So, the last posting reminded me that I had a point I wanted to make a while ago. If SMA is going to have the opportunity to voice some opinions to SGI, then I would like to know one thing. If the graduated licensing program is to try to reduce problems at the new driver end of the spectrum, but what about those at the other end. Will SGI be rewarding experienced riders with clean records??!!!

QUOTE:
Lance D
Unlike cars if someone drives a bike irresponsibly chances are the only person they hurt is themselves. I don't want to live in a nannystate that forces me to jump through a bunch of hoops to do something I love and hurts no one else.

Squids crashing their bikes hurt me if I have to pay stupid insurance rates.

Pharbus wrote:

QUOTE:
Squids crashing their bikes hurt me if I have to pay stupid insurance rates.

I agree that what we are mainly discussing here is an opportunity to help make the roads a safer place and save the lives and bodies of a lot of squids. I don't think we should forger the OMLETs either. The studies I have read say both are over-represented in the accident statistics.

For anyone who isn't familiar with the term, OMLET refers to Older Male Lacking Experience and Training. I understand the term comes from State Troopers somewhere in the midwest.

A little preparation before taking to the highways and byways and some initial limitation on where, when and what will save lives according to many studies, including the Hurt report that was referenced earlier. The executive summary of the Hurt Report (an extensive California study with a large sampling base) can be found at http://www.ottawamotorcycle.ca/hurtrep.shtml.

Points 4, 12, 20 and 28 are important to our discussion here but pay special attention to these points:

24.
The motorcycle riders involved in accidents are essentially without training; 92% were self-taught or learned from family or friends. Motorcycle rider training experience reduces accident involvement and is related to reduced injuries in the event of accidents.

25.
More than half of the accident-involved motorcycle riders had less than 5 months experience on the accident motorcycle, although the total street riding experience was almost 3 years. Motorcycle riders with dirt bike experience are significantly underrepresented in the accident data.

I may be wrong but are not most of the accidents motorcyclists involved in the fault of the car that hits them? If we need some new rules it should be for the people in 2 ton vehicles yacking on the phone and watching TV. If we go to graduated licenses I hope everyone has to start at the beginning not just the people who have the misfortune to be born a little later. I think you would be a lot slower to make stupid new rules that are not needed if they actually applied to you as well as those who are younger than you.

Why should you be exempt from a graduated system? It is so typical of baby boomers to think they are some how more qualified to ride a bike when they are just as big a part of the problem. I would even be OK with having to take my tests over so long as the people who want to force it on others have to obey the same rules themselves.

I do not see that a graduated licensing program would be, in any form, a case of age discrimination. In no way would SGI be punishing people because they were "born later". A new rider is a new rider; whether that rider is aged 16 or 86 they are probably inexperienced (if not inexperience on a motorcycle, at least inexperienced riding a motorcycle on city streets).

I think that we bikers like to complain that all the accidents are the fault of careless cage drivers, but who could argue that taking a safety course and being an alert rider would not reduce the number of accidents. I cannot stop the inattentive driver from turning left in front of me (and it has happened several times) but I can be watching and I can anticipate their actions. One afternoon, driving through downtown Saskatoon, I had four or five cars almost take me out in a three block stretch. Poorly executed lane changes. Cutting me off when entering the main road from side streets or driveways. Finally at a red light this guy rolled down the window of his minivan and said, "They're sure out to get you today, aren't they." I just laughed and nodded. Now, if any one of those cars had hit me or run me into a curb, would it have been their fault? Or would it have been my fault for not being alert. A finger over the brake lever. My eyes looking all around me. Watching the driver of the car, not just the car, to see where and when they will be turning.

And as far as it being easy to make rules that only apply to others and not to ourselves . . . I would gladly take a safety course or redo my road test, except that I would see it as an unnecessary money grab from SGI. But I don't think that that is the point. We are discussing new riders. We are looking at making inexperienced riders a little more accountable and forcing them to take a bit more care and caution while they are out on the streets. Insurance rates have gone up so much in some other provinces that I am hearing about people that are selling their bikes instead of paying the huge premiums. I do not want that in SK.

