MooN Posted December 3, 2023 Share Posted December 3, 2023 France has, until this year, avoided having an MOT equivalent for motorcycles. they have now invented one, and have somehow managed to take all the stupid bits of everybody elses MOT or equivqlentand roll them into one pointless surperfluous and inefficacious bi-annual visual inspection. The statistics ( these are generated by the French "Sécurité routiere" organisation who are rabid anti speed, anti motorcycle road safety advocates and remain incontested by the govt. and ratified by the majour insurance companies) - the road infrastructure is directly implicated in 25% of all road traffic acidents. - in road traffic accidents involving motorcycles, The fault is imputed to the motorcylist in less than 40% of cases. -the number of motorcycles on the road has increased by 30% in the last 5 years. -over that same period the number of mortorcycle deaths has decreased by 20%. - Mechanical failure or defect is implicated in less than 0.5% of accidents involving motorcycles. Now I have nothing, as such, against a regular MOT type test if it can be shown to be beneficial. it can't. the govt has just announced how the test is oing to work ( bearing in mind that this is supposed to be in place for january 2024) and it appears that the test centres will not be required to have anyone on their staff with a motorcycle licence! The staff will be required to undrego a 1 day raining course on how to carry out the check, and this will include instruction on how to move a motorcycle around the workshop and " instruction on how tp pick up a motorcycle should you drop it". Needless to say, this raises some eyebrows, not least those of the insurance companies who maintain that if you do not possess a motorcycle licence, and you damage it whilst in charge of it then any insurance would be void... Is it only me that can see some charges of GBH on the horizon here...? anyway, yesterday afternoon, despite temperatures around 0 c we went and made some noise and fucked up some christmas shoppers saturday afternoon, to display our discontent. we stopped in front of each of the main MOT centres in town. They were closed of course but it was easy enough to set their alems off with a couple of bikes up against the building and half a dozen backfires... this fucked up their day as they then have to get someone out to shut the alrm down. It should be mentioned that the police ;otorcycle escort managed very successfully to be busy at the other end of the convoy whilst this went on... as that last pic was taken, the camera battery succombed to the cold, which was a shame cos as we started to move on one of the dozen of BMW GS's refused to start and had to be assisted by a guy on a 1990 Honda transalp... of course i laughed like a drain suggesting they were using the Honda to carry out a " reliability graft". 30 seconds later, Karma struck and the tiger refused to start. Victim, I suspect, of an hour at idle speed with heated grips on full power. The convoy dissapeard down the road and I started to ring Mrs Moon to bring me some jump leads ( i've never tried to push start the tiger and wasn't about to start in the middle of town in saturday afternoon traffic... Then an angel came to rescue me, one of the FFMC outriders ( either a girl or a guy with very pretty eyes...) had seen me pull off to the side, guesse what had happened, ridden forward to a colleague she knew had a booster in his top box, and bought it back to me. Luckily the battery on the tiger is easily accessible under the seat so we started it from the booster and I followed her to catch up with the main group. The battery seems fine now so ai can only think that it was the heated grips drawing more power the the constant idle was providing charge to the battery. the battery is at least 6 years old so it may well be on it's last legs as well. After the group dispersed I rode into town with a mate and we found a bar in the centre square that was doing christmas ale and mulled wine. On top of that, the landlord announced that he give a 10% discount to motorcyclists at the weekends. Result! got home well after dark and with temps down beloz freezing. Lukily the ride home was nly about 5 km so no real challenge. I don't expect the demo will have the slightest effect on the installation of the new technical inspections set up, but at least no one an acuse us of not have protested from the beginning. 9 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boboneleg Posted December 3, 2023 Share Posted December 3, 2023 Excellent Chris, what I love about French motorcyclists in a nutshell. What a shame that British bikers don't stick together like the French 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XTreme Posted December 3, 2023 Share Posted December 3, 2023 The French are great at protesting! Will they be burning some shit down as well? 41 minutes ago, MooN said: The tiger refused to start. Typical Brit Shit! Maybe time to check out the Honda dealer Chris? That old Transalp of yours just kept on going for years! