Motorcycle Safety Messages (part 1)

John Thompson from the TAC has invited me to make any suggestions I have on how the TAC can get riders to a) stop speeding and b) wear protective gear.  I'm not sure he's going to like what I have to say, and I'm less sure he'll listen, but here is my thinking on the subject thus far.

1.  The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Safety Messages

In his book 'The 7 habits of Highly Effective People', author Steven Covey introduces the concept of a trust bank.  This trust bank or emotional bank holds the balance of trust that an individual holds towards you.  Each time you do something that earns trust, that balance goes up.  Each time you do something that breaks trust, the balance goes down.  In essence he states that it is possible to break trust with people and still maintain a healthy relationship with them providing you have previously established a positive trust balance with them.  In other words, I can break a promise to my daughters (Sorry love, I won't be home in time to read you a bedtime story) and not damage the relationship providing I have proven myself trustworthy in the past and I haven't exhausted that balance of trust.  However if I promise to be home in time for stories every morning, and then every night I run late and miss it, I will do considerable damage to that relationship and my daughters will not trust me about story time or anything else.  That constitutes a relationship in peril.

In my view, based on my observations of the opinions of other riders both in online forums and in face to face discussions, the TAC has exhausted its trust balance with many in the motorcycling community.  The TAC simply is not trusted by the riding community at the moment, and this has been the case at least since "reduce the risks" in 2009, which was when I started to pay attention to people's views on this subject.

This has two implications for the TAC:

1. Riders who do not trust them will not be receptive to any message from the TAC that is directed at them; and
2. anything the TAC says or does that can be interpreted in a negative way is most likely going to be interpreted in a negative way.

Before the TAC can have any broader success trying to deliver a safety message targeting riders, trust will have to be re-established.  This is no small task, and it is made harder every time the TAC responds to criticism with a justification of its actions to date.  Self-justification and rebuttal are not the same as listening, and one of the criticisms of the TAC that has eroded trust is the perception that they do not listen.  The TAC has a big job to do simply to convince riders that they care about rider safety, and starting press releases focusing on how much money TAC has to spend to compensate and rehabilitate riders is not a particularly wise place to start.  Riders would prefer to think of themselves as a vulnerable and valuable road user group rather than a financial liability.  I don't think that's too unreasonable.

2.  Choose the right message

Successive governments have told Victorians that speeding fines are about safety, not revenue.  Then, when the Baillieu government needs help to balance the budget, the headline news proclaims that speeding fines are being increased.  You can't blame people for being cynical about speeding fines and speed cameras; though I'm sure most are myth rather than fact it still seems like every other week that somebody complains that a 70 zone has been re-designated a 60 zone and had a speed camera installed.

The topic of speeding is therefore already a sensitive area for many people.  When you factor in a lack of trust in the institutions who are banging on about speeding (TAC, Victoria Police) it becomes very difficult to make a message that will be taken on face value.  If that message is then scripted in such a way as to appear disingenuous in some way, such as speeding by 8km/h being fatal but sticking to the speed limit is magically perfectly safe, and a lot of people are going to switch off in disgust.

A safety message that nobody will listen to is not an effective safety message at all, regardless of how technically accurate or representative it may be.  A bad or confused safety message is very close to doomed from the very start, in terms of its efficacy.  

There are 2 sides to the road safety coin: causality, and consequences.  Causality relates to the causing or precipitating factors or events that lead to an incident or accident; consequences obviously relate to factors that affect the outcome of an incident or accident.  In simple terms, there are two things to work on: preventing the accident from taking place, and mitigating or minimising the consequences if it does happen.

This latest ad is an example where the message has become so jumbled that it loses impact and plausibility.  I break it down like this:

• Impact velocity caused a broken neck injury (consequence)
• Approach velocity was too fast for the rider to react to the hazard (causality)
• If the rider was doing the speed limit, it wouldn't have happened (attempt to address causality, poorly executed)
• Implication: do the speed limit, you live; speed, you die (untrue and unhelpful; I know the details of a few of the motorcycle fatalities in 2012 from eye witnesses, and in those instances the motorcyclist's speed relative to the speed limit was not a factor)

The majority of the emphasis on motorcycle safety needs to be directed at causality.  It's far better not to have the accident in the first place.  That said, consequence mitigation shouldn't be neglected as it is one aspect of safety that is completely in the control of the rider, something that can't be said of causal factors.