Note to Lance_d

This seems to be coming back to "me". Believe it or not, I am not thinking of myself a lot in these discussions.

If it is about me, then you should know this. I have taken three comprehensive motorcycle training courses over the years. Why? Because they always teach me something I forgot or never knew in the first place. They make me a better rider. They make everyone who takes them better riders. Take one and then get back to me if you don't surprise yourself with how much you pick up. Pretty much anyone who can ride can get around on a bike but when things get hairy and someone turns left right in front of you, or you go into a corner a bit too fast, both feet and both hands have to perform a perfect symphony of movements to keep you and/or your bike in one piece. You have a fraction of a second to appraise the situation and take the appropriate course of action. I've attended several funerals and made far too many hospital visits when it didn't work out so well. Here's another fun fact. When I moved to Alberta I could only be grandfathered for two license classes and I had three. I chose to re-take the motorcycle written and road tests. If you are a decent rider it is no big deal. If you can't pass, you probably shouldn't be riding.

I would never suggest that riders who already posses a license, and probably own one or more bikes, be forced to retroactively becone "new" riders again. I don''t think that would be fair whether you are in your early twenties of late sixties. I referenced earlier the licensing for adult (over 21) riders in the U.K. where an unlimited license can be obtained in an expedited manner. Check it out. It works there and they have a lot more bikes on the road than we do here.

I would, however, suggest that if a rider loses his or her license for serious traffic offenses, that it would be a good idea to make passing a safety course and a road test a condition of regaining that license. As I think about it, it would probably be a good ides if every driver and rider was re-tested every so often (10 years?) Commercial drivers have to pass regular medical exams and can be re-tested here. I'm all for safer roads. You said it yourself - we could use some new rules for idiots in cars who present a danger to us. But we're not talking about them in this topic. We're talking about what can be done to have safer motorcyclists on the roads.

You cited one finding of the Hurt Report - that in multiple vehicle crashes, the motorcyclist is not at fault as often as the other driver. It seems to me that is all the more reason to ensure that riders are as competent in situation assessment, collision-avoidance skills, coutersteering, lane placement, conspicuity, etc. We are far more vulnerable to serious injury in an accident and when a bike is in a traffic accident the bike and rider don't usually end up with a creased fender and little else. The skill set and mental attitude needed for a biker to keep all four limbs is significantly different than for the driver of a car. Every bent fender you see on a car would be at the minimum an emergency room visit for a motorcyclist.

Sure motorists shouldn't be talking on the phone, eating, fixing their hair, reading the paper or whatever. Something should be done about it. Given that nothing substantial has been done so far, as least we as motorcyclists can prepare ourselves to survive the mean streets of S'toon or Regina or Meadow Lake by being more competent, more alert, and more responsible than many motorists seem to be.

Read the whole Hurt Report. All of it And take a moment to consider each finding. There are a lot of other reports and stats and articles out there on the Internet and they all reach pretty much the same conclusions. Then tell me that it's everyone else's fault, and I am an old poop out to screw over the kids and remember the last couple of dozen close calls you have had. We'll talk then.

Richard

While I am now convinced that offering a HP solution was probably a bad idea lol! Yeah would be kinda hard to do a Dyno test on the roadside...

However, I am more convinced than ever that the graduated cc program combined with the Motorcycle Safety Program is still the way to go.

As far as getting the course out to to the rural areas, if you have taken the test, I believe Sid and Noella Peterson out of Saskatoon will train you to become an instructor, then you can go back into your own area and train others. They volunteer and the money they make goes back into the program I believe as a non-profit. It was under their training I learned good riding skills and unlearned years of bad skills respectively.

Before the course I thought I was a safe rider, but after I realized that there was a great deal that could of got me killed.

