From D. G. WATTAM
Far from setting the record straight, I fear your correspondent P. H.
Bly merely continues to muddy already-murky waters (Letters, 8 June). An
attempt was made in 1988 to introduce leg-protectors for motorcycles, based
on Transport and Road Research Laboratory (TRRL) research. More than 100
000 motorcyclists petitioned the government to avoid this course of action,
since the work on which these devices were based was demonstrated by work
conducted elsewhere to be flawed. Far from limiting injury to the rider,
the TRRL devices merely shifted the site of injury from the lower to the
upper leg and, far more worryingly, to the chest.
Thus, far from there being a minority of pig-headed motorcyclists who
reject all safety improvements, a myth which the TRRL is extremely fond
of perpetuating, a large number of motorcyclists were concerned about the
consequences to themselves of the imposition of a so-called safety device
which would endanger their lives by a group of nannyists whose only approach
to safety appears to be an engineering one.
It must be pointed out further that it is not simply many, but the majority,
of motorcycle accidents which are caused by other road users. Indeed, almost
two-thirds of motorcycle accidents are so caused and, according to one of
the Department of Transport’s own publications, about half of these can
be ascribed to the single cause of other road users failing to give way
at road junctions at which the motorcyclist has the right of way. Were better
standards of driving, eliminating this type of behaviour, to be promoted
and enforced, so many so-called accidents on our roads would be avoided
(far better than mere damage-limitation), with great saving fiscally and
in terms of human suffering.
D. G. Wattam Loughborough Leicestershire
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