Radars – Open letter to the ministers concerned … –

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Open letter to the ministers concerned…

Radars - Open letter to the ministers concerned ... -

Pierre, 53, sends us an open letter to the ministers concerned with motorcycle safety: the opportunity to open a debate – which we hope will be constructive – on the specificities of motorcycle riding, based mainly on active safety.

Pierre, 53, drives in all weather conditions in his BMW K 1200 LT. In an "open letter to the ministers concerned", this printer from Lyon tells us about his "stroke of the blues" in the face of the recent hardening of the repression against speed, which he considers unsuitable for driving a motorcycle.

In addition to its letter, Moto-Net has gathered the opinions of several personalities on the delicate subject of speed limits: given the specificities of motorcycle driving, could we not imagine a speed limit higher than that of cars? And you what do you think ?

Hello,

Old biker in the Lyon region, I have been riding summer and winter, almost every day for more than thirty years, half city, half countryside, without any accident at fault.

Considering my age and my age, you will understand that as an old man with a mustache who had become deceived by force of circumstances, I have passed the age of the hilt in the corner. I am not for very high speeds and am in favor of limiting to 50 km / h in the city.

That being said, like all bikers, I deplore the rigid ineptitude of speed hunting with two wheels. However, going to the bottom of my thoughts, I only half share the good reasons given to better denigrate radars. Quite simply because if the biker instinctively feels the perversity of the thing, he often clumsily denounces it. Attack on freedom and other nonsense leaves politicians convinced of the omnipotence of their naturally multidisciplinary knowledge..

So, let’s rather support where it hurts, the ministers concerned !

Case n ° 1: you drive every day on a 3-way one-way (motorway, ring road, etc.) limited to 90 km / h.

  • What happens in heavyweight ?
    Nothing new under the sun, it’s been a while since many heavy goods vehicles are limited to 80 or 90 km / h.
  • What happens in the car ?
    Respectful of the law, you find yourself at 90 km / h in the right lane, in the middle of the semi-trailers which are behind you. Not very pleasant, you feel small, but swallowing your saliva you are positive.
  • What is happening on a motorcycle ?
    As in a car, you find yourself in the right lane. You are forced to lower your nose very often in your meters (lower than in the car compared to the eyes). During this time, your forward visibility is reduced to a few meters: great for a vehicle that has no passive safety, but only active safety … In addition, you are almost always followed by the 38 tons. As recently as February 25, a Spanish truck driver 2 meters from my license plate was calling out to me: brilliant for a vehicle that has no passive safety, but only active safety … Confined to the right lane, you suffer not only those who stuck the train to you and those who, from the left lane, suddenly change lanes most of the time without warning, but also those coming from the access ramps, who creep in often in force on your right. And when this pincer closes, you have your wings cut off: no way out! In other words, you have no more control and owe your survival only to the luck or sometimes the compassion of those heavier than you. Great for a vehicle that has no passive safety, only active safety…

The solution is that of wisdom: let us roll by adapting our speed !

In this case, being in the left lane with the possibility of peaks of 10 or 20 km / h above the average speed observed around you, allows you to get out of potentially dangerous situations. I see you coming, but know that braking and slowing down is often the best way to get one in the butt, and it hurts a lot !

Rule n ° 1, therefore: a vehicle that has no passive safety but only active safety must be able to adapt its speed according to the surrounding speeds and not according to a radar or a monolithic pole.

Case n ° 2: on the same ring road or 3-lane motorway in one direction, a semi-trailer "dawns" at 75 km / h. Be careful, 9 times out of 10 it’s because he’s lost and he’s going to screw you up !

  • Option n ° 1: you stay behind, but the draft shakes you like a plum tree and its trailer blocks all visibility. And if it’s raining, I’m not even telling you about the visibility with what it’s spraying. Reminder: you do not have passive safety but only active safety !
  • Option 2: you overtake with barely 15 km / h difference (75 + 15 = 90). The blast of the truck pushing you outside, forcing you to counter, starts once it reaches its rear wheels to suck you in. And it lasts, it lasts … an eternity! Great for a vehicle that does not have passive safety but only active safety: we are forced to make the danger last !

And concrete cases like that, there is enough to fill a novel with them.

The law is the law, we all agree. But is a law that goes against the vital security of the citizen in accordance with the Constitution and human rights? ?

How can we defend a law that puts the extremities of road users in the same basket, with the same speed limit for a 30 tonnes as for a motorcycle? ?

Before laying down a law, it is necessary to define the levels of dangerousness: how many bikers have killed complete families who arrived in front, these last ten years? How many families have been wiped out by incompetent motorists in the past ten years? The reckless motorcyclist pays cash and you help him with your thousands of kilometers of unsuitable security barriers and your slippery white strips like ice. The motorist or the truck driver kill others and often more than one at a time.

In which vehicles does the driver have the greatest responsibility vis-à-vis third parties who have nothing to do with it? And yet, what are the only vehicles already limited in power ?

