More flat earth ‘road safety’

Dozens of motorcyclists' lives could be saved every year if air bag jackets were made compulsory, accident and emergency doctors have said. The jackets are the equivalent of car air bags and inflate if the rider is thrown off during a crash.

The same could be said for cyclists, of course. No doubt in car-supremacist Canada it will eventually be made compulsory.

But over 2,000 lives a year could be saved if all drivers obeyed road traffic law, if the government and police regarded driver crime as serious and started cracking down on it, and if the medical profession broke with its own car dependency and started regarding the epidemic of road violence as a major social issue. Fat chance.

And any benefits gained by motor cyclists wearing air bag jackets may well be cancelled by an increase in lawless risk-taking by high-speed bikers who think that wearing one makes them safer.