Passes & Canyons Blog

There has been quite a discussion going on over on my Denver Motorcycle Examiner webpage in regard to a post I made there about a possible British motorcycle ban.

I picked up a news article from www.motorcyclenews.com, a British website, that said the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) in England told a committee of Parliament that “Motorcycles are seen in the UK to be, in the majority of instances, vehicles of choice rather than necessity and one might consider if our congested roads are any longer fit for purpose for these motorised toys.”

Well, that’s a show stopper. The article also spoke about an ACPO claim that many street bikes have too much power, and an ACPO request for chips in license plates to help identify bikes even if the police can’t catch them.

The post drew a number of comments from British bikers, such as f0ul who said:

The police in the UK have been as totalitarian as they can get away with over the past few years.

They managed to get at least 7 national shows banned over 2008 – they have been pushing for the national parks to have a motorcycle ban for a few years although I don’t think they will be able to do it because almost all proper laws in the UK are worked out in the EU by today.

With a number of bike manufacturers still in Europe (BMW etc.) this sort of law will be seen as a detriment of trade and there is no way the Germans will allow that!

However, there was another post “on behalf of the Association of Chief Police Officers” that said:

ACPO does not advocate the prohibition of motorcycle use on public roads. It is nonsense to suggest that ACPO is seeking a ban on motorcycles, given that most police forces in the UK actively deploy and consider motorcycles to be a key part of their transport infrastructure.

So the following day I published this reply as a follow-up post, expressing some reservations but concluding that without actually reporting the document in question I had no way of knowing whose version was closer to the truth.

Then I got comments on that post. John Procter had this to say:

Perhaps you need to look at the rather lengthy report that contained the ACPO statement. It may not be as draconian as initial snapshot reporting suggested, but there could still be some concern. The truth of the matter might be that some police chiefs are VERY anti bike, e.g., North Wales’ infamous police boss. However, a major problem we have here in the UK is very poor policing of our roads with a high dependency on speed cameras. Lack of traffic police has led to poorer driving with consequent effects on vulnerable motorcyclists, leading to worrying casualties.

I thanked John for helping clarify some of the issues here. I didn’t promise to read the report. Then the latest comment was a copy of an updated news report from the (I believe London) Telegraph. The reporter, Kevin Ash, wrote:

In a press release responding to concerns about the ACPO submission, David Griffin, Deputy Chief Constable of Humberside, stated: “It is nonsense to suggest that ACPO is seeking a ban on motorcycles,” even though it is clear in the report that ACPO suggests prohibiting motorcycles from some roads. The press release also said that ACPO does not have a position on imposing specific power limits on motorcycles, yet they appear to have a position in the submission to the Transport Committee.

Another strange claim by ACPO to the committee is that motorcycling presents a problem of “Vehicle Excise Duty evasion on a massive scale.” This appears to be based on a DVLA report published at the beginning of this year suggesting that almost 40 per cent of motorcycles are untaxed, even though an apology was later issued by the Commons public accounts committee when it was discovered the figures were wrong, and the true number was only slightly greater for motorcycles than cars, at about six per cent. In its submission, ACPO used the 40 per cent figure to suggest that motorcycles should be fitted with electronic chips to allow automatic vehicle identification. ACPO did not respond to The Daily Telegraph’s query about this.

A further inaccuracy presented to the committee by ACPO is that, “Production machines are readily available for use on our roads with top speeds in excess of 200 miles per hour.” In fact there are no production bikes capable of more than 200mph, even without the motorcycle industry’s voluntary 186mph speed limitation.

So, he said, no I didn’t, yes you did. It’s looking pretty messy over there. What does that have to do with us in the U.S., or more specifically in Colorado? Nothing directly, but you know that if laws like that get passed over on that side of the pond, someone over here will surely make similar proposals. I know I say this a lot, and I don’t mean to beat a dead horse, but this is exactly why I belong to the American Motorcyclist Association and why you should too, or else to the Motorcycle Riders Foundation or to your local ABATE. These are the guys fighting to protect our rights.

Biker Quote for Today

The great thing about riding through strange new places is that it invariably shows me just how wrong I am about them until I actually go there. Actual experience beats half-assed assumptions and prejudice.