Two things are glaring apparent to me in the course of this discussion.

1. Being a rider for years, while it will put you into most of the situations you will have to learn how to live, and have to get out of by trial and error, no, I agree does not mean you are a safe rider.

It does however give you wisdom you cannot learn any other way. To say that someone who has decades in the saddle and someone who has a few years in the saddle have the same school of hard knocks of the road is laughable at best. Try living through all of your 2.5 major accidents SGI says every biker is supposed to experience in their lifetime and you might get a feel for that. Miles will learn a fella.

2. New riders, who may very well equally be safe drivers do not necessarily equate to equally safe riders. Yes the traffic laws are the same but riding in traffic is a whole 'nuther animal. To say otherwise is just not dealing with reality. You have to keep your wits about you way more than in a car and a 50km/hr crash can kill you.

Thanks 78oldwing for the stats, lending some numbers to the issues we are talking about.

One question posed was how many kids really get their learners and hop on sport bikes and end up killing themselves. While I do not have numbers on that, go onto 8th street in Saskatoon on any given summers nite and see the 16-20 somethings on sport bikes, in packs, side by side (not staggered) doing wheelies and stoppies and other stupid things in traffic with no regard for their lives ,no exit plan, and no regard for the lives of others, and you will become very aware something has to be done. Riding a motorcycle in traffic is a full time job already without being crazy on top of that. In talking to most of these people, (yes there are harley riders that DO talk to sport bike riders) I find that a number of them have not taken the motorcycle safety course and like me, from my past, thought that all the years dirt biking etc... made them "in control" of their motorcycle. There is a big difference between "in control" and Safe.

While I find it curiously entertaining and mildly amusing at the stunts that can be done (On a Closed Course) with motorcycles, you want to impress me, come back alive and not have killed anyone, impress me with your safety when I ride with you.

I keep hearing that riding a small bike is unsafe on the highway etc. I had a 250 yamaha exciter that could do 120km/hr and it was just as safe as my harley, just smaller and more maneuverable. It may not of been as cool but it got me to point a to b safely. The bottom line that makes riding safe or unsafe is the rider.

As far as car vs. bike or single vehicle bike accidents, I honestly do not know the numbers, but I do know if you are safe on your motorcycle, you should never be in a situation like that to begin with. The reason people have motorcycle accidents is that they have no exit strategy. You should have 2 additional places you can go if you ride defensively (like every cager is out to kill you.) If you daydream like you do in a car it will kill you. Every accident is preventable and every risk can be managed. Riding a motorcycle entails more risk than a car. Managing that risk keeps you alive.

In managing the risk in this case, education, learning exit strategies and much more in a motorcycle safety course helps you do that. A slower, nimbler motorcycle does as well. Before you learn to fly an CF-18 you learn to fly a prop plane.

How many of us have rode by someone smeared on the highway we found out was inexperienced or lost someone personally, due to their own lack of experience? In my life there have been too many. I shudder every time I see a kid on a sport bike who boasts he didn't take the motorcycle course and doesn't need it because he knows "how to ride" and then proceeds to perform stupid human tricks on his bike in traffic.

Smaller bikes mean a smaller horsepower ratio, less weight, and a chance to get out of a situation a bigger bike, with a larger engine may have you committed to plain and simple. If smaller bikes were less safe on the road than big bikes they would of been pulled off the highway a long time ago and the department of highways would not of even approved them so 'nuff said. Smaller bikes are also the reason safety courses use them so you do not get into trouble as fast.

I honestly do not know how to merge the old and the new systems together, the only thing I can think of is everyone who hasn't had their motorcycle training, make it mandatory and all have to, just like they are doing with water safety and boating now.

As far as bringing in the graduated cc process, existing riders with their motorcycle safety course could possibly ride their bikes through the various aspects of the course, and if they can show they can control their motorcycles safely, I think they should have a pass. A day refresher and a quick recertification test. If not, then have them drop down to a cc level that they can. I think that is the only way parity between the two classes of existing and new riders would work.

