Yearly Motorcycle Technical Check Coming To Belgium from Bikes in the Fast Lane

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Yearly Motorcycle Technical Check Coming To Belgium

August
2008

  File under News Travel
  Author: Mike Werner
  Location: Normandy, France

Yet another country that is looking into imposing a yearly technical check on motorcycles older than 4 years. After France started the debate (and dropped it faster than a hot potato), now it's the turn of Belgium.

Cars need to be checked in many European countries after 4 years. The independent inspection stations (they do not offer repair facilities) check a predefined list of items that must be in order before receiving a sticker that allows you to drive for another year. The reason behind the inspection is that people kept their cars for long periods, and many were not in a good state, some even dangerous.

In Belgium, one female senator, Vanessa Matz , has decided that too many motorcycle accidents are caused by motorcycles that are not up to standard, or technically deficient, and that motorcycles should follow a yearly inspection.

Whether motorcycles should need a similar yearly technical inspection is a totally different subject for debate. But the fact that the poor woman comes up with some sentence stating that there are many accidents caused by badly maintained motorcycles is an outright lie. In fact, it's so wrong that you'd easily come to the conclusion that the senator has some vested interest in the whole matter.

According to scientific research done over the last few years (like the MAIDS report

), very few accidents are caused by the motorcycles themselves. According to the Belgium Motorcycles Association (MAG

), it's only 2% of accidents, while ACEM report a Europe wide rate of 5%.

So now that we've got the statistics out of the way, let's talk about whether bikes need to be inspected. Do we need to have an independent institution check our motorcycles. Mind you, you'll need to pay money for it, and if they find anything wrong, you'll need to get it fixed, and rechecked. Are motorcycles maintained the same way as cars?

What do you think? Does it make sense?

Via: Motornieuws.nl