UK France Bikers.com

The London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics have been called “Britain’s largest peacetime logistical exercise” and when you look at the numbers you can certainly see why. There are expected to be over 11 million spectators to the games, and when you add in the number of extra people that the increase in tourism will bring, you can begin to see how getting around London during the Olympics could be a nightmare. Thankfully, bikers will be in a better position than other road users, but there are still some things to look out for.

Two wheels trump four

The sizable increase in people will also mean a large increase in the number of cars on the road, which is almost certainly going to lead to a lot of road congestion and traffic delays. The best solution to this problem is to take your motorbike or scooter and the extra traffic becomes far less of a problem. Research from Transport for London (TfL) shows that travelling by motorcycle cuts a third off your travel time (thank you, filtering). While car drivers are stuck in stop-start traffic and cursing one another, you’ll be able to zip around the city with relative ease. Don’t forget also that, as a biker, the congestion charge doesn’t apply to you, giving you a lot less anxiety and potential road rage than your four-wheeled counterparts.

Preparation is half the battle

The Games themselves are set to run from the end of July to mid-August, but the Olympic venues are open from the end of June up until mid-September. That’s about three months of potential disruption, road closures and route changes. The Olympics Route Network (ORN) means that there are dedicated ‘Games lanes’ to allow athletes and officials to move between venues with ease. It is believed that about 30 per cent of London roads will be affected by these changes, including popular areas such as Hyde Park and Trafalgar Square. TfL have a dedicated page on their site where you can predict potential delays on your route at peak times. Even though travelling by motorbike is still the quickest method of getting around, it pays to figure out alternative routes that stay away from the Olympic hot-spots and to know when the peak times hit. This way, you can avoid the throng of spectators and tourists and shave even more off your journey times.

Be Considerate

Despite the benefits that taking to two wheels has during this busy period, bear in mind that a lot of other bikers will be having the same thought, so expect to see a lot more motorcyclists on the roads during the Games. The extra people will bring with it extra stress, so remember to be considerate to your fellow road users. This is especially true when it comes to filtering in traffic. There is some contention about the risks of filtering and a small percentage of car drivers aren’t keen on bikers doing so, so make sure you keep aware of obstructions and limit your speed when filtering. There will also be a large increase in pedestrian and cycle traffic as part of the ‘ride and ‘stride’ initiative during the Games, so be careful when driving through the more built up areas of London.

Seeing as you’re in the city during the Olympics, take some time and enjoy the atmosphere that the event will bring. It’ll be a busy time, sure, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it.

This guest post was written by Jamie Gibbs, the resident blogger for motorbike insurance comparison site, Confused.com with which UK France bikers.com has entered into a partnership agreement.

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If you’re based in France and want to take part in the fight against the Government’s proposed introduction of a compulsory annual environmental and road safety test for motorcycles and their continued policy to ban motorcyclists from filtering through traffic, then contact the Fédération Française des Motards en Colère (FFMC – French Federation of Angry Bikers).

Si vous habitez en France et souhaitez participer aux manifestations contre la proposition du gouvernement d’introduire un controle technique pour les 2 roues motorises ansi que de continuer a empecher la circulation inter files pour les motocyclistes dans les embouteillages, contactez la Fédération Française des Motards en Colère (FFMC).

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Please join and support the campaign to stop Westminster Council from stealth taxing motorcyclists to park before their scheme spreads all over the UK and the rest of Europe. For further details, visit http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/

Rejoignez le groupe de manifestants contre le stationnement payant des motocyclistes a Westminster avant que cela ne se propage dans le reste du Royaume-Uni et l’Union Europeenne. Pour plus d’informations, consultez http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/

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If you have a story you would like to see published on UK France bikers.com, please contact us here.

Si vous avez une experience a partager et que vous souhaiteriez voir publiee sur UK France bikers.com, n’hesitez pas a nous contacter en cliquant ici.

Commuting is a nightmare whichever city you live in, and whichever country you live in it seems. We hear so much about “this city is the most congested in the world” and “traffic here is the worst in the world” and in many cases both of these statements are severe exaggerations. That isn’t to say that traffic doesn’t exist either, and two of the worst countries to commute in are France and England. Both are major countries, not just on a European scale, but globally.