Let’s not talk about abilities, many car drivers wouldn’t do 1 km on a motorcycle without killing themselves (if not you of course, take a look around your surroundings).

This rigid legislation, which I approve of when I am behind the wheel of my car, leaves me with an aftertaste of sloppy and badly put together when I am riding my motorcycle. Until then, like many other ubiquitous things, it could be laughing at. The problem is, my sense of humor is only limited by my love of life…

I live almost daily the rigid, perverse and dangerous aspect that the law on speed limits takes, in certain cases, which is a shocking height for a law supposed to protect the citizen. A good law, paved with good intentions, can become murderous when the letter takes precedence over the logic of the multiplicity of cases not considered. In conclusion, for motorcycles, the copy is to be reviewed without appeal.

Pierre, 53 years old, Lyon

Based on the observation that the speed limit for cars is greater than that of trucks, Moto-Net therefore asked various personalities in the world of motorcycles if we could not imagine for motorcycles a speed limit slightly higher than that of cars. However, according to the various testimonies collected, the need to take into account the specificities of the motorcycle is far from being shared by everyone. !

Among manufacturers, the least we can say is that we do not rush to answer the question. Only Honda agrees to take a stand, believing that "the law is the same for everyone, why should motorcycles be treated any differently? Now is not the time to point out! If the motorcycle could fit normally in traffic, as in Italy, we would have already taken a big step. Today, with more and more people moving towards two-wheelers, motorcycles have the opportunity to integrate. this luck by crying wolf and applauding those who destroy the radars! "

On the side of the authorities, any modification of the highway code to take into account the specificities of the motorcycle is condemned without appeal..

Radio silence at the Ministry of the Interior and total incomprehension among his colleague of transport: "what is this question again !?". The only answer comes from the interministerial delegate for road safety, Remy Heitz, who has not changed since his little motorcycle tour with Moto Journal (read and du) and continues today to categorically reject the idea of ​​a Slightly higher speed limit for motorcycles: "this seems very difficult to imagine, because if compared to cars, motorcycles have a smaller size, the risk associated with driving a motorcycle is much greater. A two-wheeler is therefore very vulnerable. In any case, this question cannot be validly examined today, given the average rate of speeding by motorcyclists, which is very high and higher than that of motorcyclists. other road users. Before changing the rule, we must first enforce the existing one! ".

On the FFMC side, we believe that it is necessary to "go further in the reflection, beyond simple speed limits, because the problem is not to respect or not the speed but rather to adapt to the situation. C It is for this reason that the FFMC does not in any way claim free speed, but asks that the limitations be thought out according to the dangerousness of the road. We are for a policy which calls for the empowerment of users and not for arbitrary and hypocritical limitations. If the traffic conditions are good (density), visibility and the weather too, driving faster should not be a problem. This obviously requires better training in vehicle control, at the risk of road as well as the adaptation of infrastructures to the two-wheeler problematic. A simple obvious reminder: at 80 km / h, no human body escapes from an accident, even protected in a car full of airbags … "

"In town, nobody questions the 50 km / h limit, given that you have to adapt your speed to the most vulnerable (pedestrians, cyclists …). But on the rest of the network, there is a lot to say ", continues Frederic Brozdziak, spokesman for the French Federation of angry motorcyclists:" To ride at 90 km / h on a national, one behind the other, without respecting the safety distances, amounts to being more dangerous than to driving at 100 km / h when there is nobody! Analyzing accidents as they generally occur on the road, we see that they mainly take place at intersections or at the front (face to face). On the motorway, you drive in the same direction and you are protected from vehicles driving in the opposite direction. This practically eliminates all accidents. There remain those which are due to misconduct and fatigue. German example, with its free-speed motorway network, we realize that there are no more accidents than in France (7%). Of the 12,000 km of German motorways, 8,000 are at "free" speed. We can therefore see that in France, where last year there were 9,800 km of motorways, speed is a false problem that the "extremists" of road safety are putting forward! "

Christophe Guyot, vice-world endurance champion, also acknowledges that "that could be a good idea in itself. But nobody will ever be able to pass something like this, remember how the Estrosi amendment ended!" (read).

"The problem of speed is more complicated than that", continues the manager of GMT 94: "it is primarily a problem of learning to drive. If there are accidents, it is not to Because of the speed, it’s because people don’t know how to drive! Knowing how to drive is also knowing that others may not know how to drive … It’s a question of mentality: you have to accept the idea that the other has not seen us, or that he is going to do anything. And contrary to certain received ideas, bikers do not know how to drive better than motorists. I see it in my driving courses: he It takes them half a day to put the knee down, but two days to know how to brake! Half of the trainees always ask me: “what do you do when you come in too quickly in a curve?” My answer is simple: I fall! your question, I think we should be able to drive depending on the circumstances, with adjustable speeds adapted to realities and to the traffic flow: 50 in town OK, but 20 in front of schools! And with a radar! But on a deserted road or highway, driving at 170 is not dangerous! "…

And you what do you think ?

Eric MICHEL

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