[matt232]

Not happy about this. Citylink will definately start charging once this happens and I'm betting we are going to be footing the bill on installing them. Bastards!!!

Not sure if it affects other states as it only refers to Vucroads. The Bastards!!!


The Age Article on front Number Plates

[ratter]

Bastards

[Zeeman]

"Howard says front plates for motorcycles would help police enforce speed limits for motorcyclists, one of VicRoads' key targets in its campaign to reduce the state road toll."

That is, we don't get any money from speeding motorcyclists who pass speed cameras, because we were dumb enough to face them towards oncoming traffic, rather than face them the other way to snap the rear of vehicles, so, we have decided to make bike riders pay for our lack of foresight.

"Riders are over-represented in Victoria's road toll. According to Transport Accident Commission figures, of 330 people killed on the state's roads last year, 38 were motorcycle riders and one was a pillion passenger -- about 10 percent of the toll, despite motorcycles representing just 3 percent of the state's registered vehicles."

As much as statistics can be twisted and bent, there is one statistic that is undeniable - after the introduction of compulsary rider training in NSW, there was a significant drop in both accidents and fatalities for new riders, which also filtered through to more riders as the years went on.

the biggest rise in accidents and fatalities in NSW has been the 40 something rider who hasn't been on a bike in 15 years, and has decided to buy the dream sports bike or Harley. the police, roads and traffic authority and motorcycling groups ALL agree with these statistics. (wont quote the exact percentage figures as I cant find the article as I type this). Yet, the politicians and senior police ocntinue on this "speeding is the root of all road deaths" campaign.

Z...

[GhostRider]

Sounds like just a cash grab (speeding tickets) in the guise of public safety, like Zeeman said.
What total and complete morons.

[maxib]

Z-dude,

Your sig has never been more appropriate.

To you and all your mates, I frustrate with you. (Sounded better than empathize) Here's hoping this will not happen.

[Will]

Hey guys relax
I have a very good contact at the transport ministers and I can tell you it's not going to happen.
It all comes down to costs, it will cost too much to implement so they have scrappd the idea.

[ratter]

I hope your right Will

[Zop]

same here. hope you're right

[matt232]

Originally Posted by Will

Hey guys relax
I have a very good contact at the transport ministers and I can tell you it's not going to happen.
It all comes down to costs, it will cost too much to implement so they have scrappd the idea.

Hopefully that is true, but they are still barstards for letting it get to the stage of an article in the paper. Surely the bright sparks at VicRoads realised that it was a VERY pricey exercise before this stage!

[matt232]

Heres the Vicroads report and a few exerpts from the executive summary. I'm off to read Apeendix 5 which has all the submisisons of views of manufactures, individuals, etc. Should be interesting

Ow and one more thing. BARSTARDS!!!

http://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/vrne/...t+Road+Safety]

"The objective for reintroducing front number identification is to ease the task of State Police in speed enforcement using their present operational camera practices. The context for such an investigation is the rise in motorcycle deaths, and the concern that motorcyclists might not be fully subject to the speed environment management strategy now a cornerstone in State Road Safety programs.

However, the knowledge that the Police place such reliance on frontal images was not widely known amongst motorcyclists across most of Australia until the recent publicity. There have been increases in fatal crashes involving motorcycles in Victoria, against a background of rising sales (half of which are not usually registered as being designed mainly for off road use on farms etc), rising new registrations (21% since 1998) and rising numbers of motorcycles on the register (15% since 1998) and increased participation levels especially by older motorcyclists. There is also some evidence that speed is over represented in motorcycle fatalities in particular, leading to an enhanced focus on speed management practices for motorcyclists."

"The research for this project included consultation. This was very successful, and secured a large number of substantive responses form industry, government and user stakeholders as well as individual motorcyclists. See Appendix 5 for a selection of the formal responses. The verbal, email and written feedback obtained from motorcycle users included thoughtful cost benefit analyses, details of possible approaches, support for identification (if not necessarily for front plates ,as there were many concerns over their fitment to many machines), a consistent pattern of puzzlement over the problems of enforcement that appear to demand reintroduction of front visual plates when rear plates are used world wide with the same enforcement equipment, and a widespread lack of conviction that the proposal was for safety goals."

