Sunday, April 22

The Speed of Regulation


Or is it the regulation of speed ?



Two motorcycle stories last week from the national daily's highlights who governs Britain and indeed crass stupidity.

Macer Hall in the Daily Express reveals that our Euromasters are now insisting that learner motorcyclists must take a part of their exam to qualify as licence holders at 32 mph (in the interests of safety of course).

Since the exercise will involve driving above the 30 mph limit for urban roads the Driving Standards Agency is having to establish a new network of purpose built test centres at a national cost of £60 million. Another £537,000 will also be needed for “equipment, training and site set-up costs”.

The new driving test rules for motorcyclists are due to be introduced next year in line with a Directive from the European Transport Commissioner’s office in Brussels. The rules clearly stipulate that motorcyclists must demonstrate a safe emergency stop at 50km per hour (32mph) – and this means the test can no longer be legally carry out on British roads in urban areas because of the 30mph limit.

.
Jeff Stone, of the British Motorcyclist Federation commenting in the Express, said: “There is no evidence at all that this will make motorcycling safer. I’m sure it will be completely ignored in the rest of Europe. The French will just shrug and carry on conducting tests in supermarket car parks.” Well ok, every little ignoring of EU regulations helps.
.
Once motorcyclists have passed their tests having paid an expected increased fee(to pay for the new test centres) of £1,000 (up from £400) they can expect to experience the problem encountered by
The Daily Telegraph reader M.Tof Frodsham who wrote to the paper:
.
I took delivery of a new Yamaha Bulldog motorcycle from my local dealer in Chester. Later that day I was riding the motorcycle in the dark and noticed that I couldn't see how quickly I was going because the speedo is calibrated in kilometres per hour. The dial has miles per hour marked in small figures but they aren't illuminated. Riding at night is a bit hit and miss in terms of my speed. I have contacted the dealer, who, in turn, has contacted Yamaha UK. It responded that recent legislation changes mean they are not obliged to fit a mph clock. If I really want one, I'll have to find an extra £150. Being unaware of one's speed in the dark is a major safety issue, surely?

We are not aware of any recent changes and the
Department for Transport seems pretty clear on the standards required.

Have we (or they) missed something?

All this unneeded EU regulation is becoming both expensive and very confusing.

1 comment:

harleyback said...

Why limit motorcycle speeds when there is no discussion about limiting speed of automobiles and trucks? I posted this question on my personal blog site http://bikerkiss.com/blog/harleyback, and got the following answers:

1. the main reason is accessability-180mph cars are prohibitivly expensive-175 mph motorcycles can be had for 3000 or less-actually you can go 230 mph for $4000 plus the cost of a zx11 kaw -some outfit in houston will turbo your zx11 and it will go an honest 230-lots of fools can scrape up 4 grand but it takes a cool million to buy a 230mph car

2. Simply put, even a small displacement motorcycle can easily outpace most cars. And, for what it's worth, most cars ARE limited. I found out that my wife's Grand Am GT was limited to 110 when I lived in Germany, and drove on the Autobahn. At 110, it stops making power, and coasts back below that speed. Same with my Mazda P/U, which I think is limited to 90 MPH, if I remember correctly. So, really, limiting a bike to 186 is not a problem. There is no reason anyone outside of motoGP should even get remotely close to that speed, so who really cares?