RIDING ROUGHSHOD – BMF OPPOSES EU LICENCE DIRECTIVE
20 September 2005 - BMF

Incensed at EU attempts to impose an ill-conceived new driving licence regime on motorcyclists, the 140,000 strong British Motorcyclists Federation has joined forces with the Motorcycle Action Group to launch a campaign to stop the proposals being adopted.

Prior to the Second Reading of the Third EC Driving Licence Directive by the European Parliament, the Council of Ministers is to meet on 6th October in Brussels to arrive at a Common Position. As part of the joint campaign, which has already seen BMF members mailing over 400 letters to MPs and MEPs, the BMF is urging its members and other UK motorcyclists to attend a demonstration in Brussels on Saturday 1st October

The campaign asks MEPs and MPs for their help in influencing the UK Government, currently holding the Presidency of the European Union. It will also involve a protest ride from the UK to Brussels on October the 1st being organised by Britain’s weekly motorcycle paper, Motor Cycle News.

The move has been prompted because the new proposals, due to be introduced in five years time, are seen by rider groups to be premature. They come before even the Second EC Driving Licence Directive has been completed and further, the research from the two and a half million euro (€2.5 million) funded ‘Motorcycle Accidents In Depth Study’ (MAIDS) has been ignored say the BMF.

While the BMF’s supports the proposal’s basic aims of improving road safety through introducing greater consistency to driver licensing and keeping unsafe drivers off the road by addressing licence fraud, the extensive proposals relating to motorcycling have been poorly thought out, ignore motorcycle safety research like MAIDS and are therefore unlikely to be effective say the BMF.

The new motorcycling measures include:

• The introduction of three categories of motorcycle: A1, less than 11kW power output; A2, less than 35 kW and A, over 35 kW.

Access to categories:

§ A1 - from age 16 (currently 17 in the UK).

§ A2 - new class - a minimum age of 19

§ A - minimum age of 21, subject to a two-year interval from gaining an A2 licence

• A new requirement for testing (or specialised training), to progress from each category.

• Direct Access to category A from age 24 instead of 21. (Note: UK officials have sought a derogation of ‘maximum flexibility’ by seeking possible Direct Access age band range of 21 to 27 years).

The measures contained in the Second EC Driving Licence Directive however, while criticised for their complexity, currently allow a rider to gain a full licence (category A) following two years experience on an A1 motorcycle with Direct Access at age 21.

There appears to be no justification for tampering with this arrangement as statistics show that if anything, Direct Access licence holders involved in accidents are in their 30s and older, a factor being reviewed under UK Government''s Motorcycling Strategy.

The Third EC Driving Licence Directive''s proposals will produce an even more complex motorcycle licensing process that will be neither understandable nor enforceable and will make motorcycling less accessible with no safety benefit say the BMF.

BMF spokesman Jeff Stone said: ‘These proposals seem more designed to deter people from taking up motorcycling than improving road safety. There has been no cost-benefit analysis carried out. They are unfounded proposals based more on perception than on the laws of probability. The proposals ignore the MAIDS research that clearly showed that the major cause of accidents were low-speed collisions in an urban environment - more often than not the fault of the other driver.”

The BMF was a member of the team that helped draw up the Government’s Motorcycling Strategy. This document made positive recommendations to improve safety without compromising motorcycling’s accessibility. The BMF therefore says that the motorcycling proposals should be deleted from the Third EC Driving Licence Directive and revisited in three years time when research should have been assimilated and taken into account.

The UK''s motorcycling community has also responded to a national consultation and met with representatives of the Driving Standards Agency and the Department for Transport who serve on the Council of Ministers. The DfT representatives claim that there is no room to manoeuvre over motorcycling issues, but the BMF disagrees.

BMF Chairman Dr Leon Mannings said: “We need a licensing regime that will, Europe wide, produce well trained and above all safety conscious road users, not just motorcycle riders. I call upon all UK riders to support the BMF/MAG position and join us in Brussels on 1st October”.

www.betterbiking.co.uk

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