"The cost of this proposal, as a retrofit to the existing motorcycle fleet, will take less time than an ADR approach, which could not alone cover the existing fleet. Analysis of the Victorian motorcycle fleet and the likely operational and resource costs indicated that the cost of a full retrofit proposal is estimated to cost $12.1 million dollars for the retrofit and first year of operation, with $0.93 million dollars recurrent annually thereafter. These values are based on conservative assumptions, all of which are laid out in the body of the report."

"The recent rulings in the European Union3 for pedestrian-friendly front ends of motor vehicles has ensured that modifications to frontal treatments (already critical in integrated motorcycle design), would not be addressed by European motorcycle manufacturers4. The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) has a similar view. The FCAI represents Aprilia. BMW, Ducati, Honda, Harley-Davidson, Suzuki, Yamaha and Kawasaki in Australia.

These companies make up most of the motorcycle market in Australia. Fitment of front registration numbers will therefore have to be developed, refined and all design and liability issues resolved at State level in Australia. on a case by case basis for the extensive range of current and past motorcycles. This effort could be costly to motorcyclists and the community and involve retrofitting to a very large number of different models and types of machine going back 20 years and more."

"Western Australia has not yet proclaimed their new owner onus provisions regarding speed infringements, and currently operates an advertised location speed management strategy and has a high level of dependence on frontal camera shots for speed enforcement. Furthermore the Police concerns over some motorcyclists expressing their negative attitudes through gestures, wheelies (not necessarily a speed issue as they can be done at very low speeds with many modern machines) and high speeds through the speed sites have been given very wide publicity across Australia.

This has led to a high level of awareness of the dependence on frontal photographs and the inability to capture motorcycles using this operational procedure amongst riders who previously were unaware of this. The issue in WA has now become one where either changes in Police procedure (to take rear plates) or front number plate identification is now necessary. Both options are being considered as owner onus legislation is available to bring into effect but the necessary enforcement infrastructure is not yet complete.

In Victoria and States other than WA owner onus legislation is already in effect, and means other than speed cameras set up to take images from the front are also used for speed enforcement. The awareness of motorcyclists in these other States that they could be identified when only frontal pictures were taken was at a low level, until recently, when Police statements and media publicity drew it to their attention. In general, only the CityLink centre lane cameras were previously known to be ineffective for motorcycle speed enforcement by a significant group."


EDIT: seems VICROADS have taken down thier webpage but I've attached the PDFs to this post now.

[matt232]

Reasons for front identification The major concerns over the issue of front number identification expressed by those consulted in several jurisdictions are outlined below:

1. Police concerns over the behaviour of some motorcyclists exploiting their knowledge of the current inability to be detected from the front in some locations Those of concern pass known camera sites at excessive speeds and sometimes with inappropriate manoeuvres and gestures. These views were given from several different States, in conjunction with a belief that this knowledge was widely held by all or most motorcyclists and it was also believed that there was a general lack of compliance of motorcycles with speed laws.
2. Road safety concerns that if speed enforcement is not perceived to effective by some groups of road users, then the strategy of reducing the general speed environment could be undermined. Even small general reductions in speed are associated with significant safety gains. This has been confirmed in both metropolitan (Kloeden and McLean, Moore, and Ponte G. 1997) and rural environments (Kloeden, Ponte and Mclean, 2001)
3. The desire to address any area of motorcycle safety where improvements might prove to be possible, as a response to the recent rise in the number of deaths of motorcyclists, which parallels the rise in motorcycle sales and an increase of new or returning older riders.

