Testing the Limits of Yourself & Your Bike Survey

[ROD]

I took the test. What's 5 minutes to help someone out? For those of you who worry the results will be used against riders... wouldn't you rather have your say? I mean... based on your thinking, it's going to be used anyway... so you might as well be heard.

5 minutes i started and gave up after about 10 min

[Astro]

I took the test. What's 5 minutes to help someone out? For those of you who worry the results will be used against riders... wouldn't you rather have your say? I mean... based on your thinking, it's going to be used anyway... so you might as well be heard.

5 minutes i started and gave up after about 10 min

LOL... I'm old Rod... time passes faster than I realise sometimes....

[busacrankin]

+ 1 Max more guns more bikes me loves it very much.
+ 10 Bazman that`s exactly what the anti gun lobby did to law abiding gun owners a while back. Don`t feed the boffins & professors shit they will definately turn it on us. Heard one on 2ue a while back one morning nothing could turn that arseclown`s opinions around & he contributed to Legislation & wasn`t even elected to represent the people the *^%kwit.

[Catherine010]

Dear participant in the "Psychological Desire for Control, Testing the Limits, and Australian Motorcyclists" study

Thank you for completing our survey on motorcycling behaviour - your time and enthusiasm were very much appreciated.

You can find a summary of the study on the following website: http://www.deakin.edu.au/psychology/rese...lingstudy/

Cheers,
Catherine & Lucy

[GRUNTMAX]

Lady,
Whatever you reckon. At the end of the day, all your bullshi* will some how get back to the Communist Australian NSW/Chinese Labor Government RTA & those mongrels will bend & twist the information to create more jobs rules & regulations for themselves to the disadvantage to all motorcycle riders.
Maybe you could make yourself useful & do a survey on Australia's pissweak magistrates and pissweak punishments administered to drunk drivers.
Maybe you could also do a survey of how the NSW Police Force purposely turn up late to collisions when they know there is not an ambulance there to avoid getting blood on their darling little hands.
Please note the new Aussie Flag.

Do a survey on that.

[Crane]

Dear participant in the "Psychological Desire for Control, Testing the Limits, and Australian Motorcyclists" study

Thank you for completing our survey on motorcycling behaviour - your time and enthusiasm were very much appreciated.

You can find a summary of the study on the following website: http://www.deakin.edu.au/psychology/rese...lingstudy/

Cheers,
Catherine & Lucy

We speculate that riders with higher desire for control are engaging in more speeding and stunting in order to test the limits of themselves and their bikes, improve their skills, and become safer riders. They then may have fewer traffic and control errors because their riskier riding has led to them becoming more skilful and safer on the roads. However, it may also be that riders with higher desire for control engage in riskier riding only in environments where traffic and control errors are unlikely to occur. Obviously, more research is needed, to better understand these findings.

Interesting observations but a bit incomplete dont you think. I didn't participate in the survey but I consider myself (white, male, 40's, blue collar) to be a person who takes zero crap and has very high expectations of myself when it comes to exercising control over my life.

However I dont find that speeding or stunting is a part of my riding life and I think that my desire to maintain control over my destiny is a major player in that. Speeding tickets and the possibility of an impersonal government taking away my right to ride as a result has me much more interested in improving my skills by riding my best in an environment where speeding is not really an option (very twisty road) or where its legal (track days etc). I think you should have differentiated between irresponsible skill enhancement and riding purposefully for the same result even if it is on a public road. You also didn't give any age breakdown relative to either the riding experience of participants or the control they expect over their lives.

So without blathering on I think the above poster has a point, even expressed as it is In my opinion your last sentence above sums it up; Its a bit like taking a course of antibiotics, if you dont take the whole lot the bug just gets stronger. So since its obvious to you that more research is necessary to understand the findings, do it inclusive of your current research for, from what you've written, there is every chance that some polly with little better to do could take what you've so far done and run amok with it.

Regards

[Heidi1]

But you didn't participate in the survey. That's like not voting and them bitching about the government you get.

[GRUNTMAX]

Tell em nothing, take em nowhere.
Hope you had a fine time down Tathra Heidi.
Back in limited opportunity group publicservantsville (Canberra) now?
It would be realy good if you could fill out a survey like that and watch the kilobars of gold bullion spit out of your computer as payment for your time and effort.

[Heidi1]

I heard a lovely quote yesterday, democracy is not a spectator sport. Don't expect to be taken seriously unless you participate.

[Crane]

But you didn't participate in the survey. That's like not voting and them bitching about the government you get.

Yeah, for sure Heidi, I see your point about my non-participation and I wish I had been a part of the survey so I could've been informed of its content as well as its conclusion.

But my point is still the same. When an individual (or group) conducts a public examination of varying factors relating to any set of social circumstances they really are obligated to come up with a set of observations that are complete in themselves and provide, if not a direct answer, at least a deducible path to answer whatever question one could reasonably expect to be asked.

So, if not clear to the OP, I'm not condemming the survey. It's just that I finished reading the conclusions with more questions than when I started, the top two being the results in terms of rider age (there's no way I want to be lumped into a statistical box with the teenage idiot on an old RZ350 that nearly died under a truck right in front of me the other day) and a thorough qualification of what determines the very subjective issue of what parameters affect the determination of behaviour that could be classed as the "various motorcycle riding behaviours", including venue, age, experience, vehicle suitability, classification of "stunt" etc etc.

I'm all for public evaluation of social factors that affect everyone (eg. resultant medical costs that are shared by all from various personal behaviours) but the evaluation has to be conclusive to the point where it at least makes it difficult for someone with a personal or political axe to grind to grab the results under the auspises of "scientifically correct" and club the social group in question over the head with it.

More than one public examination of this type of a social group such as us has resulted in a public and media driven result that has horrified the originator of the study (the so called "supercar" scare of the early 70's being a prime example) but was a problem just waiting to happen because the "authoritive study" on which it was based was relatively incomplete and completely open to interpretation.

Anyway, I hope the study satisfied the purpose for which it was intended, which I assume was to contribute to the studies of Catherine010 and despite my opinion (or maybe because of it) I really enjoyed reading the results.

And besides which, Lol, what do I know, I dont even have a bike that can DO wheel spins!!

[Heidi1]

Damn good response Crane, and I agree wholeheartedly with your comments. Any evaluation is 'coloured' by the person conducting the reserach. It is human nature, no matter how hard you try, expectations and judgements creep into the results. Even statistics are evaluated by a computer program designed by a person. I wasn't arguing for or against the research, I was arguing for participation (in more than just this survey I must admit).

It is the media that is more of an issue, by using the language they use every time there is a motorcyle accident (police are seeing if speed was a factor.... witnesses are being sought to see if the motorcyclist was riding irresponsibly prior to the accident...), they are altering the perceptions of the general public and painting us all as wheel spinning hoons. It means that in the public's eye, there is the assumption that the bike was at fault before anything else. Nothing about cars that don't look or indicate. P-plate drivers and motorcyclists and PEOPLE THAT LIVE IN CANBERRA are all percived in a certain way due to the language that is used in the media.

Well. That got slightly off topic.

P.S. You do all realise that the politicians live with you don't you, they just visit Canberra. We quite like it when they f*** off to where you live.

[Crane]

...You do all realise that the politicians live with you don't you, they just visit Canberra. We quite like it when they f*** off to where you live.

The polly in Arnhem land where I work must love escaping to Canberra. He gets caned regularly whilst wandering around his electorate

[kawasuki]

You got gun riders here, not stunt riders.......

More guns and better riders!

Bigger guns, bigger bikes and bigger balls. Time to precious to waste on fodder for the Gov.