The two capital cities, Paris and London, are notoriously treacherous at the best of times with cars and buses whizzing everywhere and there just never seems to be a period of the day where you can make real progress with your journey, hence both cities having such famous public transport with the Metro and Underground services helping to get traffic off the roads.

While both are very good ways at reducing the number of cars on the roads, they don’t solve the problem. There is still the inevitable bumper-to-bumper queuing at rush hour both to and from work, and in London you get charged for the privilege! One of the methods brought in by the UK authorities in an attempt to reduce the number of cars on the road was to bring in the congestion charge, a daily payment which allows drivers to move through the city. Effectively, you get charged to sit in a queue and arrive at work stressed and out of pocket.

But there is a way around paying the congestion charge in London, and it is a method used by many in Paris and other major French cities such as Lyon and Marseille, and that is to use a motorbike or scooter. If you use a motorcycle in London, you are exempt from paying the congestion charge, so if you’re a keen biker, you get the best of both worlds – riding your beloved motorbike and not paying to do so! (Except the rather excessive price of fuel of course).

As anyone who either lives in or has visited Paris, Lyon and Marseille knows, you can barely go anywhere without hearing the sound of a horn or a moped driving by. This is because car drivers there are becoming frustrated at sitting in traffic while motorcyclists drive freely between the traffic and in dedicated motorcycle lanes which are springing up in attempts to improve safety for two-wheeled riders of the human and petrol powered varieties. If you’ve not been fortunate to visit France, then you must have seen images of vehicles queuing up along the Champs Elysees and right around l’Arc de Triomphe, often four or five abreast. Why risk almost inevitable damage to your car sitting in that traffic when you could travel much more easily and weave between the queuing traffic on your motorbike?

Other cities in the United Kingdom, such as Manchester and Birmingham, who both claim to be “the second city”, also struggle with traffic congestion, particularly at rush hour, and their way of resolving the traffic is to segregate it. As mentioned previously, many cities are installing dedicated motorbike and cycle lanes, making it much safer for commuters and this is something that many bikers are simply falling in love with. The number of bikers on the road in the two cities is on the rise as riders take the opportunity to combine travelling through the congested cities easily and getting to ride at the same time.

So if you’re a motorcycle fanatic, why leave it locked up in the garage only to sit in a queue of traffic on your way to and from work, or relying on the public transport systems running to schedule – which they regularly don’t – when you could get out on your motorbike. We all love bikes. The freedom they offer and the experience associated with all the power between your legs and testing the handling to the limit – you just don’t get that in a car.

Leave your car in the garage, take the bike instead! Have fun! Amusez-vous!

This article was written by Chris White. A motorcycle enthusiast and experienced writer currently working on behalf of uShip – the experts in courier, house removal and man with a van services.

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If you’re based in France and want to take part in the fight against the Government’s proposed introduction of a compulsory annual environmental and road safety test for motorcycles and their continued policy to ban motorcyclists from filtering through traffic, then contact the Fédération Française des Motards en Colère (FFMC – French Federation of Angry Bikers).

Si vous habitez en France et souhaitez participer aux manifestations contre la proposition du gouvernement d’introduire un controle technique pour les 2 roues motorises ansi que de continuer a empecher la circulation inter files pour les motocyclistes dans les embouteillages, contactez la Fédération Française des Motards en Colère (FFMC).

ANY_CHARACTER_HERE

Please join and support the campaign to stop Westminster Council from stealth taxing motorcyclists to park before their scheme spreads all over the UK and the rest of Europe. For further details, visit http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/

Rejoignez le groupe de manifestants contre le stationnement payant des motocyclistes a Westminster avant que cela ne se propage dans le reste du Royaume-Uni et l’Union Europeenne. Pour plus d’informations, consultez http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/

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If you have a story you would like to see published on UK France bikers.com, please contact us here.