Car violations that could not be issued (no frontal identification): 703
Motorcycle violations that could not be issued (no frontal identification: 1044
Table 1. June-Dec 2001 Speed camera data from Victoria

[matt232]

GREAT!!! There goes out warrantees Barstards!!!!

Once again Will I HOPE you are on the money!!


CONSULTATION

Consultation included the full mailing list of the ITS Australia7, the members of Victorian Motorcycle Advisory Council in Victoria, several motorcycle oriented email lists and a program of direct email and telephone contact with motorcycle user groups, stakeholders in the motorcycle retail industry, Registration and Licensing Authorities, motorcycle manufacturers and distributors, professional committees such as the US National Science Foundation Transportation Research Board Motorcycle and Moped Committee and motorcycle industry and user groups overseas. A visit was made to Western Australia, and ten meetings and a weekend round table with user groups were held in Perth to ensure that WA circumstances and views were fully taken into account.

A selection of the written and emailed consultation responses is given in Appendix 5, and only some of the common concerns are summarised here.

Motorcyclists:

Motorcyclists expressed concern over safety, appearance and damage aspects of front decals. Generally no concern over a front decal if it could be fitted while addressing these guidelines. Significant concern was evident over the surveillance (and particularly covert) implications of electronic alternatives. Frequent themes were puzzlement over the inability of Police to use pictures of rear number plates, a lack of belief that any safety issue was involved, and a conviction that the front number plate issues were focussed solely on revenue collection and had no safety rationale. The latter view concurs with the more general findings of Elliott and Shanahan (1995a,b).

The dangers of providing a frontal aluminium or steel plate are widely recognized, and no official or other party has suggested that their use would be acceptable on the front of motorcycles. An adhesive decal was broadly agreed to be the most workable frontal solution for visual identification purposes. A significant number of motorcyclists8 suggested that that they would voluntarily comply if simply provided with such decals – as long as they were not unsightly and could be placed on their windscreen or front mudguard (where suitable extensive in coverage of the wheel and wide enough) without obscuring their frontal view and caused no damage to their motorcycles or scooters..

Registration and Licensing

Not greatly concerned: simply an issue to administer if it came into effect. Costs incurred by a retrofit program could be substantial. NSW has recently spent a year securing agreement not to have to supply two plates to motorcycles and hope not to see this reversed so soon. Victoria was concerned over costs of any retrospective (“retrofit”) program (see the costing section later in this report). Some concern was also expressed over the issuing process that would be required for existing machines, especially if a variety of methods and repeated contacts had to be catered for to ensure coverage of all machines.

Police

Senior officers appear to have higher levels of concern than the junior and field operations officers involved in enforcement activities. Some strong views were expressed over motorcyclists who exploit the lack of a front number plate to express their resentment of the Police on camera.

There was a concern that an awareness of the reliance on frontal recognition had led to excessive speeds by a broader cross-section of riders than this small group in the knowledge that they could not be caught by frontal images. Technical issues in terms of camera deployment, constraints on operational procedures and the processes required to ensure convictions in the Courts from the data presented were regular themes.

Motorcycle Distributors and retailers:

Significant concern was expressed over legal liability issues from attachment methods other than adhesive stickers, interactions with airflow, warranty, and safety implications. The huge range of machines likely to need specialised one-off treatment is also a concern, and a Government Liability Waiver was expressed to be needed by one substantial importer and manufacturer representative if attachment methods other than an adhesive sticker (requiring clamps of additional bolts or brackets) were required. The issues raised by a legislative requirement to retrofit the entire motorcycle fleet were not addressed. Motorcycle manufacturers Figure 2 provides a perspective on the relative market shares for new machines by each manufacturer. The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) represents Honda, Ducati, Harley-Davidson, Aprilia, Yamaha, Kawasaki, Suzuki and BMW. The Australian representatives of Triumph, Honda and Harley-Davidson also responded separately, and were specifically concerned that any modifications made to the front of new machines would lead to repudiation of the warranty by the manufacturer. This would affect them directly as well as the owners.

