the fink
In lieu of…
Bikers Corner
Bike Torque – a series of chats
on the motorcycle world by
Gavin Foster
Trying to argue that motorcycles aren’t
dangerous is like claiming an absence of proof
that smoking causes cancer. Some bikers
ride like hooligans for their whole lives and
get away with it, while everybody has a story
to tell about an uncle who smoked from the
age of six months until he died at 93 after
being shot by a jealous husband, but there’s
no doubt that both riding motorcycles and
smoking can shorten your life considerably if –
or when - things go wrong.
M
any years ago South Africa’s
most famous motorcycle
journalist, Simon Fourie took
the Durban based Sunday Express to
court after it claimed in an article that
South African bikers were maiming
themselves in droves. An aggrieved
Fourie, at the time misguidedly
training to become a lawyer, produced
statistics proving that the buggers had
exaggerated in their story, and when the
newsmen refused to print a retraction,
summonsed them to prove their case in
court.
The trial degenerated into a comedy show
when Fourie, incensed by what he saw as
the defence team’s untruths, leapt to his
feet from his wheelchair, only to emulate
his Kyalami experience and plummet to
the ground. Then the court orderlies tried
to pick up the stricken plaintiff by his
arm, which was also broken. Once he’d
stopped screaming Fourie peered up at
the judge from his supine position and
said “If you don’t mind, your honour, I’d
like to address the court from the floor.”
The laughter eventually died down, and
Fourie won his case.
On the day of the hearing Fourie rolled
into court in a wheelchair because
he’d broken seven bones racing his
motorcycle at Kyalami the previous
weekend. The judge took one look at our
battered hero and upbraided the Sunday
Express legal team for dragging this poor
soul to court in an overdramatic attempt
to prove its case. His Worship then had
to apologise when the defence pointed
out that the wheelchair warrior was in
fact the plaintiff, the man who claimed
motorbikes were safe.
Anyway, despite Fourie’s court victory,
motorcycles certainly can be dangerous,
so I was surprised to read that of the 350
000 or so motorcycles registered in our
country, fewer than one in a thousand is
involved in a fatal accident each year.
From then on things went downhill – or
got better, if you had a sense of humour.
For minibuses the figure is about
6,5/1000, passenger cars score 1,3/1000
and buses 9,6. The average across the
board is – or was, in 2006 where I got my
statistics – 1,71 vehicles per thousand
involved in fatal accidents. What may
skew the results, though, is the fact that
most bikes cover much less distance
each year than does the average car,
| words in action
94
june 2014
bus or minibus, and don’t wipe out 40
passengers every time the driver goes
faulty. .
What really irks me is the way the
authorities ignore the real risks while
focusing on revenue collecting rather
than road safety. Speed traps and road
blocks are their weapons of choice,
while common sense goes out the
window. Take a look at the accompanying
photograph. At the top of Fields Hill, on
the M13 heading towards Pinetown from
Pietermaritzburg, is a pedestrian bridge,
and on this bridge you will often see a
speed camera cunningly tucked away
behind a weight restriction signboard, set
so as to catch a motorcycle’s rear number
plate. In this photo you will also see a
truck illegally stopped on the freeway, with
a man standing in front of it, holding a
baby and talking to a woman. If you look
hard you’ll see the back of the camera
high up behind them. I watched this little
lot for about 20 minutes, during which the
traffic cop on duty alternated by dozing
in the deck chair next to his bakkie at the
end of the bridge, and wandering across
to the camera.
I rest my case.