Save UK Biking from Stupid Rules!!!

This is your last opportunity to protest through the official consultation about the proposals to implement the next EU Driving Licence Directive.

Follow the instructions below and you can add your voice to ours, just as the trainers and industry have been – PLEASE  DO IT BEFORE 5th FEBRUARY.

We need to show some concerted opposition, by following the guidelines below you can help make it difficult for them to ignore us…

BACKGROUND:

From 2013, any new rider that passes the tests on a 125 will no longer be able to move up to a 33bhp bike. Instead they will be stuck with a Category A1 licence that allows them to ride a 125cc until they repeat the practical tests to get a higher category licence.

New riders aged 19 or over, or riders that have held an A1 (125cc) licence for two years, will be able to take the same tests to gain the new Category A2 licence for a 47bhp bike.  They will not be able to progress without repeating the practical tests.

Riders progressing through the licence categories will be forced to take ‘Familiarisation’ training before they can even attempt to repeat the practical tests for a higher category licence.

Familiarisation training would give riders qualified to carry pillions or use motorways on a smaller bike, a provisional entitlement to ride larger bikes – but only on ‘L’ plates and banned from riding them with pillions or on motorways even though the bigger bike may be more capable.

The prospect of 19 year olds riding Hayabusa’s on ‘L’ plates somewhat undermines the road safety claims for raising the minimum age a rider can take Direct Access to unrestricted bikes to 24 years old.

There are no proposals to introduce any such restrictions on new drivers, even though they are grossly over-represented in the casualty stats and have the potential to kill and injure far more people in each collision.

Go to this website

http://www.dsa.gov.uk/consultation/3D_questionnaire/adv/KeyPointWebform.html

to complete the online consultation form -

Use the suggested responses below if you want to support our campaign.

You will need to complete details of who you are etc. before moving on to several screens that ask for responses to the proposals.  On each of these screens you need to indicate how strongly you agree or disagree, there is also a box to add comments.

SUGGESTED RESPONSES – PLEASE CUT AND PASTE AS YOU WISH

MOPEDS
Do you agree with our proposals for moped licensing?
‘Largely Agree’

RIDERS WITH A PHYSICAL DIABILITY
Do you agree with our proposals for special provision for moped riders with a physical disability?

‘Totally Agree’

MOTORCYCLE UPGRADE TRAINING ROUTE
Do you agree that a training route should be offered to allow motorcycle licence upgrade?

‘Totally Agree’
COMMENTS: Riders will gain far more from training tailored to their individual requirements than they will from merely repeating essentially the same test as they took to qualify at a lower category.

STANDARDS AND REGISTRATION
If you believe that wider considerations support a training route for progressive access, do you agree with our proposals as set out in Annex B for the standards and registration arrangements that should be operated for that training and those delivering it?

‘Totally DISagree’
COMMENTS: The proposals are over complicated, unnecessarily expensive and not in line with Ministerial undertakings to implement the Directive ‘with the lightest possible touch’.

FAMILIARISATION COURSE
Do you agree with our proposals for a familiarisation course within progressive access arrangements?

‘Totally DISagree’
COMMENTS: The Directive calls only for training that leads directly to a higher category of licence and as an alternative to re-testing at every stage.  The consultation document neither establishes the need for ‘Familiarisation’, nor describes its duration, content or retail cost. There is no evidence that Familiarisation would prove either simple or user-friendly.  The claim that this would deliver road safety benefits is unsubstantiated.

PROVISIONAL LICENSING
Do you agree with our approach to provisional licensing for Mopeds and Motorcycle learners?

‘Largely DISagree’
COMMENTS:  Provisional entitlement to higher categories of motorcycle licence can be triggered by qualifying at a lower level without the complexity and cost of compulsory Familiarisation training for every rider taking the progressive route.  This has been recognised by the government’s own proposals for implementing the Third Directive in Northern Ireland.

RIDERS WITH A PHYSICAL DISABILITY
Do you agree with our proposals for special provision for motorcycle riders with a physical disability?

‘Totally Agree’

GENERAL COMMENTS

COMMENTS:  The consultation appears to ignore, or argue against, options that could deliver life-long learning (tailored training as an alternative route to licence upgrades).

INITIAL IMPACT ASSESSMENTS (Annex H)

COMMENTS:  It is hard to believe that the national standards body can offer no evidence from research conducted at home or abroad to show whether repeated testing or further training make a difference and if so to what extent. Some of the greatest impacts on riders, the training industry and the motorcycle industry have been so poorly described and as to make it impossible to predict their true cost.

CONSULTATION CRITERIA

: Do you feel that this Consultation Paper meets the consultation criteria?

‘Largely Disagree’
COMMENT: The limited range of options, inadequate presentation of alternatives and lack of clarity about true costs indicate the outcome has already been determined. Officials have yet to determine the content and cost of key proposals, so have not been able to give the information needed to understand their likely effectiveness and impacts.

