There has long been a line of thought that suggested there is an institutional bias against motorcycles by the government. I have seen evidence of it while researching and investigating reports and studies over the past few years, and was curious if would be easily found by randomly pulling any one report and carefully looking at it. What I found when I opened a random report; it happened to be from the Washington State Dept of Health, was disturbing. There appear to be definite prejudicial comments and statements, that aren't necessarily reinforced by the actual information in the report. Some of this could be a reliance on a limited number of sources for a wide range of information. Or it could simply be the bureaucratic mentality in effect. The mentality that finds it so difficult to understand why this motorcycle, and the automobile behind it are not simply motor vehicles, equal to each other in all ways.
Look at these two vehicles, and see if you can understand why according to the Washington State Traffic Safety Commission (WSTC), lane departure (aka leaving the roadway) contributed to 49% of motorcycle fatalities between 2011 and 2015. Meanwhile the bureaucratic response to prevent motorcycle fatalities is a mandatory helmet law. Which personally I find rather odd, since the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data clearly shows that 81% of fatal injuries to helmeted motorcyclists, and 64% of fatal injuries to un-helmeted motorcyclists are to bodily locations other than the head. So wouldn't a reasonable person agree that a helmet was irrelevant in a majority of all motorcycle fatalities?
Catch you on the road sometime...
No comments:
Post a Comment