A Side (car) Issue from Europe

Right To Ride and our supporters have been following the unfolding events from Brussels regarding the latest raft of regulation proposals to come out from the EU Commission.

These include new rules for emissions, ABS (Advanced Braking Systems), AHO (Automatic Headlights On), mandatory OBD (On Board Diagnostics), anti-tampering measures and so forth.

Within the proposals are also limitations for small series manufacturers which for motorcycling will have dire consequences.

The proposals aim to reduce small series motorcycle manufacturers from the present limits of 200 per annum down to 50 per annum, so for small companies like Norton, Harris and CCM, this will have devastating consequences.

The Side (car) Issue

At Right to Ride we have an interest in sidecars – hacks – rigs – combinations – whatever their definition, because we have three bikes our “normal” bike, a scooter and a sidecar combination.

Sidecar combinations are challenging and fun in their own unique way, they are practical and impracticable at the same time, they range from the “amateur” built (to a professional standard) to the “professional” built, to being fitted by their owners or the sidecar manufacturer.

With thousands of others across Europe, either individuals or those formed into clubs and national associations, we fully understand the reasons for owning a sidecar and for us it makes complete sense!

However that sense looks like coming to an end with the proposals contained in the EU Commission’s Framework Regulations.

We have been following these proposals for “motorcycles”, through our correspondence with DG Enterprise and Industry and attending the ACEM (the motorcycle industry representative in Europe) conference in Brussels.

What we have found is that hidden within these proposed limits for motorcycles there is also a reduction of sidecar production (identified as L4e vehicles) from 200 to 100 per annum per company and also proposals for Type Approval.

Concentrating On The Side Issue

In our correspondence with DG Enterprise and Industry we tried to understand 1) their definition of L4e vehicles and 2) the implications for sidecar manufacturers.

What has been revealed is that the Commission seems to have mixed up the combination of L4e vehicles (motorcycle and sidecar) with stand alone sidecars (defined by the Commission as a Separate Technical Unit – aka STU).

The motorcycle industry is not interested in sidecar production, in spite of the fact that as many as (if not more than) 4,000 of these STUs are produced annually in Europe at a (conservative) estimated value of 20 million euros in sales, so it looks like sidecar manufacturers are on their own.

Together with Rod Young of Motopodd Ltd, a manufacturer of sidecars in the UK, we’ve written to Wim van de Camp, MEP and rapporteur of the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee to express our dismay at this short-sighted proposal.

We have requested that within the amendments that the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee (IMCO) put forward on 28th February at their meeting, sidecars are either removed from the limits proposed or at least left at the status quo.

You can watch this live at http://www.europarl.europa.eu/activities/committees/homeCom.do?body=IMCO – Click on the right hand side link.

Full details at http://www.righttoride.eu/?p=6635

Issued by

Trevor Baird

www.righttoride.co.uk

www.righttoride.eu

trevor.baird@righttoride.co.uk

Mobile: 07747604119

Phone: 02842 757131