Road tolls and road-related injuries seem to rise every year, no matter how many speed cameras the government seems to employ on Australian roads, but I fear the issue is deeper than speeders – evident in a quick scroll through my Instagram reels.
The latest trend appears to be: get your motorcycle licence, buy an action camera, treat public roads as a means to go viral, and then go viral for the wrong reason.
It's not just motorcyclists either – I've seen car owners with dash cams who almost go out of their way to cause an issue. The lack of crash avoidance to get a funny clip is just downright dangerous. It's a mindset of 'I'm in the legal right, so whatever'. That mindset doesn't help if you seriously injure yourself or someone else.
This phenomenon is not new by any means, but it seems to have massively taken off in Australia recently. It makes my eye twitch to the point where I block just about every single 'motorcycle content creator' – yet there's always another one to show up soon after.
It seems that every week, there is some new video with someone posting about how they have crashed their motorcycle while dancing or swerving while riding, why they crashed, and then rejoicing in the views they received online.
Fining these riders clearly doesn’t work. Motorcycles make up just 3.8 per cent of all registered vehicles, but account for nearly 20 per cent of road deaths.
Transport for NSW states: “learner and provisional riders face the highest risk on NSW roads, with crash data revealing that learner riders are more than seven times as likely to be killed in a crash compared to fully licensed riders”.
Now, I get social media and why people post these sorts of things – quite obviously – I do create content that's all about driving and being on the road.
Secondly, I am a long-time motorcyclist – I have raced since I was a child, worked in the industry for many years, and have held my licence since the day I turned 16 and nine months (the youngest I could possibly get my licence).
I do see why it is attractive to have essentially no training and jump on the fastest bike you’re allowed to ride. While you're only allowed to drive a car with a power-to-weight ratio of 130kW per tonne while you're a P-plater (in states that enforce restricted vehicles), motorcycles only have a power limit, meaning the highest power-to-weight Learner Approved Motorcycle (LAM) is more than 200kW/tonne – that’s almost the same as a BMW M2.
You have a duty of care every time you throw a leg over your seat – not just to yourself, but to other road users. You are still new to riding, and your lack of road experience requires you to have an acute focus on the road.
It is incredibly distracting when you’re filming yourself dancing, rapidly accelerating and swerving from side to side for an Instagram reel. And that just describes the more innocent creators, who still seem to end up sliding along the pavement.
Then you have the others who spend their time at Mach 10 on public roads in a straight line, who then creep around turns with a clear inability to properly handle a motorcycle beyond riding fast in a straight line.
It’s a scary sight, made even scarier by the overwhelming trend to wear the absolute minimum of riding safety gear in Australia – simply a helmet and enclosed shoes. Leaving your riding gear at home is not new, with the term 'SQUID' (Stupidly Quick, Underdressed, Ignorant and Dangerous) being a long-standing label for these riders. Still, it’s becoming increasingly common due to the lack of education and the consumption of other SQUID content.
If you listened in the classroom of your pre-learner course, run by a bunch of people who just want you safe and know a hell of a lot more about riding than you do, you’d hear them teaching you about how you need to constantly scan the road for dangers.
At the core, legal right or wrong does not matter on a motorcycle when it comes to someone pulling out in front of you, cutting you off, or not seeing you. In a car, you have an accident and exchange information. On a motorcycle, you are dead. How are you going to scan the road when you are dancing to the latest TikTok trend?
You are at the helm of a piece of equipment that can exceed 200km/h. You could kill yourself or an innocent bystander with a lapse of judgment. Think about how much that will change the course of the lives of others around you.
It's incredible if you look at the video above, a brand-new rider already has a camera attached to a motorcycle, struggling to get up a hill and eventually dropping the bike. Focusing on getting the next clip for your Instagram should not be something you're thinking about as a new rider.
Learners now must wear protective gloves and high-visibility vests, attend group on-road coaching and assessments, extended pre-learner courses and do online learning modules with testing. It’s something, but it's still not enough.
When I got my learner's permit, I attended two three-hour courses, rode a motorcycle around a parking lot below 15km/h and did a theory test. I was then allowed to ride anywhere on the road by myself.
Nearly 10 years later, and it's still a very similar process for learner riders – the amount of training required is just slightly more and now they need to wear gloves on the road. It’s incredible.
I’m going to propose something that may seem outlandish to some: ban any camera on a motorcycle if you’re on your Ls or Ps; mandatory on-track time even to teach riders how to control their vehicle; wear protective boots/jacket/pants; and a buddy system with a fully-licensed rider while on your L-plates, similar to what Queensland has in place.
The tide is changing slightly. I see people getting pulled up for having cameras stuck to their helmets (illegal if you have glued it to the helmet or drilled holes to fit it), and the police investigating these content creators through their posts, but the change starts with you.
Learn how to control your motorcycle before you decide you want to start an Instagram account dedicated to it, and think about how you're essentially in control of a heavy car. I cannot handle seeing another GoFundMe page after a crash.
Zane Dobie comes from a background of motorcycle journalism, working for notable titles such as Australian Motorcycle News Magazine, Just Bikes and BikeReview. Despite his fresh age, Zane brings a lifetime of racing and hands-on experience. His passion now resides on four wheels as an avid car collector, restorer, drift car pilot and weekend go-kart racer.