I Remember I once was one of those unsafe riders on too big of bikes, out there for years before I took my motorcycle safety course.

All new riders would have to do the same.

Oh yeah... I had my accidents BEFORE the motorcycle course.

Further muddying the waters

I know I am gonna catch flack for this one so let 'er fly LOL!

Moose

Thanks, Moose. I forgot to mention exit plan or exit strategy, which involves anticipating what might happen next, looking well past the next second or two down the road, concentrating on where you want to go and not what you are afraid you'll hit, and developing a sort of sixth sense. Riders need to be in a position to get the Hell out of Dodge when the inevitable happens. These are skills and attitudes that come with time, experience and hopefully a good training program. It only makes sense to make that part of the licensing requirements.

You reminded me of when I rode a 1980 Yamaha XS 400. It had a top speed of around 135 kph but it was a lot of fun and even though it didn't have the power that I am used to now, passing on the highway was not that difficult. It just took a different approach and a little patience waiting for the right moment. It was equally safe and I was equally as able to go for groceries or head for the left coast as I was on the bigger bikes I have moved on to since. Same thing applies to my Ford focus and my Z-71 pickup. It's the rider/driver - not the vehicle.

Ride safe

Just a note...it is a complete myth that most accidents are the cagers fault. Around 50% of motorcycle accidents involve only the rider and motorcycle themselves (no collision with other vehicles) and over 65% (average) of motorcyclists are found at fault when they are in an accident.

Of course the statistics do differ between the genres. I don't remember the exact numbers but sport bikes are in the 70-80% at fault range and cruisers/tourers are low 60's.

These numbers are from the last meeting I had with SGI as I made the comment that I assumed cagers were at fault more often than not in motorcycle accidents.

I will try and dig up the actual numbers and post them up.

For all the different comments that have been thrown out in this discussion, and considering there has been a little butting of heads, it appears that we are all heading in the same direction. Almost everyone is in agreement that the safety course is of great value. When I first got my licence I did not take the safety course, but it was not out of arrogance not the belief that I didn't need it. For me it was a matter of time and money and I still say that I am going to take it one day soon. I have more than one friend that have ridden dirtbikes since they were kids and been on street bikes since they turned 16 but still learned things of value from taking the course. The best testimonial I've heard is from a buddy that had probably 30 years riding experience under his belt and after taking the course said, "I now feel more confident that I will be able to avoid going down. I already knew most of what they taught in the course, but is great to get these things brought back to the front of your consciousness."

By the way, when I looked at the results of the SMA poll on this topic I noticed that there hadn't been many votes (I think 10 at the time) so I put the word out. Hopefully there will be a few more people surfing by your website to place their vote.

You're right of course, Kevin. We have to look at multi-vehicle crashes and single-vehicle crashes both separately and as a total. As I recall, in multi-vehicle crashes the four-wheeled driver is more often at fault and in the large number of single-vehicle crashes involving motorcycles, it is almost always rider error. The most common was from going into a corner too fast. I can't remember where I put the numbers I found a few months ago but if I find them, I'll either post them or send them to you by PM.

I've driven cars for 40 years with a clean driving record and will try a bike for the first time this year. I bought a '76 KZ900, which is big but that's my choice and I'll have to deal with the consequences. I will take a driving course in spring and plan to try for the M endorsement asap. Do I 'need' a graduated license?

I'd say, make driving courses mandatory and a successful completion sufficient to get a non-graduated license. No course and then it should be graduated. Same should apply to all motor vehicles. Best thing I ever did was skid control school and advanced drivers training many years ago.

Being as old as I am, I guess what I have to 'fear' most is graduated de-licensing...

Cheers,
Rod.