Figure 2. Reported9 new Motorcycle Sales in Victoria Jan-September 2001

The FCAI and the Association of European Motorcycle Constructors (ACEM) focussed on future machines and not current or past models. Concern was expressed at the effects of any new and unique Australian ADR, as the market in Australia is so small in global terms that securing special action for Australia would be very difficult and costly.

There was concern both over any possible ADR compliance procedures, and the physical effects on the integrated design, cooling and stability factors on the front end on their extremely varied range of motorcycle and scooters. FCAI asserted that existing machines still under warranty would also lose the manufacturers warranty if modifications were made to the front end of the machines.

It was pointed out that front number identifiers are not required (and are indeed sometimes banned) in almost every other jurisdiction in the world. Local parties have had difficulty in having their questions taken seriously by their overseas manufacturers, even when one manufacturer had their ADR specialist raise the matter personally with the key staff of the manufacturer in Japan.

ACEM suggested that the recent European Union motor vehicle manufacturer agreements on pedestrian safety would also appear to preclude consideration of frontal attachments to motorcycles.

TransUrban, and CityLink Camera Enforcement

TransUrban has in the past preferred front images (every single vehicle is detected) as the prime mover of articulated trucks has the registration plate at the front of the prime mover itself, while trailers have separate and different registration numbers. TransUrban is currently actively considering moving to a dual camera arrangement to take front and rear simultaneously. This would address their detection problem for motorcycles, as the TransUrban system is already designed explicitly to detect vehicles at all speeds up to well over the speed limit.

Under the CityLink Act the charging enforcement camera systems cannot be used or directly connected to traffic enforcement camera systems. Motorcycle speeding problems have been restricted to the centre lanes of the Domain tunnel where the fixed cameras are set up to take pictures from the front of the vehicles. All of the other Domain tunnel lanes and traffic enforcement sites take pictures from the rear.

[Athens954]

VicRoads... man did you just bring back memories... my version is "what a bunch of pricks!"

[ND4SPD]

One important question....where on earth will you hang a number plate on the front of your motorcycle? Over your headlight? Over your windshield??!

[matt232]

Originally Posted by ND4SPD

One important question....where on earth will you hang a number plate on the front of your motorcycle? Over your headlight? Over your windshield??!

There are a few pics of the decals in the appendix (third) PDF.

Also check out this thread in another Aussie forum I just found which seems to identify where the front number plate idea came from.

http://www.overclockers.com.au/mc/fo...pic.php?t=1790

or straight from the horses mouth, quite a few good initiatives but there are a few that a somwhat flawed.

http://www.arrivealive.vic.gov.au/c_motorcycleS2.html

[WetShrub]

Think they could argue against it because of engine cooling issues? If you mount it in the windsheild then how do you see? If you drop it down below the nose fairing it would block too much radiator space. If you mount it on the fork tube it could clip stuff and send the bike down?.....

[FuTAnT]

Originally Posted by maxib

Z-dude,

Your sig has never been more appropriate.

To you and all your mates, I frustrate with you. (Sounded better than empathize) Here's hoping this will not happen.

We get but ****ed from numerous fronts at times over here. Victoria is the worst. They get done for just a few kays over the speed limits, which would be no more than 2MPH over (JOKE!) and now they want front numberplates as well to attempt to "curb the death toll" on motorcycles.

Anyone with half a brain can easily see this kind of reaction has to have been invented by some halfwit with a few cromosomes missing while high on speed drinking Bundy Rum (that makes u kinda troppo ). The worst part about is it just makes you friggen angry at the establishment.

When will someone come to their senses and just promote safe riding practices, improved rider training and improved roadside furniture. Get rid of the wire ropes, fix up some of the friggen roads n **** like that.

Oh I forgot .. that's 'cause solving the problem by being proactive costs lots of money, as where just handing out speeding tickets does little but reaps millions.

In Oz .. everyone's a criminal!

