Waikato motorcyclists learn safety skills
Among the motorcyclists who spent their Saturday learning safety skills was one who had stopped riding after her brother was hurt in an accident.
A motorcyclist who stopped riding after her brother was hit by a car was back on her bike for a safety training day at the weekend.
About 14 riders took part in the training day at Waikato University, instructed by Andrew Templeton, owner and operator of Roadsafe, a motorcycle and scooter rider training company.
The training days are held once a year in Hamilton, Wellington and the Tasman district, and cater for riders with different licences and experience levels.
Lisa Rennie signed up through a recommendation from friend, but she had only recently got back onto the road.
Rennie’s brother was left a tetraplegic after a car hit him while he was riding.
After his accident,Rennie stopped riding her motorcycle and her family did not want her to ride either.
“I have realised with my brother, it is not just my life, it is theirs too,” she said.
But after three of her friends died this year, she decided to start up her passion of riding again.
“If you want to do something, you better do it,” she said.
John Spence, 54, a rider from Te Awamutu, said he almost got t-boned a couple of months before Christmas but safety training helped him avoid the accident.
“They [car drivers] are not paying enough attention,” he said.
Spence got his motorcycle licence in about 1977 and stopped riding in 1992 before getting back into it four years ago.
“You go to a day like this and think, shit, I got a lot of fine tuning to do,” he said.
Templeton said that people in cars do not look out for motorcyclists as they do for cars.
He said motorcyclists can make themselves more visible by wearing high visible clothing and making their bike stand out.
Templeton has been with Roadsafe for 18 years, and has run the motorcycle training day for seven years.
He designed the exercises to teach riders a variety of safety skills such as braking safely and keeping their heads up when going through roundabouts.
Mark Aldred from the Hamilton Ulysses Club, a social riding club, was one of the mentors at the day and said checking tyre pressures is one of the safety precautions motorcyclists need to be aware of.
He said there is always something to learn each time he goes to the course.
“If you do not do it right, you do not survive,” he said.
The Hamilton City Council have collaborated with Waikato District, Waipa District and Thames-Coromandel District Councils to help subsidise the event as well as the NZTA.
In 2011, 33 motorcyclists died on the roads – 12% of all reported deaths on the road,
According to the Ministry of Transport, between 2007 and 2011, 36% of accidents involving motorcycles showed the motorcyclist was not at fault and 23% were the motorcyclists fault.
