A campaign to highlight road rules to motorists ignores motorcycles at a time when the fatality rate is high and motorcycle awareness is vital, says the Motorcycle Council of NSW.
Chairman Steve Pearce says it is a dangerous oversight in the annual Road Rules Awareness Week (April 8-14, 2019).
“How do we encourage awareness and discussion around the motorcycle rider road toll?” he asks.
“I would like to see published analysis of the current fatality rate, so we can maybe draw some lessons from what has happened to others.
“I know the analysis is available, it just needs to be publicised.”
His comments follow a recent state of five motorcycle fatalities in a week and seven more deaths so far this year than the previous year.
The only reaction from the police so far is to highlight a few examples of riders caught riding at extreme speeds.
Road rules campaign
Road Rules Awareness Week is part of the Towards Zero campaign by the Transport for NSW Centre for Road Safety which has featured videos such as above.
A spokesperson confirms that they “don’t have any motorcycle specific material going out over the road rules week”.
However, riders can ask specific motorcycle road rule questions in a Facebook Live session with Centres for Road Safety boss Bernard Carlon on Tuesday, April 9, at 5.30pm.
The campaign will also feature press releases; Facebook posts, promotions in Service Centres and train stations and “stakeholder communication kits”.
But they will include no motorcycle-specific information.
However, the spokesperson points out that they post about motorcycling “regularly” on their Facebook page.
“A recent motorcycle lane filtering quiz on our Facebook page performed really well,” the spokesperson says.
However, it was a pretty simple quiz and didn’t reveal much at all.
Safety agenda
Steve questions the expense of the road rules campaign and the motorcycle-specific Roads We Ride YouTube safety videos.
“Is this a good allocation of funds into saving riders lives?” he asks.
Steve says riders need to “take back the agenda” on motorcycle safety.
He also suggests riders “focus on correcting habits and building awareness of not only the environment we ride in, but also our own skills and limitations”.
“Sure, there are always SMIDSY incidents, as we are hard to see, especially if drivers are not looking.
“Let’s work to understand the controllable factors first, then look at the road rules.”
Steve PearceOur view
The Transport for NSW road rules campaign that ignores riders has missed a great opportunity to make motorists aware that lane filtering is legal.
They say the campaign gives “NSW road users the opportunity to improve their knowledge of the road rules, including new or commonly misunderstood rules”.
So why not lane filtering?
It is also misses an opportunity to alert interstate riders of the differences in rules compared with other states at a vital time when riders from other states will be visiting NSW during the Easter holidays.
Double demerit points will also apply during the Easter holidays from April 18-22.