–
Published on behalf of…

Paddy Tyson
Campaigns Co-ordinator
MAG UK
Tel: 01788 570065
Mobile: 07717 345605
Website: www.mag-uk.org

Motorcycle Action Group (MAG)..why I joined

Crash Helmet test centre visit

Roads we ride regularly

Why do I ride a Motorcycle?

“The association of motorcycles with LSD is no accident of publicity. They are both a means to an end, to the place of definitions.” (Hunter S Thompson)

Yesterday I had one of “those” rides, on a clear crisp Autumnal day, all on my own for a change, no group to consider, no need to check the mirrors to make sure I still have company.

Heading up the Swansea Valley, the landscape closes the hills in on you like a push-up bra. Russet browns smudge the slopes with seasonal colour in the gin-clear air. I open her up and we sprint through some wide curves, into the welcoming arms of the Brecon Beacons. Steady at a ton, roaring past Cray reservoir, sun bejewelled and glinting in the valley below and to the left, then a flick-flack combination of corners and crests, knee kissing the tank on alternate sides as we thread the needle.

Hard over to the left, shoulder dipped and arse part off the seat, winding on the gas with a staccato rumble from the open pipes as the cool air becomes momentarily pine tinged. Slowing and sitting up through a small hamlet then back on the volume control along a series of interlinked straights, front wheel going light over the crests. Blitz a couple of fast overtakes and grin through another village.

The Main A40 now winds lazily towards Brecon, weekend tourists and farmers about their business are dispatched with dispassion, in my quest to be alone in the twisty bits. Down two gears, ease it left with gentle pressure on the ‘bars, then hard right, shifting my body to the inside of the corner as the apex disappears under the wheels and the throttle winds in the horizon.

Turning back into the Beacons proper, more traffic is left flailing in my wake as we head once more into the mountains. Smooth is fast and fast is smooth, picking lines, timing the pass, finding the gaps, bullying the drips and cheerily waving a thank you to the more alert who let me through.

Up towards the pass at the Storey Arms, curling off a sweet right handed hairpin past the bike-lined tea stand and tipping hard left on a trailing throttle, we stalk the mountains on legs of thunder. Sit up and slow past the hordes of walkers enjoying the quieter aspects of the scenery, bright cagoules and badly parked cars marking them out.

Down past another reservoir, eyes peeled for speed cameras and turn right below the dam wall then up, up once more onto wide open moorland. The road wriggles like an untended fire hose, dotted with suicidal sheep, so fingers cover the brakes as I snick up and down through the gears. Crest follows corner follows crest as this prefect road ribbons across the rusty moors at their heathery best. Swooping, smiling, singing out loud happy, we barrel roll through a dog-fight, with the tarmac as the opposition.

PONIES! Over a crest, and hard on the anchors as a wild, welsh, equine nihilist stares balefully from the middle of the road. I roll up to a standstill right at his nose and we stare at each other for a bit, before he realises he can’t eat me or hump me – so I’m of no consequence in his life and ambles off to attempt assisted suicide somewhere else.

Off again, clear blue skies exude a light that’s almost artificially bright, plunging from apex to apex, knees pointing the way through, skimming and shimmying our way back to civilisation.

A fellow rider, picks at nervous overtakes, his Day-Glo jacket hints at newness and inexperience, so I hang back then lunge past without startling him. The roundabout is wide and smooth, weight the pegs, tilt the head, drop the shoulder and we whistle through on a whiff of throttle. Then finally, clamped over the tank, buried behind the screen, the long downhill catapults me past dawdling traffic and spits me out at the foot of the valley like a spitfire emerging from the clouds.

The legendary Hunter S Thompson said it best…

“…with the throttle screwed on, there is only the barest margin, and no room at all for mistakes. It has to be done right… and that’s when the strange music starts, when you stretch your luck so far that fear becomes exhilaration and vibrates along your arms. You can barely see at a hundred; the tears blow back so fast that they vaporize before they get to your ears. The only sounds are the wind and a dull roar floating back from the mufflers. You watch the white line and try to lean with it… howling through a turn to the right, then to the left, and down the long hill to Pacifica… letting off now, watching for cops, but only until the next dark stretch and another few seconds on the edge…

The Edge… There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. The others- the living- are those who pushed their luck as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and Later.

But the edge is still Out there. Or maybe it’s In. The association of motorcycles with LSD is no accident of publicity. They are both a means to an end, to the place of definitions.”

Evening Beer

Evening Beer, originally uploaded by Motorcycle tours Wales.

After an Autumnal ride in the mountains – what could be better…?

Back at The pub

Back at The pub, originally uploaded by Motorcycle tours Wales.

Oh No It’s Handel Cross (again)

Oh No It’s Handel Cross (again), originally uploaded by Motorcycle tours Wales.

Ok you got us!

Ok you got us!, originally uploaded by Motorcycle tours Wales.

A couple of AWFULLY nice military coppers dropped by for a chat…

Caban Coch Res Elan VAlley

Caban Coch Res Elan VAlley, originally uploaded by Motorcycle tours Wales.

one of this weekends many great sights…