Call for law change on quad bikes

“Doctors say the law should be changed to force people who use road-legal quad bikes to wear helmets.

Accident and emergency medics say lives are put at risk because riders do not have to wear protective gear – despite the fact the bikes can reach 90mph.”

Oh my word! Think of the children! Something must be done!

And yet…

“There are no separate statistics on the numbers of quad bike crashes, but two particularly high-profile accidents have made headlines and brought the dangers to wider public attention.

In 1998, comedian Rik Mayall suffered serious head injuries and spent five days in a coma after his quad bike overturned while he was riding it at his farm in Devon.

In 2003, rock musician Ozzy Osbourne spent eight days in a coma, broke eight ribs and punctured a lung while riding a quad bike in the grounds of his Buckinghamshire mansion. He was not wearing a helmet at the time of the crash.”

So there’s nothing to support such a cry for us to be protected from ourselves. And clearly the high profile accidents took place off road. Not sure what a crash helmet would have done to save Ozzy’s broken ribs and punctured lung, but hey, let’s not let facts get in the way of a hysterical piece of so-called journalism.

ORLY?

So it cost £8M for 43 days. Or £186,000 a day. For what?

Looking more closely at the report, they claim that:

“About half of the total spent policing the demonstration – £3.72 million – was from additional policing costs, including overtime, the Met said.”

So that’s  £86,500 a day on overtime. Nice litttle earner, eh? I mean, how many policemen are on duty there every day? 100? 200? That’s a lot of overtime or a disproportionate number of policemen.

And that leaves a balance of £100,000 a day for … er … um … doughnuts? Bacon rolls? Who knows? The policemen are already employed, the vans are already bought and will just be parked up there most of the day. So what – precisely – is this claimed additional expenditure on? Mind you, when they closed off Weston Street after a stabbing for a day or two, one of the few police vehicles on the scene was a Met. Police burger van. I kid you not!

Sounds like bollocks to me…