As the peak of the motorbike riding season begins, a new initiative set up by the Avon and Somerset constabulary has sparked interest with a new vehicle which is being used to promote the campaign.
The vehicle in question is that of the Ariel Atom, dubbed ‘the closest thing to a motorbike with four wheels’. It is known for its exceptional speed capabilities and its fame for having held Top Gear’s lap record for two years, as well as surpassing the speeds of some superbikes. It has been brought on board to highlight Somerset’s SAFER RIDER campaign, designed to bring awareness to motorcyclists from other road users and for motorcyclists to also be prudent on the roads this summer.
In Somerset there has been an increase in the number of motorbikers who have lost their lives with the large proportion of both fatal and serious road accidents involving males between the ages of 35 – 55 years old. The initiative seeks to address the issue that there is only a small percentage of motorbikers which make up the total amount of road users, yet there is a disproportionately high number of accidents which involve them.
The head of the Safer Rider Campaign, Andy Parsons said these days motorbikes are capable of high speeds in terms of acceleration and that along with this comes an increased risk of an accident, he said that some bikers are not trained properly and errors are made more easily.
Speaking about road safety, Simon Saunders, who is the director of Ariel said that the business he was in is about ‘going fast, very fast’ but that there was a time and a place for that. He said: “The road really isn’t the place to explore your or your vehicle’s limits. He added: ‘We’re just about to launch an all new Ariel motorcycle and we want our bikes and customers to be as safe as they possibly can be as well, so this message is important to us. There’s always one certain loser in a motorcycle collision and that’s the motorcyclist.”
Sergeant Parsons added that he was pleased to have the Ariel on board to promote the Safer Rider campaign, he said: “To be safe, rider and machine need to work in harmony. “When this happens it feels immediately right. When it doesn’t, things go wrong. Too many injuries and deaths are the result of rider error. Now is your chance to do something about it. Somerset Bike Day has developed from the belief that:- a trained rider is a safer rider.”
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