3.  Choose the right messenger

Messages focused on causality need to be trustworthy - that is, to be effective, the intended audience needs to trust their accuracy.  The greater the balance in the trust bank, the more leniency the audience will be prepared to offer on this point.  Conversely,  the lower the trust balance, the less patience the audience will have with the message, and the sooner they will be willing to simply call "bullshit" and switch off.

This is the main point I have tried to impress upon the TAC with respect to the latest ad.  The connection of the approach velocity to the speed limit of the road is a glaring problem in the mind of the target audience.  It is disingenuous, a fact that has been written into the script to support the message, and the riding community has jacked up at it, doubly so since the follow up material on Spokes exonerates the driver of all responsibility (I'll come back to that).

South Australia released an ad 'No Place To Race' recently focusing on speed and rider behaviour as a causal factor in accidents.  It's pretty graphic, though not by TAC standards, and finishes with Mick Doohan saying "If I faced the same obstacles on the race track that you face on the road, I'd probably be dead."  It is an excellent ad, very effective visually, and the script for Mick is one that is natural for a person in his position to say (as a professional racing rider).  He doesn't come across as stilted or forced like so many adrenaline junkie professionals do when giving a "do as I say not as I do" message.  In short, the ad is credible and trustworthy.

The TAC has stated its intention to make speeding as socially unacceptable as drink driving has become.  As such they are appealing to peer pressure and social pressure to reinforce their message.  "If you drink, then drive, you're a bloody idiot" was pretty effective in this regard.  A nice simple slogan, easy to remember, easy for the population to digest.  Appropriate and effective, one might say.  The translation of this approach to speeding has encountered a few problems along the way.

Firstly, speed limits and speed enforcement are hot and controversial topics in the public at large.  People simply don't trust the authorities that the speed policies in Victoria are driven by safety concerns.  There are many roads that have had their limit reduced over the last 10 years, and people still clearly remember being able to travel at 100 on the Calder Freeway and the Monash Freeway, to name just two.  A lot of trust needs to be won back before the broader population will be receptive to messages focused upon the speed limit.

Secondly, motorcycle riders are a minority group to begin with.  We already face ridicule and scorn from friends and family when we take up riding to begin with.  We already endure labels such as "temporary Australians" and "organ donors" from our peers.  When I bought my first motorcycle, the guys at work put my name down on the "risks" column of the project management plan.  Appealing to peer pressure and social pressure is not going to be an effective strategy to combat rider behaviour; we riders are accustomed to not giving a stuff what other people say, even other riders.

It's also fair to say that Victoria Police are not necessarily the most popular group of people with the motorcycle riding community - there are issues of trust there, too.  In my experience most people are ok about getting caught doing something they know is wrong and taking it on the chin; not to say they wouldn't prefer not to be caught, but there's not a lot of victim mentality going on.  But there are a few very sore points that are lingering in Victoria at the moment.  Riders being sent notices in the mail to report to the EPA to have their exhaust noise level tested was deeply unpopular.  It was interpreted as an out-and-out tax on motorcyclists, since the rider had no alternative but to pay up for the test even if that test proved that the bike was legal in the first place.

The acquittal of a Police Officer charged with dangerous driving causing death after colliding with a motorcyclist in the Black Forest has also touched a nerve.  One would have thought that a driver performing an illegal u-turn across double lines in thick fog colliding with a motorcyclist would have been a fairly clear cut case of driver culpability; at least, many motorcyclists thought just that.  That the jury acquitted the driver was seen as sending the message to drivers that it is ok to kill motorcyclists.  That the driver was a police officer undermined trust in Victoria Police; whether that is just or unjust is not the point, the point is that it has happened and it is real.

So the choice of having an officer of Victoria Police walking us through a scenario where a car failed to give way to a motorcycle but the blame is placed on the rider, combined with the supporting material on spokes exonerating the driver by appealing to exactly the same case law that was used in the defense of the driver in the Black Forest accident in 2009 was ... shall we say "poor."  It demonstrates an appalling lack of understanding and appreciation of the target audience on behalf of the TAC.

The best choice of messenger would be someone who has learned the lesson that you are trying to communicate, and has learned it the hard way.  There is no shortage of riders in Victoria who have discovered that they were riding too fast for the conditions, and discovered it to their cost.  in 2010 the MRAVic offered to assist TAC by getting them in touch with riders who would be happy to help communicate safety messages to the riding community.  This is an offer that the TAC was unwise not to take up, in my opinion.

