MCN circulation drops spectacularly during the winter off-season but there are some good articles in it and this week (26th January Edition) there is, among lots of other interesting stuff, a cracker.
The latest EU initiative to improve motorcycle safety is to make ABS compulsory on all new bikes over 125cc from 2017. Well that’s no bad thing because there’s good test evidence that despite what some riders think, ABS does improve stopping distances especially in slimy conditions. As long as market forces prevent manufacturers using this as an excuse for a price hike, fitting all bikes with ABS will save a few people coming off when they would otherwise do so and it might therefore save a few injuries.
But there’s also lots of research evidence to suggest that it will have no effect on fatalities due to what is called Risk Compensation.
The theory is that whatever new safety measure you try to introduce motorcyclists, as other road users, will use up the additional safety margin which the new measure provides (in order to ride faster or whatever) until they are taking the same level of risk they were doing before it came in. For example the introduction of neither crash helmets nor seat belts have led to any noticeable drop in fatality statistics. And there are lots of other examples to back this theory up too.
If you’d like to know more there are still copies of this week’s MCN on the shelves and the Article is on Page 18.
