EU Proposals on motorcycles – Separating The Wheat From The Chaff
Riders in the UK and in Ireland are up in arms about the EU Commission’s proposals for motorcycles. Protest demonstrations have been organised for the 25th September throughout the UK and Ireland.
There are many issues of which riders have justifiable reasons to express their anger and concerns regarding these proposals.
There is however a lot of misinformation out there and it seems to us that riders are getting mixed messages about what the European Commission is actually proposing and what the MEPs and the UK Government is doing in response to these proposals.
Right To Ride has aimed to provide clear and factual details of the progression of the Commission’s proposals and the discussions that have taken place within the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) Committee.
We have communicated to all the players in the Commission, Industry and IMCO expressing our views and concerns.
Yesterday we received from Malcolm Harbour, Chairman of the IMCO Committee and Shadow Rapporteur for the European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR) a follow up email in relation to the Commission proposal for an EU Regulation on the approval and market surveillance of two- or three-wheel vehicles and quadricycles.
Excerpts from his email:
“The amendments tabled by MEPs which are outside the scope of the Commission’s proposal constitute political recommendations which are very unlikely to feature in the adopted text. If however there is majority support for any of these ideas, the amendments concerned can only feature in Recitals to the Regulation which means they have no legal effect”.
“Even if these recommendations make it through the Committee stage, which I doubt, both Council and Commission would resist them featuring in the final text of the Regulation as they have no corresponding Article. The amendments concerned relate to driver/rider training, side visibility reflectors, roadside random spot-checks, technical examinations of motorbikes and liabilities in accident situations, and the harmonisation of driver licence schemes”.
“In the context of this draft Regulation, we are simply not engaged in a discussion on national debates concerning the mandating of high visibility jackets for riders, the banning of older motorcycles from urban areas, nor are we discussing EU funded research on throttle and speed control schemes. These are all considerations which are completely outside the scope of this legislative proposal.
Furthermore, picking up on other concerns constituents have expressed, there are no proposals on the table about mandating the sealing of the power train from the air box or relating to setting a diameter and aspect ratio for the rear tyre”.
Read the full article on Right To Ride EU – Click Here
