As motorcyclists, we are regularly blighted with the opinions of “Road Safety Experts”. In general these “experts” are from academia, civil service, government agencies and so forth.
Overwhelmingly, only a small minority have ever had the joy of actually riding a motorcycle. YET! they have opinions about motorcycle safety.
The latest document to join this long list of badly researched, short on evidence and lacking in knowledge, is from the World Bank.
At Motorcycle Minds, we are privileged in that we are not obliged or beholden to anybody.
Thus our opinions are what we believe, based on years of experience.
Consequently, we felt that it is once again, imperative to stand up for a form of transport that effectively has liberated men and women throughout the world. We wrote to the World Bank (they did ask for feedback!) and gave them our opinion of their report.
We wrote: Dear Sir/Madam/team,
I read your document entitled “Guide for Road Safety Interventions: Evidence of what works and what does not work”. It appears that this document was put together by people such as Soame Job (once head of Road Safety for the World Bank) who has thankfully, left, but who appears to be very influential in this report which include “gems” such as the following:
“Equally important, the report also identifies clear examples where interventions are not effective. The worst of these are interventions that increase risk. These include increasing travel speed without improving quality of safety infrastructure, most forms of post-license driver and rider education and training, and many (but not all) forms of regular school-based driver education (such as those that seek to increase car-handling skills).
The increase in risk is typically because such initiatives increase the level of confidence leading to an increase in risk taking. Other interventions that have no demonstrated safety benefits are to be avoided. These include license schemes through application or payment, training programs or education within schools that aim to improve road safety knowledge (including ad hoc visits by road safety experts or enthusiasts), and education campaigns conducted in isolation”.
This document is outrageous! Nobody in their right mind could exclude education and training as a means of improving knowledge! To use Skid pan training (page 38) as an example does not reflect what post licence training actually covers. If anything it is misleading.
Having worked with road traffic collision experts for the last 15 years, I can assure you that most of your suggestions are complete rubbish! (…)
Comments on page 22 – “Motorcycle riders are very vulnerable road users given their lack of physical protection and often high travel speed. Serious injuries and death are common when larger vehicles collide with this road user group, especially at speeds higher than 30 km/h”.
Not true – 65% of motorcycle crashes occur at speeds of less than 70 kph. Furthermore, speed is random in motorcycle crashes – what is relevant is the trajectory or the post crash motion, but there is no mention of this. Why? Possibly because none of the people writing this report have actually ridden a motorcycle or have the slightest understanding of motorcycle crash causation.
Reports over the years include road traffic crash scenarios – e.g the Famous Hurt report, Thailand motorcycle crash causation studies by Jim Ouellet et al and more recently The Dynamics of Motorcycle Crashes – a global study of motorcycle crash causation, all provide evidence of what actually happens, not based on guess work – which is clearly the foundation of what is in your report.
There are more “gems” but I am not going to waste my time. My advice is that you throw this report in the rubbish bin and start again with people who actually know what they are talking about which would include road traffic collision investigators, trainers and other experts who work on these issues.
My opinion for what it is worth, is that you most probably spent a seriously amount of money funding this awful report which has possibly set road safety research back by 50 years.
Sincerely,
Elaine Hardy PhD
Information
Link to report: Guide for Road Safety Interventions: Evidence of what works and does not work (sic) – pdf – 4.68mb
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