MOTORCYCLE INDUSTRY CALLS ON TRANSPORT FOR LONDON TO LIFT UNFAIR BAN ON MOTORCYCLE TAXIS
13 January 2005 - Motor Cycle Industry Association Ltd

The Motor Cycle Industry Association (MCI) is today calling on Transport for London TfL to lift its ban on the use of motorcycles as taxis.

The ban has been introduced after a change in TfL regulations for private hire vehicles in London. The change to the Private Hire Vehicles (London) Act 1998 came about because TfL felt that vehicles constructed with fewer than four wheels were not suitable for licensing.

The key motorcycle private hire operators have reacted with anger at the proposed ban, with Virgin Limobikes, Passenger Bikes, Addison Lee Taxi Bike and London Executive, seeing their motorcycle businesses effectively outlawed. In London, there are currently 17 motorcycles and 13 riders available, with operations mainly orientated towards providing a key service to executives in the business sector. Companies operating motorcycle private hire have been working in London since the mid 1990s.

Contrary to TfL’s claim that motorcycle taxis are unsafe, not a single passenger has been killed or seriously injured in London while being carried on a motorcycle.

MCI Director of Public Affairs, Craig Carey-Clinch said; “Taxi bikes are an innovative idea which offer a much needed and reliable service to business executives in London, who would otherwise have to contend with the traffic congestion and delayed journey times that come with car-based private hire or black cabs. The ban seems particularly mean-minded, given that the safety argument that TfL makes clearly has no foundation.

“Managers in TfL’s Public Carriage Office have assumed that motorcycles are dangerous without looking properly at the facts. The high standards of taxi bike riders and the level of training and experience that riders have, should be compared with the sometimes poor standard of drivers in the bar based private hire sector. Under the present rules it is possible for a holder of any non-uk EU driving licence, having only held a licence for three years, to operate a private hire car having never driven in the UK. They may be unfamiliar with driving on the left hand side of the road and may have only scant knowledge of UK traffic law or conditions.

“Quite clearly, the motorcycle ban is totally unfair and must be reviewed immediately. The motorcycle taxi trade has never had anything else but good press and praise and enjoys a road safety record which puts the car sector to shame. TfL have the power to exempt motorcycles from the regulations and MCI is calling for them to accept that the ban is totally unfair and repeal it immediately.”

www.mcia.co.uk

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