Licence re-testing - ACT road toll reaches 25

Only 2 rules to remember (apart from the obvious ones):
1. keep a good distance behind the bloke in front;
2. assume absolutely everyone else could do something stupid and plan your survival accordingly.
38 years driving, never an accident yet (apart from the one who reversed into me because she saw a friend walking down the pavement and wanted to talk to her…)

it would be very interesting and make numbnuts realise and appreciate that people who want to ride a motorbike want to do it safely

Lurker Girl and Jay Wayward. Its very obvious you two dont ride and until you do, stop making observations on a topic of which you know nothing. LG, if you dont ride, then how do you know how fast you can safely corner on a bike in the wet?
Jay, if you dont ride, then how do you know just how observant and careful those bikes are when they are lane splitting?

Being motorcycle aware? LOL thats a joke, any bike rider will tell you that they ride with the assumption that EVERY other driver out there is out to kill them, its the only way to survive because there are so many idiots out there.

I normally ride a sports bike, its a big bike and I have the occaisonal idiot swerve into me, pull out in front of me, change lanes directly in front of me then brake….you know, all the normal stuff. On my big bike this may happen only a couple of times a week.
But I also ride a small bike occaisonally and I can tell you, people on a small bike are targets. For some reason car drivers think “oh, he is on a small bike, must be a learner/ idiot” or “hmm he is on a small bike, my crap car may beat him, lets try”….I almost get run off the road everytime I ride the small bike.

This tells me that I am better off riding the big bike, even though many of you great ignorants think “oh look, boy racer, I wonder why he isnt dead yet”.

Studies show that 80% of motorcycle accidents are caused by cars….so quit laying shit on the bike riders and start concentrating on the real issues.

Ohhhhh and before we start on motorcycle licensing issues. I got my licence in the “bad old days” when all I had to do was show up. If licensing needed such stringent testing to make safe riders, then why am I not dead?
I think the testing is pretty good at the moment. I think there would be a helluva lot less accidents if EVERYONE was required to spend a year on a motorbike before getting thier car licence.

How about this for a suggestion:

For every point you lose off your licence, you don’t get it back until you have done the time – AND done an appropriate course in driving skills, differing levels of courses give different amounts of points ?

I regularily see motorcyclists weaving carelessly between cars and travelling between stationary cars towards peak hour intersections.

I’m surprised that more of them don’t run into opening car doors as an occasional car pooler exits the vehicle at a red light.

I guess that other road users have come to expect such bad habits from that of this particular portion of the Motorcyclist population. Is that what being “Motorcycle Aware” is apparently about ?

Having said that, (at least from what i’ve seen)Motorcyclists seem to take more care in the rain. Unlike some of the tail gating and speeding idiots in cars.

Bring on the 5 year test for frequent offenders. Don’t make us innocent people pay.

I saw one yesterday riding along Gungahlin Dr (heading towards Palmerston as we passed Mitchell (on the part where actual road has no bike lane).

I’d have not thought too much of it, had there not have been an actual bike track running within 2 metres of, and parrallel to, the road.

Its mind boggling really. A perfectly good track in far better condition than that of the road. He must have been high on gatorade – either that or irrational principle.

Unfortunately, most (not all)bicyle riders suffer from an identity crisis where they are unable to decide if they are a vehicle or a pedestrian. They seem to switch randomly from one to the other.

Whoops, i’ve kinda veered a little from the general topic.

ahh damn that button

as i was saying…

i saw one last week riding DOWN TEH WRONG SIDE of college st. his stupid little safety flag bobbing around.

oh yeah, and then once we know who the recumbent cyclists are they can be rounded up for reeducation.

im for it.

i saw one last week riding down teh

A colleague of mine who admittedly was using one of those silver metallic lethal foot-power thingies that I thought was only for teens and CBD-Sydney was knocked off it by a bike rider on the ramp at the Adelaide Ave/Empire Circuit turnoff. He needed stitches to his chin and the biker didn’t stop. I’m beginning to wonder if bikes (they’re no longer friendly push bikes now) shouldn’t be registered and some form a rego paid.

a friend of mine had 33 lessons and passed his test quite well, if that’s how many lessons a kid needs to pass his test there you have it. Victoria has a quite good system you might have to look into it but it is quite well organised for their livings

Everyone knows it isnt a statistically valid sample until there are at least 30 fatalities.

yeah but i knew a girl who got hers on the 8th time round. I can happily say that she is still as shit as she always was. should that be allowed? I think the first time failure rate may be more about revenue than safety.

If natural selection worked we wouldn’t have such a useless system. Taking natural selection into your own terms is technically classed as murder.

damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

Thumper: That’s why I said “not all”. I know some are very careful. But I see some in the wet flying around corners and am very glad I am not their mother, because riding like that it is only a matter of time before the police knock at your door to tell you of the bad news.

Let’s get back to basics – it’s clearly too easy to pass the driving test in the first place. In the UK it’s almost obligatory to fail the first time: if you don’t, you’re doing extremely well. Also, one has to wonder how good some of the driving schools are…

Thyumper – you have a point. REward safe driving/continued training with reduced registration/licence renewal fees and offset this with increases for those who drive like shit and don’t upgrade their skills. Thus promoting skill safe drivers on the roads.

The roo comment is because I hit a roo on my bike about 4 months ago and I remember reading on this site somewhere that NRMA quoted that the mojority of insurance claims are for driver v roo. The roo came off second best as I stayed on and it didn’t.

G

Bloodnut1, that’s because the system, just like the scholatory system in this country isn’t designed for you to fail…

I’ve seen some numpties on the roads, and do my best to avoid them. Unfortunately not everybody on the roads have the skills to properly control their route through a tense time, such as trying to avoid a child while driving through a school area on the mobile phone in your 4WD doing around 80-100.

Natural Selection.

Whta I don’t understand is how ‘eveyone’ can obtain a license. It’s not like having kids where the authorities have no say. Bike/car licenses should be as hard to obtain as gun licenses and not just handed out to any idiot who after five tests, finally passes.

Of course, if we had a functional lightrail system… (ducks for cover)

A lot of comes down to observation. A large proportion of the motorcycle deaths this year are because a car has pulled out in front of them. There is no question as to who is at fault – a car driver with bad observation skills. They were probably talking on their mobile phone.

Thumper – there have been numerous discussions on this site about ACT’s lenient Court system. I don’t think we are getting through to them.

Maybe discounts on your Compulsary Third Party insurance if you have completed advanced driving courses. This would mean yearly discounts to people who update their skills.

G

Sounds to me like its the motor cyclists that should be retested. The way so many of them (not all, don’t flame me) ride, I am surprised more of them don’t die, and horrified that they haven’t learnt by all those who have gone before them.

K man, I totally agree with you. The current format of bith motorcycle testing and car testing does not help when you need it most. In a situation that involves speed. This is where people panic, crash and end up dead.

Mor roo culling while we are at it.

G

This sounds good, but driver testing shouldn’t be about parallel parking and hill starts – it should be testing emergency stopping, high speed vehicle handling, and sliding / skid control.