Rod. wrote:

QUOTE:
I've driven cars for 40 years with a clean driving record and will try a bike for the first time this year. I bought a '76 KZ900, which is big but that's my choice and I'll have to deal with the consequences. I will take a driving course in spring and plan to try for the M endorsement asap. Do I 'need' a graduated license?

I'd say, make driving courses mandatory and a successful completion sufficient to get a non-graduated license. No course and then it should be graduated. Same should apply to all motor vehicles. Best thing I ever did was skid control school and advanced drivers training many years ago.

Being as old as I am, I guess what I have to 'fear' most is graduated de-licensing...

Cheers,
Rod.

I liked that "graduated de-licencing", made me LOL which makes me look a tad crazy to be laffing at the computer.
Good luck with the MSF/MSP, I may see you there as I have decided to take it too.

I doubt the course would be enough since it includes no actual street riding, just a course in a parking lot no?
Good low speed training which has been proven to be a great help.

And maybe it should be enough on it's own... providing we then stay off the streets and stick to parking lot riding.
I personally have no problems with motorcycles really, they don't cut me off much... well, the odd time for sure.
And some riders tend to ride like thier bike outweighs my half-ton...

But if I hit a bike with my truck then big deal right? not like I'll get hurt.
Oh wait, what if most cage drivers think that way?!?!??!?!

Since we can't seem to control the cagers, maybe we can make the riders better able to survive.

Daniel_r wrote:

QUOTE:
Rod. wrote:
I liked that "graduated de-licencing", made me LOL which makes me look a tad crazy to be laffing at the computer.
Good luck with the MSF/MSP, I may see you there as I have decided to take it too.

I doubt the course would be enough since it includes no actual street riding, just a course in a parking lot no?
Good low speed training which has been proven to be a great help.

And maybe it should be enough on it's own... providing we then stay off the streets and stick to parking lot riding.
I personally have no problems with motorcycles really, they don't cut me off much... well, the odd time for sure.
And some riders tend to ride like thier bike outweighs my half-ton...

But if I hit a bike with my truck then big deal right? not like I'll get hurt.
Oh wait, what if most cage drivers think that way?!?!??!?!

Since we can't seem to control the cagers, maybe we can make the riders better able to survive.

All the safety courses do take place in parking lots but they teach you techniques that you will rely on out on the streets. They also paint lines or have pylons marking out a course that mimmicks real world situations.

Some of the best things anyone will take away from the course are emergency techniques that may very well get you out of a sticky situation down the road.

I absolutely agree. What I was getting at is that the course is still not the "be all end all".
You do learn invaluable things on that course, but it is still only half the battle.

Didn't you used to be able to take your M class the next weekend after the riding course?
Like with the course instructors instead of the SGI road test? Or am I confused?

Ok, I just read about half this thread, and can't believe the shit I'm hearing. All this b.s. about graduated licensing is a joke. Way too hrd to manage.
There's way to many laws now, and the safety police want even more. It makes me sick!
I don't agree that someone who took a written test can jump on a bike and tear ass down the highway either. I think thats where the problem lies. Go down to sgi salvage and see all the write off bikes with less then 1000 km on them.
My opinion is that all beginers take a training course. I know some of you rural riders would have a tough time getting to one, but suck it up. At the very least one option for the rural riders would be a 15 minute road test course. I dunno... just thinking out loud.
I took the course a few years ago and the things you learn will save your life.
Just think about the neighbour kid who just put down his first issue of Sportbike and goes and buys a new speedbike to impress his friends with a stoppie (or whatever the hell they're called) Maybe he will have gleaned a little knowledge from having to take the course. This won't stop him from showing off, but it may save his life.
And idiot cagers yaking on cel phones ain't gonna make them any less of an idiot with displacement limits. Again, the course will teach you how to react.
I'm not one for new laws, but this makes sense to me
Just my opinion.
Next thing ya know they'll want us to wear helmets! Oh wait...Don't even get me started.
Choppah's forevah