Motorcycle safety campaign launched to reduce road deaths

The week-long campaign, which urges bikers to stay safe on roads across Cleveland and Durham, looks to raise awareness and educate road users and riders generally on how to improve driver/rider behaviour which in turn reduces the number of fatal and serious collisions on our roads.

Motorcyclists remain one of the most vulnerable road users, accounting for 18% of all road deaths in the UK during 2016.

Across Cleveland and Durham, there have been four fatal motorcycle collisions to date this year, compared to two in 2017.

The launch of the campaign ties in with the Bank Holiday weekend, which is traditionally a busier time on the roads.

Last year the initiative saw a total of 1345 motorcycles stopped nationally and 649 road traffic offences detected. 35% of these offences were speeding.

Next week riders will be encouraged to ride responsibly and to think about taking extra training and coaching from a range of providers.

These include the police-run ‘BikeSafe’ scheme, additional post-test training in the commercial sector or by enlisting for advanced training with the Institute of Advanced Motorcyclist (IAM) or the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA).

Inspector Jon Curtis said: “This is an important campaign which looks to save lives on our roads.

"It is the responsibility of all road users to drive or ride as safely as possible in order to reduce the numbers of serious and fatal collisions. “As road policing officers we often deal with the aftermath of serious or fatal road traffic collisions and see the devastating impact this can have across whole families.

"This campaign aims to educate and raise awareness in order to try to prevent these tragedies from happening.”