"Big bike" accident numbers predicted to rise in Thailand.

19th Feb 2564 (2021) the day the Thai "Big Bike" test is/was introduced.?I make note of this as I predict the unexpected consequences to actually see a rise in "Big Bike" accidents, along with a rise in small bike accidents as well.

Why do I say this? Now I am all for improving rider training, it should be centre to policy to improving safety on the roads. But that training has to be the right training to improve safety, unfortunately that is not what is being prescribed.

Training in Thailand is dominated by Honda, it is mostly conducted in off road facilities like the one shown in the video. All very good, well laid out, often very similar to race tracks with wide run outs and a lack of hazards, there little resemblance to the reality out on public roads.

Such training has been copied to some extent from Honda's home country, In Japan in order to get a motorcycle licence requires a theory test that has a high fail rate and requires many hours of study. The practical test being more a test of vehicle handling skills than of the prediction, spatial awareness and interactive skills required on public roads. There are also multiple levels of CC related restrictions and medical checks attached, most having little to do with the common causes of accidents.

Now Japan has seen a decrease in accidents over the last decade, which is good, however this 1st must also note:

In 2019, there were approximately 10.5 million?motorbikes?in use in?Japan, down from about 12.5 million?motorcycles?in 2010. The development over the past decade indicates a slow, yet consistent decrease of?motorcycles?owned in?Japan.
- Statista        

Less motorcycles in use = less motorcycle accidents.

Also the same accidents continue to happen for the same reasons as they always have -

Tokyo police go on traffic blitz as fatal motorcycle accidents double

Japan Population: 127 143 577 Total registered vehicles for 2013 - 91 377 312

Cars and 4-wheeled light vehicles- 76 137 715

Motorized 2- and 3-wheelers- 11 948 432

V-

Thailand Population: 67 010 502 Total registered vehicles for 2012 - 32 476 977

Cars and 4-wheeled light vehicles- 11 829 221

Motorized 2- and 3-wheelers- 19 169 418

So Thailand has fractionally just over half the population size of Japan yet over a third as many motorcycles on the roads. Most of these being smaller bikes that are used for a huge variety of reasons as basic transport.

GDP -

Thailand 543.5?billion USD (2019)

Japan 5.082?trillion USD (2019)

So the luxury "Big Bike" market in Thailand does not make up the majority of the 80% of road fatalities on Thailand's roads being two wheeled road users.

However, although this is so, I fully support improving training of big bike riders to help them improve safety on the roads. But, what has been found through research in Australia and the UK, along with decades of experience, is that focusing on improving machine handling and on applying rule focused systems of motorcycle control on the roads does not reduce a riders chances of having accidents.

Now this Thai News clip was shared by a Thai Motorcycle Instructor friend who made the Thai news discussing the big bike test (In Thai, but more interested in the riding clips showing the track riding) :-

Now I am not against getting a knee down, I understand the physics of centripetal forces and counter steering I also know that when racing on a race track and trying to gain a split second and travelling at speeds above 160kmh that getting weight transferred into the corner can increase cornering speeds. However, there is the issue. If such skills are practiced and a rider develops their cornering speeds, then when an accident happens there is a greater chance the rider will be going faster due to the over confidence installed by the training. This subject being the topic of an Australian road safety commercial - "Think!"

This is not the only issue either, the lack of prediction skills on the roads still not being addressed.

In the UK while the average novice usually requires around a weeks worth of training to be up to the standard of passing the DVSA Mod 2 test conducted on public roads. There are robust levels of Post Test training in line with the British Police "Roadcraft" standards, it is this that for the last 75 years has set the standards of "Advanced" training.

Based on the system of 'right place, right time, right speed and right gear', the Roadcraft system of car control is simple but highly effective.

To apply this we have taught methods such as the "Limit or Vanishing Point" to gauge entrance speeds to corners. Note that I sung the praises of this approach for 3 decades and can recite from the 4 editions of Motorcycle Roadcraft that cover the last 45 years. It is still the default of RoSPA and the IAM

Only this same thinking has not stopped the same types of road accidents continuing to happen to those who follow roadcraft to the letter. It has even been shown that some roadcraft trained riders have gone on to have higher speed rural accidents through suggested over confidence. This now leading to a growing number of us looking to address the approach to training via the application of systemic based safety approaches like Safety Differently and Safety II

Applied to road safety we know most motorcycle accidents are Surprise events so by addressing the surprises we can reduce the numbers of accidents.

