Below you can find the copy of an email I sent today to The West Australian, the WA Police Minister and also the WA Office of Road Safety.  I have written this in response to the articles published in The West Australian this week about riders performing monos and rolling stoppies on public roads.  This letter is not to be reproduced elsewhere without our permission.

Dear Sir & Madam,

>> NB: This could be a bit long for the letters page but if you judge it worthwhile could perhaps be used as a soapbox piece. I do not give you authorization to cut and chop this letter for space and twist the message contained herein unless I can view exactly what will be published before publication. TH>>

Balance is not something we expect from 'current affairs' programs that insult out intelligence in the 6:30pm timeslot, but I do think the WA public deserves some decent journalism from their newspapers. Your article 'Bikers dice with death' is one of the most blatantly sensationalist pieces I have ever read.

You quote how many riders have died this year in a ridiculous attempt to somehow connect motorcycle fatalities with riders who are silly enough to publish photographs of themselves performing rolling stoppies and monos. To my knowledge, and I actually did a little research, none of the riders hinted at by the television story and your newspaper story have seriously injured themselves. With this in mind I find it fallacious that you mention death statistics in your report when those statistics obviously bare no relation to the subject matter you were covering.

Would it not have served a better purpose to mention how many of those people in your statistics were killed by cars and trucks running red lights, failing to give way or by a car driver blindly not seeing or hearing the rider. Or by councils that erect ridiculous limestone walls on roundabouts and other traffic junctions. Or even how our state body continues with the perverse installation of Brifen style wire rope barriers alongside our roads. This is in the face of European research which has led to many European countries shielding all their wire rope barriers with plastic covers. The images and reports of riders being decapitated by the wires or limbs smashed to pieces from impact with the uncovered supporting posts are horrific. Quite often the rider only ended up there because a car driver knocked them off in the first place. But our road safety 'experts' continue to recommend these human cheese graters, I find that fact incredulous.

And what about truck drivers who overfill their tanks so they leave a trail of slippery diesel on corners. Or country councils who spread gravel on corners in the hope that trucks will force the stones in to the road to build up the surface. Councils have already settled cases out of court where riders have been brought down by this practice.

Or would it perhaps have been pertinent to mention that there are very little avenues for these riders to express themselves legally in their chosen fashion. Operators at the Kwinana Motorplex and Wanneroo Raceway currently do not allow their venues to be used for such purposes.

Or perhaps it would have been useful to mention that despite calls from the industry, the WA Government refuses to put in place any rider training schemes such as that currently used to great effect in Victoria, NSW and Queensland. In the eastern states, hardly a week goes by when there are not numerous opportunities to ride on a racetrack, or attend one of a myriad of rider training schools. And to those that suggest riding on the racetrack does nothing for rider behaviour on the streets, I say you have no idea what you are talking about. Once most riders get a taste for the racetrack they quickly realise that this is where sportsbike nirvana is to be found, and that any street based antics pale in to insignificance when compared to the corner speed, lean angles and relative safety that the track can offer.

Of course not all riders wish to take things this far and are more than happy to enjoy their machines in social rides or even just commuting to and from work. But there does need to be an outlet for those that wish to take things to a higher level, just as that which is available to various other past times such as skateboarding etc.

And once again some people have used these unfortunate photos and footage to bring up the front number plate issue and speed camera avoidance. Almost all the other states simply turn the speed cameras around to take pictures from the rear. I believe WA is going to follow that path in September. It would seem logical to amend law rather than waste millions on the fitment of front number plates. But the fact remains that speed is often not a factor in any of those statistics cavalierly mentioned in your article. And you certainly do no favours to the families of those deceased riders by cunningly implying that their death had something to do with performing monos, or those other 'high-speed stunts' that you selected to use as your subject matter for a misinformed tirade.

Solid objects, poor road design, roadside vegetation, car drivers and a lack of rider tuition are just some of the chief culprits behind the death statistics. Not monos, rolling stoppies, or a lack of speed camera detection. And anybody that believes different is frankly living in la-la land.

Also it seems a funny coincidence that this non-issue comes out at the same time as the hopelessly ineffective Road Safety Council of Western Australia is calling on the Police Minister for more government funding due to a shortfall in speed camera revenue. The WA Road Safety Council is yet to achieve anything to contribute towards the safety of WA motorcyclists. So instead of propping them up further I call for them to be stripped of all funding and disbanded to be replaced with a more effective organisation that actually deals with the real safety issues that present themselves on our roads. A well informed safety body that does not have a vested interest in speed camera revenue.

Regards

Trevor Hedge
PO Box 126
Kwinana
Western Australia 6167