Letter to TAC (2)

Tonight I received a reply from TAC to the emails I sent them.  I will not reproduce it as it is marked confidential, however I believe it to be a form letter given that I am pretty sure I have read all the material included already from the Spokes website.

Suffice to say that the TAC conducted focus groups who confirmed that the message of the ad was clear, that the TAC is tackling other aspects of motorcycle safety such as ABS info on the Spokes site, etc.

I replied as follows:

Dear TAC representative,

thank you for replying to my emails, I appreciate the time you have taken to contact me.

In my initial email to TAC from last week, I asked that the ad be watched with the viewer substituting the scenario into a 70 zone.  Have you been able to find a moment to do this?

Can you please tell me in what way the content and message of this ad would help in that scenario?

The reason I ask you to do this is because if you do, you will realise that the messages in this ad have become confused.

On the one hand, there is the appeal to physics: if you approach at speed X, visibility is impacted by vehicle Y and so driver Z pulls out at this point, the consequences are as follows.  If we adjust the approach speed to be Q instead of X, the outcome is different.  All good and well.

However, the ad then goes on to say that speed X is above the speed limit, and speed Q is at the speed limit; therefore travelling at the speed limit will prevent this outcome.  But as the exercise of setting the scene in a 70 zone demonstrates, the causal factors of this crash are independent of the speed zone that the road is set in.  The physics demands that given the same inputs - bike speed, visibility, driver action and bike reaction - the outcome is the same.  The fact that 68 was speeding and 60 was not are immaterial to the physics; tying the cause of the accident back to the speed limit of the road is arbitrary and I believe unhelpful and disingenuous.

This is I believe the crux of my concern about the approach the TAC is taking, and why I firmly believe that the TAC is failing motorcyclists with this campaign and this approach to rider safety.  The goal of this ad is clearly to discourage the practice or riding in excess of the speed limit.  This is, I believe, the wrong goal.

The more appropriate and necessary goal should be to encourage and educate riders to ride at a safe speed.  Hence my appeal to set the ad in a 70 zone - at which point the rider's speed becomes legal, but is still not safe, and the rider still dies.  Therefore since I believe that the TAC really ought to be focusing on improving rider safety, I consider this ad to be a failure, since it only educates riders to judge what is a safe speed with reference to the speed limit, rather than educating riders how to judge a safe speed from the conditions.

Of course if riders were judging their speed from the conditions, I believe that would also achieve the goals of reducing speeding, since there is usually some correlation between the limit on a road and the speed at which one can safely travel upon it, for various reasons.  But on principle, I believe that you achieve better outcomes when you educate people how to decide, rather than telling them what to decide.

A brief examination of the crash statistics for 2011 informs us that nearly 40% of crashes happened on 100km/h or faster roads and (from memory) around that same percentage were identified as single vehicle accidents either running off the road on a straight, or failing to negotiate a bend.  An ad targeted at educating riders how to judge a safe speed for the conditions may well help prevent accidents in those categories as well.  The current ad singularly fails to address this issue other than to say "don't go over 100 in a 100 zone"; which is not *bad* advice per se, but it's desperately limited in that it doesn't assist a rider to judge a safe and legal speed.

In short, I consider this ad to be a lamentable failure.  It had the potential to be an excellent communication aid to educate riders, but was co-opted by TACs infatuation with slogans, sound bites, and speed limits.

I'm also quite concerned about the process by which feedback is gathered from your focus groups.  Based on what you've written below, I would speculate that participants were asked questions like "is the message clear?", "would the ad make you think about the speed you travel at?" and participants rated each question upon a scale.  This is useful insofar as it provides answers to the questions you are asking your participants.

This is not the same thing as feedback, and it is definitely not the same thing as consultation.  Feedback constitutes a participant informing you of their view, such as:

• The message is wrong; you should focus on a safe and legal speed, not on exceeding the limit
• showing a rider who is wearing all the protective gear being killed in a 30km/h collision undermines the efforts of both the TAC and the riding community to encourage riders to wear all the gear all the time
• motorcyclists will react badly to an ad that depicts a driver failing to see a rider, and then failing to enter an intersection safely, only to then have the blame for the accident placed upon the rider.  They will react even worse if the further information about the ad on Spokes goes on to exonerate the driver on the basis of case law, particularly when that case law was recently used to acquit an off duty police officer who performed a u-turn across double lines in thick fog resulting in the death of a motorcyclist.

So if you had engaged me in one of these focus groups, and if the questions were asked as I speculated, I have no doubt that I would have told you yes, the message "don't speed" is clear, and yes I think that it will provoke riders to think and talk about the issue.

