MPs promote motorcycling for the young

Stephen Pound, MP for Ealing North, tabled an Early Day Motion (EDM) in Parliament on Monday 19th July, calling on the Government to provide stable funding to promote the Wheels to Work scheme for young people.

An EDM can lead to a debate in Parliament if enough MPs agree to sign it.

RAV partners have long campaigned for the Wheels to Work scheme to be available nationally, as it enables youngsters to become independently mobile for either work or college, especially where poor public transport provision prohibits this.

The actual text is below. Please ask your MP to sign EDM 533 and click HERE if you aren’t sure who your new MP is.

Early Day Motion
EDM 533

WHEELS TO WORK SCHEME
19.07.2010

Stephen Pound MP

That this House notes the moped loan scheme for young people known as Wheels to Work which has traditionally received cross-party support; further notes that in the current economic climate it is more important than ever that young people have access to employment, education and training opportunities; further notes that the low cost of providing small motorcycles to jobseekers can more than offset the cost to the Exchequer of leaving young people economically inactive and claiming benefits; and calls for the Government to actively consider how it can facilitate and support individual Wheels to Work scheme efforts to gain stable funding, so enabling them to continue to provide this invaluable and cost-effective service.

DSA Announce Three Reviews

Further to pressure from RAV and the subsequent announcement by Roads Minister Mike Penning that he was going to implement a full review of the current motorcycle testing regime, we have been notified today that 3 working groups are to be established by the DSA.

• One will be examining a trainer registration scheme which we have been calling for for a number of years,

• One will be reviewing the current test booking procedure which many training schools are unhappy with and

• one will be reviewing the Compulsory Basic Training (CBT) syllabus.

The RAV team are very pleased that the DSA is willing to re-examine the current situation and particularly pleased that the requests for a registration of trainers is being addressed. This could provide control and maintenance of instruction standards and enable the UK interpretation of the 3rd EU licence directive to include a ‘training option’ as a way to graduate through the soon to be implemented stepped licence system.

Minister Penning said only last week in a meeting with Mark Williams MP, motorcycle instructors and RAV’s Paddy Tyson, that he would ensure some form of trainers register would be investigated to ensure quality of service and parity with the Approved Driving Instructors registration system.

Motorcycling Early Day Motion

There is a new Early Day Motion regarding motorcycling.

You can get the details by clicking here, and if you feel you can then get your MP to sign it, when enough MPs sign then these things progress to the next stage and issues that concern us get properly heard.

Riders face expulsion from Bus Lanes – because of parking charges…

Organisations behind the Riders Are Voters campaign have called for sense to prevail amidst growing concern that a pre-emptive decision on the future of motorcycle access to bus-lanes has been, or is about to be, taken.

Broadcasts by BBC television, recently, revealed that London Mayor Boris Johnson may be about to end motorcycle access to bus lanes as a result of an ill-tempered encounter with riders protesting against bike-parking charges.

Speaking on behalf of the Riders Are Voters campaign, Nich Brown said:

“Bus-lane access cannot be allowed to be treated as a political football as it did under the previous Mayor.

Around 150,000 London voters ride motorcycles or work in motorcycle-related businesses would be affected, alongside many thousands of visitors to the capital city.

Our expectation from meetings with TfL and the Mayor’s staff has been that the outcome of the current experimental study should be discussed with the groups most affected before any decision was made.

With just one month remaining before the experimental scheme must be made permanent we have had neither sight of the data and findings nor any invitation to meet the Mayor to discuss the outcomes.”

The Riders Are Voters campaign calls for the Mayor to give an urgent assurance that no decision has been taken.