National Motorcyclists Council calls on the Government to Start Delivering

Inertia over who will be prime minister has led to several policy issues relating to motorcycling either stalling or slowing to a crawl While the Government under new Prime Minister Liz Truss will be rightly prioritising the urgent need to tackle energy prices and the costs of living crisis, the wider business of Government will also need to restart alongside this, after a long summer recess and the hiatus caused by the resignation of Boris Johnson and the subsequent leadership contest. This is why the National Motorcyclists Council (NMC) are today calling on the Government to also start making progress on several issues relating to motorcycling. At the Department for Transport, the new Secretary of State Anne Marie-Trevelyan has several challenges. The

CMC: ‘Motorcycles must be included in driver assistance systems’

Reliable detection of motorcycles by driver assistance systems in cars is essential to avoid collisions and decrease the number of motorcyclist accidents. A white paper published by the Connected Motorcycle Consortium discusses the current state of automobile Advanced Driver Assistance Systems from a two-wheeler detection point of view. It also presents an evaluation of potential methods to improve powered two-wheeler conspicuity and analyses previous relevant studies. Just like FEMA, the Connected Motorcycle Consortium thinks powered two-wheelers should be included in ADAS test procedure development and retroactively introduced into existing ones. Powered two-wheelers are often overseen, or their speed and distance are misjudged by other road users. Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) support passenger car drivers to avoid hazardous situations in many traffic scenarios

BMF response to remote driving consultation

The BMF is responding today, September 2nd 2022, to the Law Commission's consultation on remote driving. Some limited forms of remote driving are already employed, usually in industrial context such as mines and quarries but there is interest in employing it more widely; for example, to move rental cars between hires. One topic in the consultation is examining current legislation as to whether some of it is hindering development of remote driving. It is probable that not all of us will think hindering this development is a bad thing, but we have taken the opportunity to point out some of the issues we see around automated driving as well. You can read more about the consultation here And you can read our response to

Hackney riders protest parking plan

Save London Motorcycling (SLM) is organising a mass ride out to protest against proposed new parking charges from 2023 for powered two-wheelers by Hackney Council. The Council is planning to charge motorcycles and scooters £6 per hour to park in a marked bay, with a maximum stay of four hours. The charge applies equally to mopeds, litre-plus adventure tourers and even to electric motorcycles and scooters. In response to a question from the BMF, Hackney Council provided this statement: “As a Council we are committed to improving local air quality and tackling the climate emergency. As part of this commitment, and following a full public consultation in 2020, Cabinet agreed in February 2021 to place motorcycles on the same footing as

Battery swapping hits 300,000 a day

Battery swapping for electric scooters is big business in Taiwan, where 340,000 swaps are made every day by riders who subscribe to the service. Rather than charging batteries at home or work, the riders simply rock up to one of nearly 11,000 swapping stations and change their depleted battery for a fully charged one. It’s one answer to the conundrum for flat dwellers – how to charge your scooter when you live on the 7th floor. The system is run by Gogoro, which launched it in 2015 and now provides a standard battery swap service for ten different brands of scooter, including Yamaha. It claims to have 92% of this ‘electric refuelling’ market in Taiwan, covering 25% of all powered two-wheelers sold

Fred Warr – Britain’s Mr Harley-Davidson – dies

Fred Warr, who with his father did more than anyone else to bring Harley-Davidson into Britain, has died aged 93. He had been suffering from motor neurone disease and passed away peacefully at home. It’s hard to overstate the importance of the Warr family to Harley in this country – it was the company’s only UK dealer from the early 1950s to the early ‘70s. Warr’s Harley-Davidson, now occupying two sites in London, has been the classic tale of a family dynasty. It remains Harley’s oldest dealer in Europe and the business (though not as an official dealer) will celebrate its centenary in 2024. It was in 1924 that Fred’s father Captain Frederick James Warr was demobbed from the British Army. He

