Members put a spoke in the wheel of motorcycle campaign

04 April 2007

The Government’s objective of encouraging increased motorcycling has been called into question, given the road safety and air quality implications.
Ministers told the transport select committee that the motorcycling strategy’s aim of ‘mainstreaming’ motorcycling meant they wished to see more people motorcycling, instead of using a car. But the MPs state in a new report: ‘We question whether concerns over safety and the environment bear out such a policy.’ The numbers of motorcyclists killed and seriously injured ‘have not reduced significantly over the past 10 years’. Motorcycles are also ‘more likely to be involved in accidents with other vehicles and with pedestrians than any other mode’. Department for Transport statistics showed that motorcycles are ‘often worse than cars.’
Powered two-wheelers emitted eight times as much particulates per passenger kilometre than cars; seven times as much benzene; and six times as much carbon monoxide. Gwyneth Dunwoody’s committee called for trials of intelligent speed adaptation to be extended to motorcycles, given the fact there are 105 casualties per billion passenger kilometres, compared with 2.5 for cars and 35 for bicycles. It also urged that, if ministers wished to encourage motorcycling, then ‘it must support the development of cleaner vehicles,’ given the increased popularity of heavier, more powerful motorcycles over 500cc. There ‘may also be an argument’ in favour of capping the maximum available power.
The MPs’ views were likely to find favour in some highways authorities – the London Technical Advisors Group chair Joe Weiss has been critical of ‘noisy, dangerous, two-wheel vehicles behaving in an anti-social manner’. But the British Motorcyclists Federation dismissed the report as ‘the crackpot views’ of those ‘irrationally hostile’ towards motorcycling. Casualty rates were beginning to fall after peaking in 2003/04, and ‘current emissions limits are acceptable’.

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Members put a spoke in the wheel of motorcycle campaign

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