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Tales
from the Road
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First Motorcycles...What's Next?
posted by The Lonely Rider
Greetings everyone, as I'm sure you are all aware by now, especially since I frequently discuss the issue, that MPP Helena Jaczek has introduced a Private Members Bill (Bill 117) to ammend the Highway Traffic Act in Ontario to ban children under the age of 14 from being passengers on the back of motorcycles.
This Bill has made it all the way past a second reading and has now been referred to the Justice Policy Committee for consideration and review. If it passes the committee stage, it will get a third reading and may possibly become law.
Why is this a concern for people who don't ride motorcycles? Because MPP Jaczek has publicly stated that she will look at "saving the children" from other recreational activities next. She specifically mentioned riding bicycles (bicycles?) and ATV's but where does it end? What about snowmobiles, skiing and even toboggoning, which has already suffered one fatality this year (yes...toboggoning).
I strongly encourage you to listen to episode #55 of Biker Radio Magazine hosted by Ken Venus, whereby Jaczek is interviewed and states her "go forward" intentions not only against the motorcycling community but also towards other recreational activities.
She clearly states in her interview that some of her numbers are based on motorcycles "riders" not "passengers" but she still uses those statistics to support her Bill against "passengers". When asked if these were injuries as a result of off-road activities, she back-peddles and states "I'm not clear exactly where these occured" (the question is asked at 6min45sec into the show).
http://www.bikerradiomagazine.com/shows/edition_55.mp3
It has been recently revealed that Jaczek has been fudging her numbers to support her "cause". She has relied upon reports from SmartRisk to indicate the number of children injured from motorcycles but neglected to point out that they were in fact "riders" not "passengers". The reports from SmartRisk indicate that those "riders" were either riding illegally anyway or were involved in off-road riding activities such as motorcross riding or may have simply burned themselves on a hot exhaust pipe.
This information is very disturbing to say the least. I hate to speculate how she will gather and present "statistics" to garner support for banning children from being passengers (or even riding) on snowmobiles or ATV's. Of course nobody would dare banning children from playing Hockey, despite the sport sending peolpe to the emergency room at a rate of three per hour in Canada.
In 2005 1.6% of motorcycles, 6.0 % of cars, vans and pick-up trucks, 2.0% of commercial trucks, 14.6% of buses, and 16.2% of school buses were involved in reportable accidents per every 10,000 of those types of vehicles registered. In other words, motorcycles are the least likely to be involved in a crash on Ontario's roads. The number of motorcycles on Ontario's roads have increased by 30% in the last 12 years but the number of child-passenger injuries has only increased from 18 to 21.
I emplore you all to actively oppose Bill 117 before MPP Jaczek succeeds against motorcyclists and then moves on to banning children from other activities that we all love our children participating in. Considering there has not been a single child fatality in over 10yrs from being a motorcycle passenger, this Bill will have no impact on "saving the children". You simply cannot "save the children" from all harm, unless you are willing to prevent them living life.
A petition and several position letters have been prepared by a fellow motorcycle advocate, IronMaiden, which can be found below. She has successfully been able to do her own investigation into Jaczek's "statistics" to discover that they have been shockingly misrepresented.
Please review her material from the links and forward this onward to anyone and everyone that you can.
Petition:
http://www.bikerradiomagazine.com/bill_117/petition_against_bill_1172.doc
Accompanying letter #1:
http://www.bikerradiomagazine.com/bill_117/accompanying_letter2.doc
Accompanying letter #2:
http://www.thelonelyrider.com/issues/bill117_data/We_Know.doc
Detailed information and coverage of Bill 117 can be found at:
http://www.thelonelyrider.com/issues/bill117.htm
http://www.bikerradiomagazine.com/bill117.html
Quote from an online forum:
When they closed the the dirt bikers' trails,
I remained silent;
I was not a dirt biker.
When they locked up the "street racers",
I remained silent;
I was not a "street racer".
When they prohibited 13-year-old bike passengers,
I did not speak out;
I was not a 13-year-old-bike passenger, nor do I know any.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.
Life comes with risk and only a fool can believe that they can avoid all danger or ban others from activities that they personally deem to be unsafe.
Risks can be mitigated...not avoided.
Regards,
posted by The Lonely Rider
MPP Jaczek...We Know!
posted by The Lonely Rider
New Letter provided by IronMaiden:
MPP Jaczek,
With all due respect for your well-meaning intent to protect the children of the motorcycle community from injury we know that what we believed from the beginning is true, that your concern is misguided and your 'alarming statistics' are bogus.
You have been relying most heavily on statistics from an organization called Smartrisk. Have you, since presenting Bill 117, continued your research and discovered that you are misrepresenting the Smartrisk data?