BMF & Weeble have teamed up to support mental health

BMF & Weeble have teamed up to support mental health. We asked our friend Weeble of Weeble's World to come up with a new design to symbolise our ‘for all’ ethos and we are blown away by it….  We think it's a great design and really gets the message across that BMF is for ALL RIDERS, whatever you ride... Each shirt is ethically sourced, made, printed and packaged, 10% of all sales will be donated to Mental Health Motorbike  We have an established relationship with MHM and feel it is important to support them in the work they do. We ran an article in Motorcycle Rider Spring 2022 and previous article on our website Available in unisex sizes Medium to 3XL MEDIUM 38 – 40” LARGE 41 – 43” XL 44 –

Record Motorcycle Tests & Passes

A record number of people are taking, and passing, their motorcycle test, according to the latest figures from the Driving and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA). Undeterred by the spike in fuel prices and the ever-rising cost of living, 65,711 riders took their Module 2 (on-road) test between April 2021 and March 2022, more 2000 up on the previous record set in 2012/13 – 50,000 a year is a more typical figure. Of those who took their Module 2 in 2021/22, 72% passed the test to receive their full licence, slightly bettering the previous pass rate. This impressive increase is partly down to the efforts of Driving Test Centres to catch up on the backlog of tests which built up during lockdown –

Triumph Display at British Motor Museum

A line up of 12 Triumphs bearing the Daytona name makes up a new display at the British Motor Museum at Gaydon, which until now has focused on cars. The Daytona badge was coined for Triumph’s twin-carb 500cc twins after Buddy Elmore won the famed Daytona 200 race back in 1966 – his race bike takes pride of place in the exhibition, along with three more of the early 500s including a 1974 bike, one of the last made. The line up goes on to include the early Hinckley-built Daytonas – sports bike of the Hinckley Triumphs – and a good selection of 675cc triples, including the original 2008 Daytona and the latest Daytona 765 Moto2 Limited Edition, taking in road

New Research into Motorcycle Usage in the UK

We have been asked by a bmf member to help with his research into motorcycle usage in the UK..... Have you ever commuted by motorcycle or scooter? Have you ever thought about commuting by motorcycle or scooter? Is it something you do every day, or a few days a month? Or are you thinking no way, I’m not doing that! What stops you, what spurs you on? What are the pros and cons, the barriers that prevent more people from doing it? This is the subject of my latest research. There is lots of evidence to suggest that there are many benefits to a wider use of motorcycles and other forms of powered two-wheeler for commuting to work. From environmental benefits, to reduced road congestion, to improved

Purple Helmets Retire

The Purple Helmets, the hilarious and highly skilled motorcycle stunt team, is to retire this summer, with its final show scheduled for August on the Isle of Man. Anyone who has attended a major open air motorcycle show in the UK in the last 25 years can’t have missed them. Mounted on ageing Honda C90, dressed in identical dirty brown macs and with deadpan faces hidden behind shades, the Purple Helmets attempted to replicate White Helmet stunts such as the Pyramid, adding their own wackier versions, such as dustbin racing (imagine a Honda 90 towing a sawn-off bin at speed) or a naked man playing a piano in a sidecar. For something which started out as a few friends having fun,

Rotary record

Guy Martin is planning an attack on the rotary-engined motorcycle speed record, riding the Crighton CR700W. BMF members will have read our profile of the machine and it’s Dorset-based manufacturer Rotron, which also builds paramotors and jet boards – see Motorcycle Rider, Spring 2022. The CR700W is a development of Norton’s rotary racers of the 1990s, masterminded by ex-Norton man Brian Crighton, who carried on refining the racers until they were banned from circuits in 1995. He continued R&D, first with Stuart Garner and now with Rotron. The CR700W is now being built in limited numbers by Rotron, with a price tag of £95,000. Ironically, given that the rotary was banned from racing over 25 years ago, the new bike is

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