Motorcyclists thinking about wearing t-shirts and no gloves on their bike rides this summer should think again.
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"An incident comes out of nowhere, and suddenly you are sliding along the road with nothing between the road, and your bones, but your skin," Bendigo Highway Patrol Senior Sergeant Brooks said.
In a month where the focus in on motorcyclist safety, Senior Sergeant Brooks was concerned the warmer weather could see riders abandon protective gloves and jackets.
Riders should weigh up that choice against possible surgery after an accident, he said.
"I'd rather replace damaged equipment than have to have skin grafts and various other things to make it right again, just because it was a bit warm and I chose not to wear gloves and jackets," Senior Sergeant Brooks said.
The police push comes during Motorcyclist Awareness Month, timed in October to prepare drivers, and educate motorcyclists, before they head onto roads this summer.
Thirty five motorcyclists have died on Victorian roads this year, with more than a quarter of these fatalities occurring since the beginning of spring.
"We would really like people to just have that thought in their head coming into the warm months that motorcycles are out there," Senior Sergeant Brooks said.
"They're smaller, they move through traffic a lot nippier than cars do, so it's about everybody paying attention."
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The senior sergeant said the majority of motorcycle trauma he had seen in the last 12 months involved car drivers not seeing motorcyclists.
Sixty per cent of motorcyclist fatalities involve other vehicles, according to the TAC.
"I'm not saying that the car drivers are always at fault, sometimes the motorcyclists are putting themselves in a position where they're hard to see," Senior Sergeant Brooks said.
"But it's about everybody learning to share the road with everybody else."
Skills decline as clock ticks
Older motorcyclists not riding to their ability was also a problem.
"Back in their 20s they were a famous rider and they could ride anything and do anything," Senior Sergeant Brooks said.
"And now they've got a little bit older and thought, 'kids are gone, I'll get a motorbike'.
"Those skills do decline over a period of time, so maybe take some time to have a training course."
The same applied for motorcyclists "dragging their bike out of the shed" after not riding all winter.
"They haven't been out [on the bike] for six months and they throw on their gear on and go for a ride," Senior Sergeant Brooks said.
"Rather than do the four, five, six hour ride, why not do a couple of short ones? Get used to the bike again, get used to the traffic again, then go on the big ride."
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