South Yorkshire road safety campaign gives online advice to young motorbike riders - watch it here

A South Yorkshire road safety campaign has featured in a national event on how it has worked online to connect with motorbike and scooter riders.
Julia Armstrong
By Julia Armstrong
Published 27th Mar 2021, 13:22 BST
Bikers John and Ciaran, who present a YouTube series, Mech' It BetterBikers John and Ciaran, who present a YouTube series, Mech' It Better
Bikers John and Ciaran, who present a YouTube series, Mech' It Better

Throughout March, Road Safety GB has been running an online programme of presentations aimed at reducing collisions and casualties among powered-two-wheeler (PTW) riders.

South Yorkshire Safer Roads Partnership’s young rider and driver officer John Furniss featured on Friday (March 26) with a presentation about the partnership’s work with YouTube vloggers John and Ciaran of Mech’ It Better.

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The Mech’ It Better series teaches riders the basics of bike maintenance including BOLT - Brake, Oil, Lights and Tyre – checks and adjustments as well as what basic tools to have.

John said: “With Covid putting a stop to many of the usual engagement routes with young riders, we decided to embrace modern technology and venture into the world of YouTube.

Remembering when these famous Sheffielders returned to their home city

“For the last 10 months, we have been working with local vloggers, Mech' It Better, to produce a series of short, basic maintenance videos specifically aimed at new young riders.

“Our presentation discusses the ups and downs of the ongoing project, while showing the love for 125s.”

Road safety campaign SYRSPRoad safety campaign SYRSP
Road safety campaign SYRSP
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Ciaran said: “We like to ride safe bikes rather than pristine shiny ones, like most young riders our bikes have been our only transport at certain times of our lives.

“All of our bikes are scruffy but that’s because we use them every day and in all weathers. But we do all our own work on them and they are maintained to a high standard."

“It’s not as scary as most people think but if you are a new rider it can be a bit overwhelming, which is how we started, just doing jobs on our own bikes which we just happened to film," added John.

Department for Transport figures show that in 2019, 336 PTW riders were killed on roads across Great Britain, making up nine per cent of all fatalities.

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In the same year there were 6,198 killed and seriously injured PTW casualties and a total of 16,224 casualties. This equates to a casualty rate of 5,051 per billion miles - compared to 195 among car occupants.

You can watch the presentation here: https://roadsafetygb.org.uk/ptwevent/programme/

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Related topics:South Yorkshire