Transport Crucible

In practice, motorcycles, mopeds and scooters, aka Powered Two Wheelers (P2W) offer cheaper and more efficient motorised transport than four wheelers. The most vigorously contested element of motorcycling policy matters right now is a trial of what amounts to a new tax on M/C parking on public highways in Westminster. The pioneering protagonists are Westminster City Council, and opponents are represented by notobikeparkingfees.com, who the UK Foreign Office cite as a “brilliant digital campaign“. Nevertheless, in theory, though not a vogue one, greater use of this mode – especially in heavily populated urban areas can help reduce demand on oversubscribed public transport and congested road space. This was recently acknowledged by UK government in its Motorcycling Strategy document which emerged from a marathon five years of design by committee. This is accompanied by a new set of IHIE guidelines for highway engineers that is also recognised by UK government. However, the exposure of riders to the elements and higher risk of injury than in enclosed vehicles deters all but a minority from using this mode in Britain. Currently, these vehicles facilitate far more passenger movement than cars in places like India but only 6% of UK passenger miles although this is slightly more than the 5% by pedal powered bicycles. Unfortunately for all concerned P2W rider casualties are disproportionately higher than with some other modes. Of the 3.172 people killed on UK roads last year, 588 of them were P2W riders. This bad record is often used and seemingly reasonably to justify far greater emphasis on encouraging modal shift from cars to bicycles than motorcycles. It is nevertheless worth noting that although walking is encouraged perhaps above all modes, there were 646 pedestrians killed on roads which in some ways shows it to be even more dangerous than motorcycling.
In practice, far more is done to improve the safety of pedestrians and cyclists than motorcyclists and this by and large reflects vogue attitudes in UK policy circles. A rare exception is the new London Mayor’s plan to allow P2W use of bus lanes, in response to a TfL study that showed it reduced motorcycle casualties by up to 40% and cut pedestrian and cyclists casualties. Go here for a short film on how a British motorcycle is made.