AA report undermined

Nationwide reports blaming bikes for ‘driving up the death toll on Britain’s most dangerous road’ have been revealed as inaccurate and sensationalist.

An AA report released on March 9, 2005, describes ‘a mini massacre of motorcyclists’ happening on UK roads – a line that has been picked up and repeated by an all-too-eager national media.

The AA picks on the famous Cat & Fiddle run (the A537 between Macclesfield and Buxton) as the most dangerous road of all.

But not only is the ‘death toll’ of motorcyclists actually down on this road (from 26 to 20, in a two-year period – even by the AA’s own calculation), but the figure it is publicising as a death toll is in fact a combination of both serious injury and fatal accidents involving bikes.

MCN’s investigations are continuing and we’ll bring you a full report in our next issue – out on March 16, 2005.

Casualty rates among motorcyclists are in fact nine per cent down across the UK in 2004.

To read the AA report, click here. (external site).

To read the BBC report, click here. (external site).

To read the Sky News report, click here. (external site).