As recently of January 14 of this year you have continued to forward that same standard email response stating those same false statistics to all who send you a letter voicing their concern for Bill 117.
A research associate from Smartrisk has provided us with the data files where you got your numbers. First of all, what we see is that the 'motorcycle related injuries' from Smartrisk include mopeds, motor scooters and motorized bicycles. This explains to some extent, why your numbers are so much higher than the statistics from the Ministry of Transportation's Annual Safety Reports on motorcycle injuries.
More importantly though, is that this data contains figures of 'motorcycle-related' injuries to riders only. The Smartrisk document is indeed titled 'Motorcycle Rider Hospitalizations'. Did the title elude your attention? Did you overlook that one small yet extremely significant piece of information? That the Smartrisk figures pertain to riders only and the question is, did Smartrisk inform you that their data includes riders of mopeds, scooters and motorized bicycles?
It was not very difficult to acquire this information yet it would appear to have been a much more difficult task for you or your assistants to take on. Nothing more than a shame considering the implications of such a restrictive, controlling Bill becoming law in Ontario.
To the Ontario Legislature last month, in the same paragraph you stated that since the 2005 MTO figures of 21 children injured as passengers, Smartrisk has noted for the fiscal year 2005/06, 556 emergency department visits from children 14 and under and that these numbers seem to indicate that injuries are increasing.
Is it common for our elected officials to use implied statements by adding such words as 'seem to indicate'? Is that how you get away with misrepresenting true sources and avoid responsibility for your statements in the future? The MTO separated motorcycles from mopeds, 50 year olds from 10 year olds, riders from passengers. You did not. Smartrisk did not but they make no such false claims.
We, in the motorcycle community knew something was terribly wrong with your figures but the general public would immediately believe this as truth, not thinking that an elected official would embellish the truth to this extent on a subject for which they know nothing about. We can understand why our well-meaning members of the Ontario Legislature would feel intimidated to vote 'no' as this may indicate they are unsympathetic to the issue of child safety. We believe you were counting on this.
You and they, can feel comfort knowing that there is no problem to solve. You did not discover some hidden, alarming matter that needed immediate attention to create a law to protect our children. We are responsible adults who treat our most precious cargo with the utmost care, we always have and the numbers are there to prove it.
As to your statement that 'It is important to know that riding on a motorcycle is more dangerous than driving in a car', are you aware that in 2005 1.6% of motorcycles, 6.0 % of cars, vans and pick-up trucks, 2.0% of commercial trucks, 14.6% of buses, and 16.2% of school buses were involved in reportable accidents? In other words, motorcycles are the least likely of all forms of powered transport to be involved in a road accident in any given year in Ontario.
We believe too, that if you have indeed looked at the statistics in the Ministry of Transportaion's Annual Safety Reports, that you would be aware that they counted 111,587 motorcycles in Ontario in 1993 and 18 injuries to passengers 15 and under. In 2005, 145,194 motorcycles, 21 injuries. Obviously no increase exists nor can it be understood as anything close to 'alarming'. Surely it is a record that we, in the motorcycling community can be proud of.
Now that we know the truth we will do our best to get the word out. Not only to you but to everyone in the motorcycle community, the general public and all MPP's who are willing to listen to the truth.
It is just as important for them to know that the statistics you give out are false as it is for them to know that you are misrepresenting data because you simply did not have the numbers to garner support for your 'cause'. Children are not being hurt on the back of motorcycles. You can continue to spew false claims of 'alarming statistics' but we will continue to get the word out that your numbers are bogus.
If you were not clear what the figures from Smartrisk represent why did you begin a campaign for Bill 117 before doing the proper research? Is it better for you to knowingly spread untrue facts or to be unsure and declare them anyway?
It seems the time has come for us to research what course of action we, the citizens of Ontario, have at our disposal should we discover an elected member of the Legislature has knowingly passed on false information.
Regards,
issues/bil117_issues/we_know.doc/We_Know.doc Labels: Bill 117, children, motorcycle, MPP Jaczek
posted by The Lonely Rider
Making Our Roads Safer - My Recommendations
posted by The Lonely Rider
Recommendations for changes to the Highway Traffic Act and MTO testing procedures
There is an ongoing mentality that banning certain activities in vehicles will improve road safety in Ontario - essentially taking things away from bad drivers. In the end, bad drivers will still be bad drivers and such laws only reduce peoples respect for those laws and for those who are tasked with enforcing them (i.e. police officers). They do nothing to address the real issues on our roads today and won't aid in making our roads any safer.