But if you had asked me for my feedback, or if you had consulted with me beforehand, I would have told you the following:

This ad comes across as a condescending over-simplification that ignores the real causal issues of motorcycle accidents.  It is a mistake insofar as it will inflame and enrage the motorcycle community, undermining their trust in the TAC and reinforcing their belief that the TAC is anti-riding.  Given the technical flaws in the ad, many riders will probably conclude that the ad isn't actually aimed at riders at all, but rather at the spouses and families of riders, in the hope that they will be so emotionally terrorised by the ad that they will manipulate the rider into quitting riding.  Furthermore this ad is a wasted opportunity; given the cost of producing an ad, there are so many very real safety issues that could have been addressed that have almost universal applicability across the motorcycling community, such as: this is where he stops without ABS, this is where he stops with ABS; 60 is a limit, not a target - sometimes the limit is too fast for the conditions; when did you last practice your emergency braking?; and so on.

Finally, forgive me for being blunt, but your response to my two emails reads very much like a form letter.  It has not engaged with the specific questions that I raised - namely the ads inability to address real safety issues - and while I appreciate that you are very busy, there are over 780 names on my petition calling on the TAC to take motorcycling safety more seriously and to engage with us more openly.

I am not asking you copy and paste paragraphs justifying what has already been done.  I am trying to tell you that the approach the TAC is taking is wrong, that you are making mistakes, alienating riders and aggravating us.  I am trying to tell you that you are wasting money and opportunities by failing to understand and address the complexities of motorcycle safety.  I am trying to open your eyes to the fact that the "reduce the risks" shock campaign did not have any impact on lowering the motorcycle toll, and that whoever decided to go with another "emotive ad" has seriously miscalculated and should probably brush up their resume.  And most of all I am trying to show you that this ad, like the reduce the risks campaign before it, has eroded the motorcycling community's trust in the TAC.  The TAC is not seen as being "on the side of riders" or of being sincere in working towards safer motorcycling, but rather the TAC is seen as trying to discourage riding and vilify riders.  And in case you haven't worked it out, let me spell it out to you:

You are not going to be successful in educating riders or changing rider behaviour if they don't trust you.  And we don't.

Now the TAC can continue to operate as it has been, using its same old approach to working with its same old focus groups, and trying to beat hollywood for graphic depictions of deaths and injuries.  And you will continue to wring your hands in frustration, wondering why these bloody bikers don't listen, and when will they learn.  Or you can try something different.  You can actually listen to us.  Not ring up the Motorcycle Advisory Council and say "we're working on something new" so that you can then tell AMCN magazine that you've "consulted" with them.  Actually stop and listen to us.

The fatality toll for 2010 and 2011 was terrible.  2012 isn't looking any better so far.  Isn't it about time to recognise what the evidence is telling you - that your current approach isn't working?  That if you want to drive down the number of motorcycle deaths, you are going to have to try something new?

Regards,

Ross Daws

Road craft not rhetoric

There have been at least two serious motorcycle accidents today in Melbourne.  Once again people will cry for something to be done, and I am one of them.

Right now I am not interested in apportioning blame.  It does not matter to me whether it was a driver or a rider who caused the accident.  What matters is that the rider lacked the skills to prevent the accident from happening in the first place.

There are steps that can and must be taken as soon as possible.  Motorcycle safety is the result of effective policies that focus upon Separation and Preparation.

Separation:  wherever possible, separate motorcyclists from other traffic.  Things that can be done immediately:

1. Conduct an interim review of the Hoddle St Bus Lane trial, and if the results are promising, extend the trial to more bus lanes.
2. Investigate allowing motorcycles to use the emergency shoulder of freeways when it is used by buses, taxis, and VHA/C vehicles.
3. Contact authorities in London and California where the practice of filtering is legal and ask for whatever data they may have regarding the safety outcomes for motorcyclists derived from this practice.  If these results are promising, explore the feasibility of trialling or implementing legal, sanctioned and supported filtering.
4. Investigate the safety and feasibility of lane sharing bicycle lanes.

(Please note I do not pre-empt the findings of any investigation into the above suggestions, nor do I personally support or endorse any of the above in the absence of appropriate research and data.  However they present themselves to me as possibilities that can be examined and implemented or discarded, in an effort to separate motorcyclists from other motor traffic.)