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MooN Posted December 3, 2023 Author Share Posted December 3, 2023 21 minutes ago, XTreme said: The French are great at protesting! Will they be burning some shit down as well? Typical Brit Shit! Maybe time to check out the Honda dealer Chris? That old Transalp of yours just kept on going for years! I expect that I'll return to honda when this one dies, but won't be for a few years yet I hope. Goodness knows what piles of semi electric poo wil be available in 5 or ten years from now though. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pedro Posted December 3, 2023 Share Posted December 3, 2023 1 hour ago, MooN said: the police ;otorcycle escort managed very successfully to be busy at the other end of the convoy whilst this went on... Class Are you a part of some organised group or club? I only ever hear about this kind of stuff on the tv news after it has happened Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buckster Posted December 3, 2023 Share Posted December 3, 2023 42 minutes ago, MooN said: I expect that I'll return to honda when this one dies, but won't be for a few years yet I hope. Goodness knows what piles of semi electric poo wil be available in 5 or ten years from now though. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clive Posted December 3, 2023 Share Posted December 3, 2023 3 hours ago, boboneleg said: Excellent Chris, what I love about French motorcyclists in a nutshell. What a shame that British bikers don't stick together like the French My German pal laughs at us here, a bike/scoot that maybe covers a couple of thousand miles a year ( much less in my case) has to have a yearly examination, surely it could be every other year......I do wonder how much of the MOT fee (maybe none ?) goes to the government? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XTreme Posted December 3, 2023 Share Posted December 3, 2023 17 minutes ago, Clive said: My German pal laughs at us here, a bike/scoot that maybe covers a couple of thousand miles a year ( much less in my case) has to have a yearly examination, surely it could be every other year......I do wonder how much of the MOT fee (maybe none ?) goes to the government? Every two years here! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clive Posted December 3, 2023 Share Posted December 3, 2023 5 minutes ago, XTreme said: Every two years here! Should be here too, if they did it on milage (which I know is not feasible) my scoot could stretch a MOT to every 3 years. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clive Posted December 3, 2023 Share Posted December 3, 2023 And as said, UK bikers, and the rest of the population do not stand together on issues, just stamp their feet, roll over and take up the Kyber 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buckster Posted December 3, 2023 Share Posted December 3, 2023 2 hours ago, Clive said: And as said, UK bikers, and the rest of the population do not stand together on issues, just stamp their feet, roll over and take up the Kyber That’s the Honda riders. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MooN Posted December 3, 2023 Author Share Posted December 3, 2023 Car mot’s and now bikes are every 2 years here. Car cost me 60€ last time. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XTreme Posted December 3, 2023 Share Posted December 3, 2023 1 minute ago, MooN said: Car cost me 60€ last time. About €35 here! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MooN Posted December 3, 2023 Author Share Posted December 3, 2023 6 hours ago, Pedro said: Class Are you a part of some organised group or club? I usually grt the info from one or other face book page or via a FFMC mailing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MooN Posted December 3, 2023 Author Share Posted December 3, 2023 Just now, XTreme said: About €35 here! Thats because a horse and cart has less to check… 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XTreme Posted December 3, 2023 Share Posted December 3, 2023 Just now, MooN said: Thats because a horse and cart has less to check… No wonder the Dagos don't have much time for your lot! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buckster Posted December 3, 2023 Share Posted December 3, 2023 17 minutes ago, MooN said: Thats because a horse and cart has less to check… There’s a word for people like you, however I am too polite to use it. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boboneleg Posted December 4, 2023 Share Posted December 4, 2023 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Specs Posted December 16, 2023 Share Posted December 16, 2023 Man the barricades! Power to the people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pedro Posted December 27, 2023 Share Posted December 27, 2023 On similar news, 2024 inspections for bikes in Portugal were delayed to 2025. Inspection centres haven’t gotten training on bikes yet, either. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustaPor Posted December 28, 2023 Share Posted December 28, 2023 On 03/12/2023 at 22:25, XTreme said: About €35 here! Around the same here... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cupid Stunt Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 On 03/12/2023 at 18:42, XTreme said: Every two years here! Every year here, it's a pain having to park the scoot at the garage while the mechanic and I have a natter and mug of tea. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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