The real issue is that drivers are complacent about the task of operating a motor vehicle and only possess the most basic skills to do so. Everyone on the road thinks that they are a good driver and that everyone else isn't. Our attitudes need to be changed and our skills need to improve. The only way to do so is to make radical changes not only to the HTA but also to MTO testing procedures and begin aggressive campaigning to improve driver education about the danger and responsibility of operating a motor vehicle.
G License Specific:
-Increase minimum driving age to 17
-Mandate driver training courses to acquire G1 (driver training is currently optional)
-Redesign MTO testing to include practical skills test. Current testing only ensures that drivers are aware of the rules of the road enough to drive, however no testing is done to test practical vehicle handling skills (skid control, crash avoidance, swerve maneuvers, emergency braking, etc.). These practical tests could be modeled after some of the tests used in the popular TV show "Canada's Worst Driver".
-Any gaps in holding a valid license would require a skills retest by MTO but driver training course not required again.
-Allow insurance companies to offer discounts to those who take additional advanced driver training
-Mandate practical skills retesting every five years
-Mandate practical skills retesting every year for those over age 70
M License Specific:
-Increase minimum riding age to 17
-Mandate rider training courses to acquire M1 (rider training is currently optional)
-Increase duration of M1 to 6mths (increased from 3mths)
-Restrict engine sizes to no more than 400cc until full M license is acquired (this is a requirement in the UK and very successful)
-Redesign MTO testing to include practical skills test
-Allow insurance companies to offer discounts to those who take additional advanced rider training
-Mandate practical skills retesting every 10 years (practical skills are tested daily far more than for drivers of cars)
-Any gaps in holding a valid license would require a skills retest by MTO but rider training course not required again.
I'm not naive, and fully realize that this will not resolve all our road safety issues, although I do believe that implementing these changes (at least in part) will lead to drastic improvements.
posted by The Lonely Rider
Injured children weren't passengers...but riders!
posted by The Lonely Rider
Report from IronMaiden (motorcycle advocate):
Bill 117 as you know, has been referred to the Justice Committee after passing 2nd reading on December 4th however it is not written in stone that it will get that far. The Ontario Legislature resumes on February 18, if it prorogues the house all Bills that aren't on their exemption list will be dead including those referred to the Justice Committee and that includes of course, Bill 117.
This will not however, keep MPP Helena Jaczek from presenting it again. I think it's important that we continue to put pressure on our MPPs. It may help too, to let MPP Jaczek know that we have the information below and perhaps we can persuade her to give it up.
What everyone needs to know is that the numbers she has been putting forward to beget fear and rally support for her cause are false. I also believe that she knows it and that is even more damning and infuriating to the motorcycle community.
I have finally been able to get in touch with a research associate from Smartrisk. You may recognize it as the organization where MPP Jaczek claims to have collected her "alarming statistics". Driven by her well meaning yet misguided desire to protect our children from injury she has spewed these figures again and again to any who will listen.
What I've discovered first of all is that 'motorcycle related injuries' in the Smartrisk data sheets includes mopeds, motor scooters and motorized bicycles. This explains to some extent, why Jaczek's numbers are so much higher than the statistics from the Ministry of Transportation's Annual Safety Reports on motorcycle injuries.
More importantly is that the data compiled by Smartrisk contains figures of motorcycle-related injuries to riders only. The document is in fact titled "Motorcycle Rider Hospitalizations". MPP Jaczek must have overlooked that small yet significant piece of information. She clearly stated to the Ontario Legislature that since the 2005 MTO figures of 21 children being injured as motorcycle passengers, Smartrisk has noted 556 emergency department visits of children 14 and under for the fiscal year 2005/06 and that these numbers seem to indicate that injuries are increasing.
The 46 child passengers hospitalized for serious "motorcycle-related" injuries claimed by MPP Jaczek were in fact not passengers at all, they were riders and they were riders of mopeds, scooters and motorized bicycles as well. MPP Jaczek has put forth a completely dishonest representation of Smartrisk's figures.
Since the law requires you to be 16 years of age to ride a "motorcycle-related" vehicle on the roadways of Ontario we can only conclude that the 46 hospitalizations and the 556 emergency department visits were children riding off the roadways of Ontario. Clearly not what MPP Jaczek implied to anyone.
Smartrisk suggested that I research into police reports for more details yet that would be redundant as that is where the Ministry of Transportation gets their figures for their Annual Safety Reports. They show an average of 17.5 children injured yearly on motorcycles on the roadways of Ontario. These figures include minimal, minor and major injuries, true government statistics we, in the motorcycling community can be very proud of. Especially considering there were more than 140,000 motorcycles on the roads in Ontario last year.
