Interesting program tonight on BBC 1, Monday 04 October Time: 9:00pm to 10:00pm (60 mins) Traffic Cops Special: Too Young To Die. According to the TV summary of this BEEB epic...
"Documentary series about South Yorkshire traffic police. Teenage car criminals and illegal off-road bikers put their lives at risk and make life hell for the traffic cops, while a former car thief gives up a life of crime to help his former enemies and ends up being punished by schoolchildren."
With its history of tireless spin and supporting the government in whatever anti-road agenda it currently has to offer What else would you expect the BBC say about bikers but to peddle the same tired old garbage?. Even MAG's own Ian Mutch despaired at how his careful attempts to put forward an accurate view on bike safety were warped and twisted by BBC producers in a recent bike program.
The poignant message lay in the tragic and needless death of a biker riding an under-powered 50cc moped. This rider, was NOT speeding despite early inferences in the program. However, you could have blinked or stirred your coffee and missed the police accident investigator's rather sensible and final conclusion that he was, in fact, riding well within the legal speed limit. Riding, appears, quite slowly when compared to the skid marks left on the car he collided with. Not that the car was to blame .The accident occurred because for some "unexplained" reason he traversed the corner on the wrong side of the road. This would come as no surprise to any biker who has investigated the REAL cause of biker accidents. The truth contrasts wildly with the hype and stereotypical view of deaths being due to SPEEDING "leather clad bikers astride their powerful sports bikes" as The Sun would blurt out. The reality being that bikers are coming out of modern training courses with an dangerous inability to correctly tackle bends at ANY speed over 30mph. Deaths and injuries due to bikers being unable to tackle corners safely appears to be rising at epidemic rates.
Of course its easy for he ignorant armchair critic to simply say "ban bikes" but stop for a second to think how the same accident had turned out had this youngster hit the other car head on had he been driving a car instead of a bike. You would have been looking at a program about several deaths instead of one. However, so much for increased theory testing and wobbling around cones for months on end as a way of instilling real rider skills. What we need are more BikeSafe schemes where experienced and professional riders can show new bike riders practical rather than theoretical skills needed. These being key skills riders of previous generation were lucky enough to learn off road. Yet that avenue is now being progressively closed off by Labour and the anti-road rambling or pedestrian lobbies.
Let us not forget that the BMF came into existence over this very issue under a previous Labour government in the 1960s to lobby on this issue. If riders can't build skills off road from a young age then we, at least, need to compensate by expanding expert rider schemes such as BikeSafe. Why don't we run more schemes like this you may ask?. Well, such schemes are actually folding and closing down due to lack of a few thousand pounds funding at a time when tens of millions of pounds on speed camera revenue is lining the pockets of both the speed camera partnerships and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Still think the speed camera issue is about saving lives?. Forget it!.
