Considerations when organising a moto-TSD event…

I am asked many, very sensible questions about the format of VIME moto-TSD event weekends and I would like to discuss what is uppermost in my mind as I go about preparing for the Labor Day event (first weekend in September).

The principal question is “why are the speeds set so low?” “I can ride many of those roads much faster!”

There are many compelling reasons why we cannot have organised race or speed events on the open-to-all-road-users public highways of British Columbia.

Leaving aside the obvious prospect of head-on collisions, I would like to set out the constraints we are obliged to meet.

To borrow from someone else’s playbook, I’ll start with the end - the two considerations are to give everyone a good, value-for-money time and as the circus manager, to avoid personal liability while putting on a motorcycle motorsport (to some, an oxymoron).

This may come as a surprise to some, but as an event organiser, you cannot take insurance out against being an idiot.

Regardless of how much “insurance” you have taken out (if you can get it and afford it), if you make some poor choices, any provider of insurance will not carry your can for you.

Send riders over a cliff? That’s on the event organiser !

Send riders into a forest fire or through a flooding river? You would be on your own.

Set route requirements that can only be met by breaking laws? You would be as liable to legal action as the riders - and never be allowed to run another event.

If any of the above were to result in serious injury You would be expected to answer to a police investigation and in the event of a death. You would have to give evidence to an inquest.

All of the above circumstances would invite person-to-person legal action to attempt to correct damages incurred as well as State led litigation of criminal prosecution.

So, there are two arms of litigation to be considered, civil law with a low bar of proof (50:50 on the balance of probabilities) and criminal law (beyond reasonable doubt). I am not a legal professional but I do know the basics of how legal procedures work. It would be idiotic to proceed with event organising without knowing where trouble could come from.

Location! Location!! Location!!!

Let’s begin with the easy stuff first. Food, fuel and the event base. A decent campsite, fuel close to hand and on the route, and places for participants to eat.

Challenging but rideable routes, accurately described by appropriate methods and for the competition element, a scoring system that the organiser is adept at using….

While we’re about it, it pays dividends to be on good terms with the local community. Make early contact with the local police, the community leaders and your campground hosts. You want to leave things in such a way that they are going to want to ask you back in the future.

Access.

Now things get a little more complicated. You need to do your homework and have a very clear understanding of the legal basis governing your presence on whatever land you are planning to travel over.

In order to comply with the legislation, private motoring motorcyclists riding Forest Service Roads must fulfill all the requirements of riding on any other public road ie they must be appropriately licensed and insured and their bikes must be registered and plated.

You can only go where you have a constitutional right to go, or where you are specifically invited to be. You can’t ride over private land (owned or managed) unless you are specifically invited - and there are liability and insurance issues that you need to clarify.

Forest service roads over Crown Land, in BC are classified as public highways - see the BC Motor Vehicle Act and the Forest Service Road Regulations.

https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/96318_00

“Provisions of Motor Vehicle Act applicable to forest service roads

2   The following provisions of the Motor Vehicle Act apply to all forest service roads as if a forest service road were a highway:”

There is much there to wade through so you might like to read the relevant details in https://www.gr200.com/post/the-vime-big-book-of-everything-time-speed-distance-rally-for-motorcycles

The message is that Forest Service Roads that cross crown land are classified as public highways and open for private motoring.

Acesss also means “where can we go?” as well as “how can we get there?”.

On Vancouver Island, there is much misunderstanding about access restrictions of the forest lands. About 1/3rd of the lower island is managed by the forestry company Mosaic. Like every other land management organisation, they exert control over where and when the public can visit the forests they manage. Their forests are open for travel by private motorists, but on their terms.

Vancouver Island Motosports Events, as a for-profit sole proprietorship DOES NOT stage events on land managed by Mosaic.

The rest of the forestlands of Vancouver Island are (almost all) Crown Lands. The Forest Service Roads that cross Crown Land are classified as public highways and are open for travel according to the limitations set out in the various Traffic Regulations and laws.

NOTE: while the roads are open for travel, the lands through which they pass are usually not open to the general public.

From our perspective of motorcycle riding, this is not an issue as the forests are extremely dense, deep temperate rainforest “jungle” and are impassable to wheeled vehicles.

Other varieties of “backcountry users” may baulk at these access limits, but their dissatisfaction cannot be our concern.

Time, Speed, Distance.

https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/70_2004

The Forest Service Road Regulations also has this…

“Speed restriction

4   A person must operate a motor vehicle on a forest service road at a speed that

(a)is safe for the conditions, and

(b)does not exceed the lesser of

(i) 80 km/h, and

(ii) the speed posted on a relevant traffic control device.”

Most FSRs are posted as a maximum of 60Kph, some a maximum of 40Kph…

I don’t know of any FSRs that have an 80Kph maximum speed limit…. If anyone does, please tell me and I will try to include them in an event.

If an event organiser were to set a course that explicitly required exceeding the speed limit (for example setting the target leg average speed to be greater than the posted limit), or implicitly required participants to exceed the speed limit (for example having checkpoint cutoff and closing times such that the course would have to be ridden at speeds greater than the maximum speed limit), then the event organiser would be liable to the same penalties as the “speeding” riders. In the event of a serious untoward incident, the organiser would be liable to Civil claims of damages as well as criminal charges. Not an appealing prospect…

In conclusion…

Every organiser of anything has a duty of care towards anyone that may be impacted by what they are organising. That duty of care extends to those who might be affected by participants actions as well as the participants themselves.

Part of that duty of care includes laying out the ground rules for participation, clearly and unambiguously so that actions outside these ground rules can be seen as being of the participant’s doing and not by direction of the event organiser.

I hope the contents of this essay demonstrates why, on careful consideration and reflection, why, for example speed limits and entry restrictions need to be specified and conformed to at risk of personal injury and legal action.

There are no such things as “motor vehicle accidents”. They are all “incidents” that have a chain of causation and breaking the chain at any point in the lead-up can prevent the incident from happening.