I have below a quote from a letter of support from the Association of Local Public Health Agencies, one of the organizations supporting Bill 117 and of which MPP Jaczek mentioned in her address to the Ontario Legislature.
"The statistics in your letter suggest that the incidence of motorcycle-related injuries to children is increasing significantly. From 1995 to 2005, an average of about 20 injuries per year was reported for this age group, whereas in 2005-2006 alone, there were 46 hospitalizations."
I read this as proof that MPP Jaczek is using her manipulated and misrepresented statistics to garner support for her cause. Even still, how could anyone believe that practically in the same year child injuries increased from 21 to 46 hospitalizations? Well we now know that this is a false statement altogether. Simply put, Jaczek did not have the numbers to garner support for her 'cause' because children are not being hurt on the back of motorcycles.
All in all it astounds me how she can embellish statistics so significantly without question or further investigation and gain support for a Bill that would essentially make it illegal for a certain percentage of the population to use a legal mode of transportation on the streets of Ontario. She has in truth, convinced many that the average injury to children has, in one year risen from 21 to 556 and has done so by manipulating, or shall I say down right misrepresenting Smartrisk figures.
In the fiscal year of 2002/03 Smartrisk did an actual report on motorcycle injuries alone which claims that 5% of 736 hospitalizations in that year were passengers of all age groups. This we can believe. How many of those 36 then, were children under the age of 14? According to that same report, 47% of what MPP Jaczek would interpret as "serious hospitalizations" include broken arms and legs.
In an interview on Show 55 at www.bikerradiomagazine.com MPP Jaczek admitted she does not fully understand, more specifically is "not clear" about what the numbers from Smartrisk represent.
Was she aware then that the figures she used were completely false or did she simply begin a campaign for Bill 117 before doing the proper research? Is it better for her to knowingly spread untrue facts or to be unsure and declare them anyway? Make up your own mind.
-IronMaiden Labels: Bill 117, children, motorcycle, MPP Jaczek
posted by The Lonely Rider
Bill 117 - Jaczek's Numbers Don't Add Up!
posted by The Lonely Rider
Fellow riding advocate "IronMaiden", continues her vigilant efforts to shed more light on Bill 117 and gather opposition against this ridiculous Bill.
As you all know Bill 117 has gone to the Justice Policy Committee for consideration, however there is still a chance it will not be carried further. Should the legislature 'prorogue' when they go to recess, all Bills not on their 'very important' list, for lack of a better term, will be wiped out including Bill 117...it is NOT on that list. However, this does not keep Jaczek from presenting it again though so we need to continue our efforts should we need to stand in opposition of a similar Bill in the future.
IronMaiden has forwarded me some information which comes from her dealings with SmartRisk directly. SmartRisk is the organization where Jaczek claims to have collected her "alarming statistics". Needless to say her numbers are bogus. What we have learned is that "motorcycle related injuries" include mopeds, motor scooters and motorized bicycles but that is just the beginning.
There could not have been 46 serious motorcycle-related child passenger hospitalizations in Ontario when, according to Smartrisk, all "motorcycle related hospitalizations" totalled 858 including rider and passenger in the fiscal year of 2005/06. Are we to believe that 5% (46) of 858 "motorcycle-related" hospitalizations in Ontario were children riding as passengers?
Far more likely is the Ontario injury report numbers done by Smartrisk on motorcycles alone in 2002/03 which claims that 5% (36) of 736 hospitalizations were passengers of all age groups. How many of that 5% were children? We do not know because Smartrisk does not break down their numbers by age groups. They do know by way of that report, that 47% of "serious" motorcycle-related hospitalizations include broken arms and legs. Perhaps now we can go back to the MTO safety reports.
When you include the fact that mopeds and motor scooter injuries are in those figures and that child injuries make up a small percentage of the 5% of 858 who were passengers on motorcycles for the fiscal year of 2005/06 we now get a pretty good idea of the true numbers of child motorcycle passenger injuries and they are likely to be pretty close to what the MTO safety reports say, as we have always known in our hearts. The MTO safety reports for 2006 and 2007 will be available early this year.
Jaczek claimed there were 556 injuries to children in 2005/06 as well. It's unclear where Jaczek got her numbers but Smartrisk suggested we research into police reports to get that much detail as they do not....perhaps Jaczek asked for ATV injury reports and added them together?
It would appear that she has been embellishing the numbers to garner support for her "cause". What a shocker.
Here are some data sheets provided by SmartRisk, showing more realistic numbers. As you can see, Jaczek figures don't support her claims.
Analysis of Motorcycle Injuries
Addtional Crash Data Labels: Bill 117, children, motorcycle, MPP Jaczek
posted by The Lonely Rider
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