7th December 2009
Original article available by Clicking Here
On the European Commission’s Europa website, as part of the “solution” to reduce road casualties they want to “discourage or restrict” the use of motorcycles.
Accident prevention and injury protection
There are a number of measures that can make riding a PTW safer.
These can focus on reducing the number of accidents occurring or improving injury protection when accidents do occur.
However, even if these measures were used to their full potential, the accident rates of PTW’s will still be much higher than for driving a car. A further reduction in number of PTW accidents is only possible with a very restrictive licensing system with access only at higher age limits, more extensive training and testing, lower power to weight ratios or restricted top speed.
These measures will not be popular with present user groups or the PTW industry. Discouraging or restricting the use of PTW’s may be more acceptable if alternatives are made more attractive.
Pedal bike, public transport or cars do not seem to be alternatives to the present use of PTW’s. (Electric) power assisted pedal bikes and tilting three wheelers could become acceptable alternatives in the near future for some existing groups of PTW users.
HJ asks, “How, exactly, is a ’tilting three wheeler’ safer than a motorcycle? I’d really like to know. And if we are all supposed to be concerned either about climate change or diminishing world resources or both then surely motorcycles benefit the world far better than cars.”
Also on the EU Commission’s website is the statement “Motorcycles and mopeds are the most dangerous mode of transport in the EU”.
Why are we paying these EC lunatics huge amounts of money to ruin our lives?