Preparation: at a time when young drivers are told they need 120 hours of supervised driving in all weather conditions and times of day before they are ready to drive on the roads alone, one can get their motorcycle learners permit in a single day, and then legally take to the road.

There are two aspects to safe motorcycle riding on public roads: rider skills, and road craft.  In order to pass your learners permit test, you require the bare minimum rider skills.  For all practical intents and purposes, road craft is not addressed.  This more than anything else is the gap in rider safety that needs to be urgently addressed.

This is no easy thing to achieve.  To an extent, road craft is more art than science; something that must be learned rather than something that can easily be taught.  I have spent some time condensing my approach to road craft into something that will be easy to remember and easy to explain; this is far from perfect, but this is what I have: V-SPACE

• Maximise your Vision
• Preserve your Space
• Choose your Position
• Maintain your Awareness
• Evaluate the Conditions
• Plan your Escape

Vision.  If you can’t see what’s coming, you can’t prepare for it.  Position yourself for maximum visibility: start wide on the corners so you can see further around; don’t ride directly behind a vehicle that you can’t see over, around, or through - drop back, change lanes, or if safe, overtake; keep scanning with your eyes - the road, the distance, the side streets, the sides of the road & shoulders, your mirrors - just keep looking; where you look is where you go - if you spot a hazard, look at your escape route and track the hazard with quick glances or your peripheral vision.

Space.  Preserve a safety buffer around you, it’s the closest thing you have to an air bag.  If another vehicle is driving erratically, get away from it; erratic drivers (or riders, or pedestrians) are difficult to anticipate, so take the initiative and get away from them.  Don’t pull up too close to cars at the lights, especially if the road is an incline; lots of cars roll backwards when they pull away at the lights, and if they roll back a bit too far, you can’t just drop your bike into reverse.

Position.  As a single track vehicle you get to choose where to position yourself in your lane, so make a conscious choice that maximises your vision and safety; don’t stop at lights in the middle of the lane, that’s where car and truck engines drip oil, so keep to the left or right tyre tracks.  On the freeway, the left-hand lane is constantly being merged into and out of for people entering and exiting; you are safest in the right hand lane providing you are overtaking & not holding up traffic behind you.  Country roads with gravel shoulders should encourage you to stay in the right tyre track unless there’s a reason not to be there.  Loose gravel on the road can upset your bike’s grip on the road, not something you want to happen at lean, no matter what speed you’re going.  Riding in another vehicle’s blind spot is asking to be taken out.  Choose your lane position to improve your visibility to other road users: if there are oncoming cars stopped waiting for a gap to turn right into a side street, riding in the left hand tyre track might make you appear to be the gap they’re waiting for, so position yourself in the right hand tyre track so that they can see you in the flow of traffic.


Awareness.  Know what is going on around you.  Keep a ‘mental map’ of the vehicles around you.  Be on the lookout for hazards and dangers: side streets and driveways that vehicles or animals / children could come out from unexpectedly; bus stops that inspire other vehicles to merge into the right hand lane (with or without looking); vehicles that might want to leg it through the orange (or red) light into your path; pedestrians stepping out from between parked cars; pedestrians who cross ‘small streets’ like Little Lonsdale St where it intersects with Swanston St (my personal favourite) without looking at the lights or the traffic.


Conditions.  Monitor the conditions and adjust your riding accordingly.  Check the obvious things like road surface, weather, but also consider how the conditions affect the vehicles around you: the setting sun behind you can obscure your light for oncoming traffic, and can obscure your brake lights and indicators for vehicles behind you; riding into the setting sun can completely hide you from vehicles following behind you as they lower their visors; fog not only reduces visibility but it muffles sounds as well, be prepared for the fact that you can ‘sneak up’ on traffic, or that drivers can head-check but still not see you.  Conditions that are more demanding are more demanding to drive in - expect other road users to be less observant and less patient in rainy and other tricky conditions.


Escape.  Always have an escape route.  Always.  Every potential hazard you identify, plan what you would do to avoid it as soon as you see it.  If that car pulls out in front of you, will you swerve behind it, or will you emergency stop?  If that kangaroo beside the road jumps into my path, how will I avoid it?  If the car behind me isn’t going to stop in time at these lights, where will I go?  Planning your escape route in advance makes it a little bit easier when you’re confronted with an unfolding hazard.


These things are difficult to teach; like chemistry in high school, some practical work is required in order for the lessons to sink in. But this difficulty should not excuse us from not attempting it in the first place. The rhetoric of "slowing down won't kill you" is no substitute for knowing where to position yourself in your lane to maximise your visibility to other road users, or to maximise your own field of vision so that you can be prepared for potential hazards ahead.


