KEY POINTS:
Motorcyclists plan strong protests to press Transit NZ to abolish or safeguard wire "cheese-cutter" median barriers after an Auckland rider died.
The Bikers' Rights Association will take urgency over the issue at its annual meeting in Taranaki next weekend, and senior members of the Kiwibiker website met last night to decide how to vent their concerns over the death of 21-year-old Daniel Luke Evans on the Southern Motorway.
Bikers' Rights Auckland president Les Mason said he expected the motorcycling community would take some form of direct action in protest against "decisions that effectively declare that motorcyclists' lives are worthless and their safety is a matter of entire indifference to Transit".
"We are not going to be setting fire to anybody - it will be a peaceful protest but we are certainly concerned about an issue we have been raising with Transit for several years," he said yesterday.
Kiwibiker website spokeswoman Jen Halliday said her group was also discussing protest action over the death of Mr Evans, a telecommunications worker who sometimes contributed to its online forum.
Although some other contributors have suggested blockading the motorway, or riding slowly past wire barriers to emphasis how dangerous they regard them, Ms Halliday assured the Herald that the group would not sanction any action that might be illegal or cause unnecessary disruption to the public.
She said the group's prime concern was the danger wire barriers posed to motorcyclists travelling at any speed.
Another motorcyclist, Les Paterson, identified himself in an email to the Herald yesterday as a rare defender of wire barriers as "an economical way for the roading authorities to provide a reasonably safe division between opposing lanes".
The Harley Davidson rider said those wanting to ban them failed to recognise what he understood was the real cause of Saturday's tragedy. "Travelling at an estimated 150 km/h, [Mr Evans] was a victim of his youthful exuberance and lack of appreciation for his own vulnerability."
Police serious crash unit investigator Senior Constable Carl Bevan said officers who inspected the scene reckoned Mr Evans was travelling at 150 km/h or faster before being thrown off his bike and into wire barriers near Papakura about 3.30am on Saturday.
But Ms Halliday said her group did not intend being "sidetracked" by the speed factor, especially as a European Union study had found that 80 per cent of motorcyclists hitting wire barriers at more than 70 km/h lost limbs.
A motorcyclist riding ahead of Mr Evans who returned to find him severed "waist down", Felix Tsang, said last night he believed his friend could have slid out of harm's way had he not been thrown into the wires.
He said allowing Transit to install wires was inconsistent with a Land Transport NZ manual requiring warrant testing stations to fail vehicles that had sharp protruding objects.
Mr Mason said if Transit insisted on installing more wire barriers, instead of traditional W-section steel rails, it should at least follow the European example and encase them in plastic to dissipate their cutting force.
"The reason we call them cheese-cutters is that all the impact is concentrated on a knife edge," he said.
"Improving safety for some road users at the expense of cutting others in half is not something we are prepared to contemplate."
Transit said there was no evidence wire barriers are any more dangerous for motorcyclists than traditional steel rails. It believes they save at least two lives a year at Wellington blackspots.
TWO-WHEELED RISKS
* motorcyclists were killed last year, 10 per cent of road deaths.
* The Ministry of Transport says the risk of being involved in a crash is more than 14 times higher for a motorcyclist than for a car driver over the same distance travelled.
* The Bikers' Rights Association says transport safety agencies must not ignore the needs of a sizeable minority of road users which has grown annually by 30 per cent in the past five years.
