during the day, and me wearing
obligatory black shorty helmet and dirty denims. And me being a lot
less skilled at road positioning and traffic management then I am now.

Headlights on is an example of silly ideas about exception processing.
One or two vehicles with the lights on are obvious exceptions, people
remember[3] them. But if 1/3 of the vehicles on the road have lights
on then the advantage disappears and can be replaced by disadvantage -
masking and avoidance.[4] Plus the lights are all visible at a distance
which is irrelevant at urban speeds and distances. You can see them a
way off but when it's time to make the decision to turn across, then in
Australian urban daylight conditions, a properly adjusted low beam is
pretty well invisible. It's designed to light the road, not advertise
presence. (In low light, and at country speeds and distances, it's a
different matter.)

Trying to bypass the filters by exception processing "hey! what's
that?" is silly. It has a high failure rate and is quickly adjusted
for. The only sensible solution is to work on getting the filter to
pass the motorcycle on to the brain with a tag "legitimate road user,
behave properly".

And you know... it works. Motorcycle awareness campaigns plus the
scooter boom have led to a drop in SMIDSYs in NSW. To the point where
single vehicle crashes are now the highest number of injury crashes.
That it's the awareness campaign rather than awareness via scooter
boom is, I think, shown by the fact that NSW is the only place this is
true.[5]

All the posturing about lights and licencing is just that. Because
the hard work of changing the filters needs time[6] and money, and what
government is willing to spend time and money?

Zebee

[1] that you haven't seen the nekkid women shows the filters are
working.... Bet that annoys you now you know!

[2] ambulances and fire engines are filtered out, ask any driver of
same.

[3] remember is important... You see and react to many things you
don't remember, but when asked you won't remember them so you won't
mention them. Lies, damned lies, and market research surveys. YOu
remember the odd things, even though you might process the normal
things properly.

[4] masking is where an unlit vehicle is lost in the lights because you
don't see vehicle, you see light. You can see this every day about
dusk when some switch on lights and some don't. Avoidance is where
a badly adjusted light - such as those on way too many motorcycles -
is too bright and the oncoming viewer looks away.

[5] Have to chase up the stats from Guy at some point.

[6] time as in what... 5 years since Positioned For Safety laid out
the blueprints and the RTA started listening? That's more than one
government term, amazing they even started.

 

Zebee Johnstone wrote:

Dunno.

Remember that it's not only the car driver who takes up motorcycling or
scootering that becomes more aware of bikes and scooters, but also their
spouse, family and close friends.

regards,
CrazyCam

 

Found out at last, Clem....

You _have_ to be a secret policeman.

regards,
CrazyCam

 

In aus.motorcycles on Sat, 22 Dec 2007 12:02:13 +1100

yes, but if that's the cause of the change, then it should show up in
all states because they all have a scooter boom.

I expect that there will be some effect in all states in the next
couple of years precisely because of that, but less than in NSW
because there isn't the extra work on getting people to cope with
motorcycles as legitimate traffic.

Zebee

 

In aus.motorcycles on Mon, 24 Dec 2007 02:01:36 +1100

I've had only one turn across incident that I can recall, and as that
was rather clearly (from timing and the way the car was moving) not so
much didn't see as chancing making the turn before the bike got there,
I don't think lights would have made a lot of difference. I'm dead
sure he saw me, he just thought he could make it.

I dunno whether my threshold for such things is higher so I don't
count things others might or what it is, but I just don't seem to get
close calls.

I've had a couple of "change lanes into" but as they've been where
I've been half way along the car or more I doubt a headlight would
have made a difference.

However... the two bikes where car driver behaviour was obviously
different - it was very clear they paid attention to the bike - were
the 'Orrible 'Onda Chop and the Baby Beemer. One that looked like it
might be dangerous[1] and the other because it was so sickeningly
cute.

I take that to mean that they see bikes perfectly well, lights or no.
They just don't *care*.

Zebee

[1] at least I say it's because it looked like a proper badass bike,
because I don't think most car drivers would think "there's an
accident waiting to happen" even though it probably was.

 

This looks to me like an extension of http://tinyurl.com/ysnzcb which I
posted two weeks prior to the fed election, when the Liberal party were
in government. Looks like it's all the Lib's fault. Nice attempt at
spinning the truth there, Doug

Nev..
'04 CBR1100XX

 

Your post didn't say anything about lights-on, only licensing.

 

Hey, there's an idea. We could ocky-strap a kitten to the front of every
bike.

Theo

 

That could work. People hate the idea of hurting a kitten.

 

Doesn't sound that dangerous to me.

Anyway, it would only work for a limited number of bikes.

Once people get past a reaction of "there's another bike with a kitten
strapped on it" and get blase about it, then it stops working.

regards,
CrazyCam

 

Then we can switch to puppies maybe .. ?

 

Come on Cam, didn't you see Shrek II?

Theo

 

Theo Bekkers wrote:

No.

regards,
CrazyCam

 

Here's the reference
http://www.edutainingkids.com/articles/pussinboots.html

Theo

 

The majority of the Qld deaths have been youngish blokes exceeding the
speed-limit and I would happily wager that the entirety of them already had
their headlights on when they met their demise.
This is just Doug pretending that other people are pretending to be doing
something.
Not anything normal people should be concerned with.