Inexperienced and returning riders need road craft skills, not rhetoric. It's as simple as that.

Evidence based?

In its 25 year history, the Transport Accident Commission has based its public education campaigns on data and evidence.

source: TAC

In 2001, motorcycle fatalities in Victoria were 64, the highest in more than a decade.  In 2002, the TAC produced the Vice Versa campaign, which encouraged drivers and motorcyclists to "put yourself in their shoes."  In that year, fatalities dropped to 56, and to 39 in 2003, and 37 in 2004.

The next four years saw fatalities in the high to mid 40s, then a drop in 2009 (the awful summer of 46.5 degrees and black Saturday).

Late in 2009 TAC released the "reduce the risks" campaign.  The following year, fatalities were up to 49, and there were 49 fatalities again in 2011.  2012 has also had an horrific start in terms of motorcycle fatalities.

I am no statistician, and I shall not fall into the trap of correlation-therefore-causation and draw far reaching conclusions based upon these very broad numbers.

I will however ask one question, in light of the above trends: upon what evidence does the TAC base its approach of shock ads and single sentence sound-bites as the means of addressing motorcycle safety?

If we were to look for a correlation between TAC campaigns and motorcycle fatalities we can only conclude that the "reduce the risks" campaign failed to have a positive impact upon the fatality rate of motorcyclists, whereas in the years following the first release of the "vice versa" campaign, fatalities dropped.

So what evidence is the TAC using to choose its current message and approach?

On message?

I've been reading over the transcripts of the parliamentary inquiry into motorcycle safety.  I've found some of what I've read to be extremely frustrating and angering, but here's my pick - speaking is Ms Cockfield of the TAC:

The positive for people who advertise around widgets is that it is usually a sales relationship, so if you have a good ad, you sell more widgets. If you do not have a good ad, you know it is no good, because there are no widgets being sold. In our terms, the relationships are a lot longer term. One of the key objectives of public education from the perspective of the TAC is putting issues on the community agenda and making the community aware that there is a certain issue... We put a range of scripts in [for focus groups to examine]. Some of them will be quite provocative. We are trying to get different reactions. We try to understand what is going to work in terms of putting an issue on the agenda. What is going to work?... The key for all of this is not whether people like or do not like our ads. The key is about the key message they are getting out of it, whether they are likely to change their behaviour or they are at least likely to reconsider their behaviour in relation to this particular issue.

Which raises the question in my mind: who chooses the message?  Who chose this message, the "you choose your speed, physics decides if you live or die" message?  How is this decision made?  How are the decision makers held to account for the messages they choose?

The really dubious - if not deceptive - part of this approach is the fact that their "key criteria" applied by TAC is people "getting the message."  The very fact that I am so furious about this issue, that I am writing about it now and that I am writing to members of parliament about it, would appear to be perceived by the TAC as an indicator of success, that this campaign is working.

Well TAC, here's some news for you:

Yes, the motorcycling community are talking about your latest campaign.

We are talking about it because your choice of message is WRONG.

We are talking about it because you confuse not speeding for safe riding.

Our discussions about this campaign are not an indication of its success, but of its failure.

Your metrics are wrong.  Your message is wrong.  Your attitude is wrong.  It is not good enough.

FromRidersEyes' YouTube channel

I stopped to look at From Riders Eyes' YouTube channel - and it's excellent.

http://www.youtube.com/user/fromriderseyes/featured

In particular there's some really good explanations of why certain driver behaviours create such a threat for motorcyclists.  I recommend watching the vids, and circulating the link to your friends.

I'm sorry, mate

And I really am, for the music quality in this clip. It was late, I was tired, I ran out of gas. I... I had a flat tire. I didn't have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake. A terrible flood. Locusts! IT WASN'T MY FAULT, I SWEAR TO GOD!

That no riders were killed is testament to their personal commitment to good road craft and to defensive and assertive riding. This is what I hate about the latest TAC ad - it doesn't match reality.

So let me summarise it as simply as I can:

You shouldn't speed, but don't think that is enough to save you. If you live to ride, then ride to live. 

Your most effective safety measure when riding is your personal commitment to proactively protecting your own life, and an occupational and professional paranoia of every other road user, pedestrian, animal, environmental factor, act of god ... Our chief weapon is surprise, fear and surprise; two chief weapons, fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency! Er, among our chief weapons are: fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency...