Saturday 1 June 2013

WA POLICE SURVEY

"If you want to avoid being killed or suffer a serious injury ... you should not be getting a motorcycle." WA Assistant Commissioner of Police.


WHAT RUBBISH!

This propaganda is presented as credible information based on real science. To me this newspaper article demonstrates police attitudes to riders. Regardless of the facts, blame the victim.



INDEPENDENT RIDERS' GROUP member from Queensland, Peter G sent this in. He inquired about the credibility of police research(?) published by a perth newspaper. The link is in a previous blog. By following this very negative story on bikes back to the source, Peter made police aware that riders are watching what they do and will react through proper channels.

If you've been thinking about writing a letter to the media and/or your member of parliament, please do. Better still, go see you MP. Let us know how you go.

If 1 person does it, it's a chip off the iceberg of prejudice and ignorance that plagues motorcycle and scooter riders. If 100 people do it, we make a bloody big hole in it. If 1000 people do it we might just break the berg up.

In Victoria we have just 2 weeks to go until the government has to announce its' decisions on the recommendations from the parliamentary inquiry into motorcycle & scooter safety tabled in December 2012.

www.parliament.vic.gov.au/rsc/inquiries/article/1409

Here's the contacts for you local Vic MPs.

parliament.vic.gov.au/members

This is a great country. Its' your democracy. Use it or you'll lose it.

Damien
IRG
Melbourne
******************************************************************************

To: WAPS Reply
Subject: Contact Us message from WA Police Web Site
Importance: High

**************************************************************************************
EMAIL FROM: www.police.wa.gov.au  PAGE: Contact Us
**************************************************************************************
From: WAPS Reply
Sent: Monday, 27 May 2013 10:46
To: Police Media SMAIL
Subject: File No: gawithpeter240513
Importance: High

I would appreciate your assistance with the below email received through the WAPOL Website feedback form.

The author has _NOT_ received an automated acknowledgement and your portfolio/business unit is required to RESPOND DIRECTLY to him/her as per EMAIL POLICY in COPS MANUAL AD-52.21.

Please forward a COPY (cc) of your response to WAPS Reply, quoting the above file number in the SUBJECT FIELD for placement on file.

If you are _NOT_ the area responsible for answering this email could you please FORWARD and advise which area is suitable to respond.

Thank you,

WAPS Reply
27/05/2013


On Mon, May 27, 2013 at 12:56 PM, DINNISON Samuel [PD87343] <Samuel.Dinnison@police.wa.gov.au> wrote:


Hi Peter,

Due to a series of fatal crashes involving motorcycle riders we conducted a detailed analysis of 30 fatal motorcycle crashes between January 2012 and April 2013.

Unfortunately we are not able to release the full set of raw data as it would be possible to identify the deceased people from the timing of the crash, their age, etc and all the linked information regarding their previous driving offending would then be known, and we are not allowed to reveal a persons previous history.

We are however working to provide a few case study examples to the media to further highlight the findings of our research, without breaching privacy laws. The key points we provided The Sunday Times were:

* The most at risk group would appear to be riders in the age group 25-40 years of age.
* Unlicensed riders and riders in their first 3 months of licensed riding are very much overrepresented
in these fatal traffic crashes.
* Half of the riders in these crashes were riding a motorcycle that was either unlicensed or
had come into their possession less than 3 months before the crash.
* In the vast majority of these crashes (77%) the rider of the motorcycle was the at fault
person.
* 17 out of the 26 riders(65%), whose results had been received, were found to had
alcohol or drugs at a level that was either in excess of legislated limits or to a level likely
to have affected their ability to control a vehicle.
* 26 (87%) of the riders from these crashes had prior traffic records demonstrating that
they had previously been charged, in many cases multiple times, for offences similar to
the 4 main causes of these crashes i.e. Dangerous/Reckless Driving, Drink Driving,
speeding or careless/inattentive driving.
* 4 (13%) of the riders from these crashes had no prior traffic records, but they were
determined to be the at fault driver with the causes of the crashes being 3 of the same 4
main causes i.e. Drink Driving, speeding and careless/inattentive driving.

Please remember these statistics relate to fatal crashes only, and not minor crashes that motorcycle riders may be involved in, which may have different factors contributing to them.

Regards

Samuel Dinnison
Police Media Unit

From: Peter G
Date: Wed, May 29, 2013 at 5:40 AM
Subject: Re: FW: File No: gawithpeter240513
To: "DINNISON Samuel [PD87343]" <Samuel.Dinnison@police.wa.gov.au>

Hi Samuel,

thank you kindly for the reply to my request for information of the WA Police study of motorcycle fatalities. It is an alarming read.

Made more so by the fact that the WA assistant commissioner has come out with some bold assumptions about motorcyclist behavior and has promised to "target" them "for their own good".

Given that there are over 300,000 motorcycle licenses held in WA and 96,000 registered motorcycles (as per the Phil Hickey article that the study was quoted in) this could have serious negative ramifications on those motorcyclists that are enjoying their two wheels in a sensible manner as well as deterring others from taking up the sport or opting to use a motorcycle/scooter as sensible commuter transport. 

The assistant commissioner didn't mince his words as to where he stood on motorcycles."People won't like this, but I'll say it: If you want to avoid being killed or suffer a serious injury, from a pure statistical perspective you should not be getting a motorcycle." 

I'm not a statistician, but the assistant commissioner's statement appears to draw a long bow given how many motorcycles and licensed riders there are in WA. The data he quotes from must be seen as sound and stand up to analysis. Otherwise it would be an injustice to use it to target a section of the public. 

This has prompted me to write to you and seek some further clarity regarding the study that the assistant commissioner has quoted from.

I appreciate your comments on privacy laws. 

However, there is opportunity to provide some detail from the study without breaching them and you will see from the attachment that there are questions that can be answered without in any way compromising the persons right to maintain anonymity and for you to stay within the law. I ask that you read it and provide answers where you are lawfully able.

The motivation behind this request is to ensure that we, the motoring public, are informed (with good data) as to the reasons our police services arrive at their actions and what we should be doing to ensure safety is our first priority when using the public roads.

I appreciate your time on this matter and look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience.




Kind regards


Peter G


Will let you know how I go.
Regards

Peter G
I.R.G 
QLD

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