I was hoping to be able to post this morning about two questions I’ve put to the ACC, but they haven’t answered yet, so I’ve had a look at the accident data instead. As a lane-splitting motorcycle commuter this is a touchy subject for me, even though I’ve been doing it morning and night on Auckland’s motorways for 8 years without a prang (touches wood, crosses fingers).
Kind friends pointed me to Motor Vehicle Crashes in New Zealand 2008, a statistical report prepared by the Ministry of Transport. While fairly complete, it is not detailed enough for what I wanted. The main ommission is information on accidents involving two or more road users (eg car:motorcycle). Lots of accidents must be like this, even though a few of us are prone to just canning out without involving other road users!
Information on these events is needed to figure out the pattern of cross-subsidies between road users. When a drunk car driver cleans out a biker or pedestrian, the ACC costs should be allocated to cars, not to motorcycles or pedestrians.The MoT data is not detailed enough to get into these issues, but I’m sure ACC will know because they’ve analysed cross-subsidies between road users. Maybe they’ll get back to me today.
In the meantime, here are a few summary graphs. The MoT crash data include numbers of crashes, contributing factors, injuries and deaths by road-user type. Here is the basic breakdown for 2008 of road accident victims:
Remember this is about who gets hurt/killed, not how it happened. Most of the victims are in steel-clad vehicles. Bikers and others (cyclists and pedestrians) cop it about equally. My guess is that, to the extent there are other parties involved, “other” road users are mostly being harmed by cars & trucks, not motorcyclists.
Here are the most important factors suspected of contributing to injuries, expressed as the total number of injuries for each user type (the data do not include information on pedestrians, so I’m only reporting info for bikers and a combination category of cars/trucks etc.
Its interesting that most of these factors are more likely to contribute to car/truck injuries than motorcycle injuries. The things that get bikers more often are loss of control and inexperience (which is probably correlated with loss of control – there can be more than one contributing factor). Also interesting that booze is much more likely to be a factor in car/truck injuries than for bikers.
Now here is the same information for things that contribute to deaths:
Notice that the horizontal scale goes a lot further for the death data. They show that booze was a suspected factor in 90% of motorcyclist deaths, a huge effect. But it doesn’t say who was drinking. Could be a Darwin effect (drunk biker kills themselves) or a collision with a car/truck driven by a drunk. Loss of control and excessive speed are also big factors, with inexperience also being important.
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That second chart is very telling. I’ve often said that drinking and riding is a good way to die – and there is the proof. The minimum amount of attention and control required on a bike is far higher than in a car, and while there is little to distract you normally (first chart), when you have had even one or two drinks your ability to stay upright is vastly reduced.
Perhaps a zero tolerance (0.00) policy for drinking and riding could be in order – it may annoy a few but it might save a few lives.
This is my intended submission on the proposed ACC increases.
There are several points I wish to raise, and offer a fairer methodology of funding ACC claims using registration charges than the present proposal of a 300% increase.
We recognize you feel that due to the high cost to ACC for motorbike related claims, motorbikes should pay a greater levy to cover some of those costs and remove the perceived cross charged burden from the general motor car/van fleet in NZ.
As a commuter who uses a motorbike in peak traffic, I recognize the risk riding motorbikes in NZ holds. But moving all the costs onto bikers regardless of who is a fault seems to go against the ACC “no-fault” scheme.
Where the fault is completely attributable to biker only related claims, levies based on this are understandable. But since no CAS ( Crash Analysis ) data seems to be available in NZ to identify the exact ratio of Car on Bike incidents I can only refer to the UK figures provided by the UK AA’s web site ( Automobile Association ) of 80%. I have used these figures because the UK AA being an insurance company have done its figures to ascertain premium levels.
Quote.
“Simon Douglas, director of AA Insurance, says: “Tragically, 80% of all motorcycle accidents are the fault of road users other than the motor cyclist. For car and commercial vehicle drivers it’s very easy to miss seeing an approaching motorbike, especially in congested areas.” http://www.theaa.com/insurance/news/born-again-motorbikers.html.
Given that this number is possibly inflated compared to NZ, let us take a very conservative starting point of 60% Car initiated on Bike incidents.
( see below for alternate figures ) and use the existing fleet of registered motorbikes over 50cc of 106,000.
ACC payed Approximately $62 M last year on bike related claims.
This would equate to $62M / 106,000 = $584
This figure equates to near your recommended increase for under 600cc bikes should we be completely self funding for the present rate of ACC claims.
One of the problems we have, is these figures ARE FOR COMPETE SELF FUNDING, base on ACC payouts last year. These do not take into account Car on Bike, which is a large contributing factor.
If we look at ACC’s original “No-fault charter” and use the 60% Car on Bike numbers as a base line, this would give a fairer calculation based on the ACC charter. This factors in the added risk of undertaking a perceived dangerous form of transport, and places the appropriate level of responsibility on the motorbike users.
So lets do the calculations and cross charges using these simple numbers ( as a low estimate of Car on Bike related claims ).
ACC cost $62M – 60% = $25M ( Bike only claim costs, no cross charge applicable ).
$25M / 106,000 = $236 ( or nearly what the existing ACC component for bikes is now based on the original 150% weighting recommended in the last ACC review ).
The remainder Car on Bike or ($62M – $25M ) = $37M is the component that logically should be covered by the total vehicle fund, as this number is the essence of the ACC “no-fault charter”.
This is not Cars subsidizing bikes. This number is reflecting the true cost to ACC of Cars hitting bikes. As this is a “no-fault system” all contributors to the vehicle fund should pay to cover this component of the total ACC claims. Cars, Bikes, and Vans, just as they do for ACC costs to cover pedestrians, cyclists etc .
$37M / ( Total Cars reg in 2008 = 2.8M + Total Bikes over 50cc reg in 2008 = 106,000 ) = $12
Again $37M / (2.8M + 106,000) = $12
Remembering for motorbikes this $12 is also in addition to the $236, funding bike only related claims.
Even if we dropped the Car on Bike to an unrealistic 50% level this would work out a combined charge of $11.
Even at 50% would not a $293 ( sole bike ) + $11 per from the combined vehicle fund cover ACC costs.
Ie. (( 293 +11 ) x 106,000 ) + ( 2.8M x 11 ) = 32, 224,000 + 30,800,000 = $62M
Data sources
( http://www.landtransport.govt.nz/statistics/motor-vehicle-registration/docs/2008.pdf )
Total Cars reg in 2008 = 2,789,676
Total Bikes reg in 2008 = 106,454
Number of accidents requiring ACC
( http://www.acc.co.nz/about-acc/statistics/acc-injury-statistics-2008/2-all-entitlement-claims/IS0800020 )
http://www.theaa.com/insurance
ACC Motor Vehicle Account 2010/11 Technical Report on Levy Setting Methodology For Consultation