Welcome to MOTO NZ!

by Gareth Morgan

There has been a lot of bickering about motorcyclist injury statistics, what they mean and whether they relate to the rising cost of motorcyclist injury claims to ACC. I was confused by it all, so I dug into the data to sort out the facts from the fantasy. I’m an economist after all, so I turn to the numbers when there’s an argument raging and the different sides are all wound up.  If we want to have a healthy, constructive debate, we need to have our facts straight, otherwise it’s just a noisy waste of everyone’s time.

My goal with this study was to educate myself. Now it’s to educate anyone who’s interested in knowing the facts and ensuring we keep the discussion rational and focused on what to do about it all. By all means pick this apart – that’s what I want you to do. But keep in mind that we’re all pursuing a factually-based and rational response to the issues around the rising human and financial toll from on-road motorcyclist injuries.

In Parts One and Two of this study, we covered

• Are Kiwi motorcyclists having more accidents?
• Exactly how much more risk is involved in riding a bike than driving a car, and has that risk increased? Read Parts 1 and 2 here.  

We have now posted Part 3, which covers:

• How likely are we to make an ACC claim as the result of having an on-road motorcycle accident, and has that changed of late? Read Part 3.  

In part 4 we’ll cover:

• Do motorcyclist injury claims really cost ACC so much more than other vehicle injury claims?

I reckon that with these facts straight, we can have a productive debate about the fairness of levy increases, the sanity of moving to a levy per rider rather than per vehicle, and most importantly how the hell we are going to make material advances on reducing the injury toll. My view is we can’t get to a sensible solution without considering all aspects of the challenge we face.

  Read Part 3 now