“All accidents are the result of prediction failure.

Surprise is Nature’s way of telling us we have experienced such a failure.

If there is no surprise there can be no accident”

Duncan MacKillop

This in turn links to the science of being seen where we can work with other road users to help overcome the common reasons for right of way errors:-

But this new thinking is still ignored, the default training still focused on rote learning rules and machine handling despite a decade of increasing fatalities and compliance focused interventions.

Right back in 1981 research into accident causation was conducted in Los Angeles USA regarding motorcycle accidents - MOTORCYCLE ACCIDENT CAUSE FACTORS AND IDENTIFICATION OF COUNTERMEASURES, this was also compared to research done in Thailand - Rider Training and Collision Avoidance in Thailand and Los Angeles Motorcycle Crashes? what was clear was the greatest issue was the same for both countries riders and that was a failure to respond to changing "surprise" events.

This leads into the other "Elephant in the room" the nature of how hyper compliance addresses the wrong things and in turn leads to "the cobra effect" the origin of unexpected consequences.

This fine example of a machine is a Suzuki T500 two stroke twin, a machine I rode 4 decades ago. Note it's drum brakes and cross-ply tyres, it was cheap and fast (for it's time), was all I could afford back then. Not very different to the "Big Bike" limit of 400cc being applied to licencing in Thailand. In the UK learners are restricted by CC as well. The last couple of decades seeing increased hyper compliance via the the current DVSA's 8 different motorcycle licence categories the intention was that riders moved on progressively up through the steps as they came of age. The issue was however that this means repeatedly taking the same test and so many young riders only do the basic entry "Compulsory Basic Training" course and just riding around on L plates. The "GIG" economy now seeing many riders seeking commercial employment yet having not ever taking any training beyond an introductory basic entry level course.

What then happens is riders will try to make the bikes they can ride within the legal framework faster. Many of the bikes on Thailand's roads already being modified small bikes that are easy to fix and cheap to run.

Here are a couple of examples of incidents on Thailand's roads:-

So no accidents, everyone was OK, life goes on. Everyone got to where they wanted to go, those on the coach made their train and bus connections. Everyone is happy.

Just those same reasons for things going right for the majority of the time are the same reasons they occasionally go wrong. They say statistically that Thailand is the most dangerous place to ride a motorcycle on the planet. A wide spread Buddhist belief is in reincarnation, that means that it is common for people to believe in fate, Karma and spirits. While everyone has a different level of interpretation of the beliefs, there are many who believe their lives are guided by other forces. This means the last decade of focus on wearing helmets could be suggested to be like a religious campaign of forcing beliefs onto others, the evidence of a decade of action focused mainly on helmet compliance seeing #50by20 to mean a doubling of road fatalities on Thailand's roads in a decade. ( 10472 in 2010 to?20169 in 2018. )

What I find frustrating most of all is that the new thinking we share regarding improving rider training via systemic real world skills development fits closely with traditional master/student teaching methods, focused on developing learning skills rather than telling people to follow rules

"An educator tries to transmit a way of thinking and a way of conducting inquiries. And he does not pretend that these are the only ways. Among other things, he recognizes that differences in personality lead those with different personalities to select different ways of thinking and behaving."

Russell Ackoff

Compare this to the teachings of Buddhism and we find far more common ground than that pursued by the ongoing onslaught of hyper compliance

“By oneself is evil done; by oneself is one defiled. By oneself is evil left undone; by oneself is one made pure. Purity and impurity depend on oneself; no one can purify another.”

The Buddha

The way to improve safety on Thailand's roads is through helping Thailand's riders to develop the real world survival skills to help them avoid the common surprise events. This can be done by simply taking the training out onto the roads and helping to develop in riders well proven means to improve their safety when approaching and navigating real world situations such as U-turns and cornering.

Unfortunately it seems that before this simple lesson is learned we have to go through another decade of increasing rider fatalities, over reliance on ineffective PPE, focus on improving machine handling and hindsight biased blame used to sell technology fixes for the wrong problems instead.

Motorcycle Skills Asia