[Baketech]

This kind of **** is why us dumbass Amurikans don't mind when we are criticized for fighting against the erosion of our personal freedoms.....

You let em take your guns...now they gonna take your bikes....

Better do more than hope it doesn't happen....
Your best defense is to become active with your riders advocacy groups over there....I wish you luck...

[The Sook]

There was a good article on mcnews.com.au from a guy at Honda regarding all this and how the stats were flawed. There was also a judge in NSW in the last few days that was quoted as saying in a verdict on a speeding driver, that EVERYONE speeds, and that the people that end up in court are the unlucky ones. Think about it. Police KNOW that speeding is SO dangerous and WILL kill you, yet, drive from Sydney to Melbourne and watch how many cops pass you while you're doing 120km/hr in a 110 zone. They're doing like 140, no probs. They're not chasing anyone, they're just in a hurry. Also, you drive through an RBT and speed off on your bike. They jump right in and chase doing 180km/hr, without a thought. But hang on. Speeding will kill you. They are supposed to KNOW this, yet they do it all the time. It's like a paramedic doing Heroin. They see and revive people all day that do it, they know the dangers, but still do it themselves? Bullshit. It's ALL about money.

[FuTAnT]

Originally Posted by The Sook

There was a good article on mcnews.com.au from a guy at Honda regarding all this and how the stats were flawed. There was also a judge in NSW in the last few days that was quoted as saying in a verdict on a speeding driver, that EVERYONE speeds, and that the people that end up in court are the unlucky ones. Think about it. Police KNOW that speeding is SO dangerous and WILL kill you, yet, drive from Sydney to Melbourne and watch how many cops pass you while you're doing 120km/hr in a 110 zone. They're doing like 140, no probs. They're not chasing anyone, they're just in a hurry. Also, you drive through an RBT and speed off on your bike. They jump right in and chase doing 180km/hr, without a thought. But hang on. Speeding will kill you. They are supposed to KNOW this, yet they do it all the time. It's like a paramedic doing Heroin. They see and revive people all day that do it, they know the dangers, but still do it themselves? Bullshit. It's ALL about money.

Absolutely, you know this, I know this we all friggen know it, even the pollies, it's just a big friggen scam to reap in money for the coffers. There are other advantages to the odd bit of speeding such as improved bike handling and reflexes at lower speeds. If you're quick enough to react at high speeds it then means that you can now react at slower speeds that much better. Kind of like conditioning yourself to be that bit more alert at all times. If you've only ever driven at 100km/h max, it means that at 100km/h you're going to be less comfortable than someone who has on the odd occasion pushed the limits and handled more speed. There's lots of loops n reasons every which way, but speed is not the ultimate killer. Excessive speed, as in way over and in excess sure is, as are stupid dickheads who can't handle a bike/car for **** and should have been shot at the testing centre. If we only had a "****tard" camera things would be great!

[The Sook]

The other thing is, that in that RTA survey they had on TV a while ago, the motorcyclists were the BEST with results, knowing more rules, having better road craft etc etc. No mention of that anywhere. It'd also be interesting to see the driver stats on bike riders vs non bike riders, ie: if the bike riders that drive are better than drivers that don't ride. Figures lie, and they can tell you anything they friggin want. They obviously hate bikes, so we just gotta keep fighting it. Tell me how you can justify a bike paying the same for a car/van through toll gates?

[matt232]

What he hell is it with the Age.....looks like they are hell bent on getting bikes off the road!!

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/20...823245290.html

[The Sook]

And on a slightly different matter but along the same lines, Josh Brookes won the WSS race on the weekend, which was absolutley awesome, and what have you heard about it on the news or sports shows? SFA. Coz let's face it, I'd much rather hear how VJ Singh or Aaron Badley is doing on the third round at dikville. WHAT is GOING ON?

[FuTAnT]

Originally Posted by The Sook

And on a slightly different matter but along the same lines, Josh Brookes won the WSS race on the weekend, which was absolutley awesome