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Motorcycle Accidents, youclaim.co.uk

Pillion passenger children and motorbike accidents

Although official statistics on the subject are hard to come by, it is clear that there are thousands of children who ride pillion on motorcycles in the UK each year. However, it is very rare for there to be a fatal motorbike accident involving child pillion passengers, perhaps because of the care taken by parents in ensuring that all possible safety precautions are taken.

Most safety precautions for child pillion passengers are clearly prescribed in law. These include:

  • That there must be an actual pillion seat

  • That the child's feet must easily be able to reach the foot pegs

  • That the child must easily be able to grip the rider, the bar or the pillion hand-holds

  • That the child must wear an appropriate, well-fitting helmet

  • The rider must hold a full license, i.e. not a provisional license

Further to this, other safety precautions are strongly advisable to prevent the child suffering injury in a motorbike accident. These include:

  • That the child should wear full and proper protective clothing (this can be expensive but can, according the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, be purchased secondhand &ndash not crash helmets

  • That high visibility clothing should be worn by both adult rider and child pillion passenger

  • That journeys are kept short and that stops and breaks are made regularly

  • That the child is mature and responsible enough to understand the behavior required while riding pillion

  • That the rider fully appreciates the impact on performance and handling of having a pillion passenger

Over the years there have occasionally been calls for children to be banned from riding pillion altogether. However, as the death rate is relatively low the vast majority of under-16s' motorcycle deaths involve illegal riders it would be very hard for policymakers to justify this stance.

After the reported death of a child pillion passenger in 2010 Craig Carey-Clinch of the Motor Cycle Industry Association (MCI) comments, "In order for any legislation to be equitable, accident statistics show that the Government would also have to ban children from riding bicycles - clearly a preposterous proposition. The MCI can only feel deep sympathy for the family of the child killed, but feels that the current calls for new laws are out of proportion to the road safety risks that exist."

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