Update on European Type-Approval

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/e...for-motorbikes

In an email from Bill Newton Dunn MEP

An EU regulation to upgrade safety and environmental standards, was passed by 643 in favour, 16 against, and 18 abstentions. The Motorcycle Action Group (who organised demonstrations on the M1 motorway against the proposed legislation but never came to see me inside the parliament to explain their detailed objections) to the bitter end urged MEPs with letters to reject the law on the grounds that the procedure was illegal - even though none of the 27 national governments has raised any objection to the procedure.

Half the story with a bit of spin

My reply....

I find your email rather misleading on the Motorcycle issue.

It seems to suggest the Motorcycle Action Group failed in fighting the legislation? The probable reason they didn't visit you is because they had already succeeded in having the items they objected to, primarily that which prevented modifications to the bike, to removed from the legislation before it went to vote.

I think the majority of motorcyclists will be happy and in agreement with the legislation that has been passed, namely introducing ABS (which is already fitted to most manufacturers new models and can usually be switched off if desired), and improving emissions which I think we could all agree is a good thing.

Far from the landslide victory for the European Commission that your email suggests, the MAG have achieved all their objectives.

Sorry, I've not been staying abreast of the latest developments on this. Are you saying it's not going to be illegal to hobble the ABS?

Or just that the more general "let's make tweaking something as minor as your bar ends a stupid bureaucratic and costly procedure, like it is in Germany" has been kicked out?

The latter, the IMCO dropped all that anti-tamper nonsense in June knowing they fecked up by illegally having no research to back it up.

But until ABS testing becomes part of the MOT, who is going to know if you've disabled your ABS? Or just disable and re-enable it between MOT's.

Ralph: article 18 is still present, so anti-tampering is part of the new directive. This is the driver for the super-mot stuff now being discussed.

I'm not sure about who Bill is, but one of the east midlands MEPs was completely inaccessible - it may have been him.

Originally Posted by orose

Ralph: article 18 is still present, so anti-tampering is part of the new directive. This is the driver for the super-mot stuff now being discussed.

I'm not sure about who Bill is, but one of the east midlands MEPs was completely inaccessible - it may have been him.

But it excludes Unrestricted bikes (? question and statement because I'm 99% sure on that one)

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/...DOC+XML+V0//EN

I haven't had a chance to get my head round the MOT stuff yet, which I guess is how you enforce it in the owners hands, not what the manufacturer must do to pass type approval?