Si vous avez une experience a partager et que vous souhaiteriez voir publiee sur UK France bikers.com, n’hesitez pas a nous contacter en cliquant ici.

With just one month to go before the first round of the French presidential elections, at least 90,000 bikers gathered this weekend in every town and city across the whole of France to remind candidates that they had better come up with a robust road safety policy if they don’t want to see the whole nation brought to a complete standstill on a regular basis and during their presidential time.

The thousands of bikers, represented by the extremely powerful French Federation of Angry Bikers (in French: Fédération Française des Motards en Colère), demonstrated across the whole country this weekend and blocked all cities and towns for hours to demand from the government a motorcycling road policy focused on safety rather than the constant implementation of stupid and meaningless measures designed to treat motorcyclists like cash cows. According to the impressive 90,000+ angry bikers who demonstrated this weekend, the French government has so far failed to recognise that motorbikes and scooters are the SOLUTION to transportation, pollution and congestion issues, certainly not the problem. The angry bikers want their government to recognise that motorcyclists, like any other motorists, are responsible road users and it is therefore totally inappropriate to constantly and blatantly punish them with repressive measures. French bikers demand the introduction of a new module in the driving test to make motorists aware of the presence of motorcyclists on the roads and teach them how to share the roads with them in a safe manner. Why does the motorcycle training programme teach riders how to take care of cars on the roads whereas the car driving training programme does not teach how to take care of motorcycles?

French bikers also demand the introduction of road safety courses in school education, the improvement of road conditions and maintenance nationwide as they claim there are too many hazards on the roads making riding unsafe and dangerous. They also demand from the government the full and permanent scrapping of a proposed legislation to force all riders to wear 150m3 of reflective clothing around the arm in an attempt to make them more visible on the roads, when statistics clearly show that the vast majority of accidents involving motorcyclists are caused by car drivers not paying attention or not looking into their mirrors due to poor or no training.

France was the scene of angry bikers blocking the roads nationwide and everywhere, including motorways, city/town centres, ring roads, flyovers and express roads. Even the smallest towns saw at least 100 bikers protesting and expressing their disgust at the existing government’s attitude towards motorcyclists.

Because of the time difference with mainland France, the first demonstrations took place in the French overseas territories including the beautiful volcanic island of Réunion (located off Madagascar and Mauritius) where 500 bikers took over the roads between Saint-Denis and Saint-Paul and gathered outside the local council offices. The demonstrations continued with hundreds of bikers gathering in other French overseas territories, including the islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe in the Carribean and also New Caledonia located off Australia and New Zealand.

Hundreds of bikers' demonstrations took place all over France on Saturday 24 March 2012 and in Paris on Sunday 25 March 2012. There was not a single town or city that was left out!

The demonstrations then hitted mainland France with more than 90,000 angry bikers protesting nationwide on Saturday and Sunday (including – to name a few - 10,000 in the second largest French city of Lyon, 7,500 in Bordeaux, 6,500 in Lille, 3,000 in Strasbourg, 1,500 in Nantes, 4,500 in Brittany including Brest, Rennes, Quimper and Saint-Brieuc, 650 in Cherbourg, 2,000 in Clermont-Ferrand and Saint-Etienne, 2,000 in Tours, 1,200 in Dijon, 1,000 in Grenoble, 690 in Nevers and 680 Auxerre). Paris alone saw more than 15,000 bikers on Sunday, blocking the whole traffic and making the heart of the French capital truly theirs!

More than 15,000 bikers gathered on Place de la Concorde in Central Paris shouting at the goverment in a carnival atmosphere and reviving their engines to express their anger and remind the authorities that bikers are voters and are entitled to have their say in transport and road safety policies.

More than 15,000 bikers join the protest ride in Central Paris to express their anger at the government's existing measures to treat them like cash cows. "The government must replace their money-grabbing measures with robust road safety policies and we will go away, otherwise they must be prepared to see the whole country brought to a complete standstill until we obtain what we want" said a protestor whilst reviving his engine in fury and anger.

The bikers’ demonstrations made the national news on television, radio and newspapers throughout the weekend. The ball is now in the court of the government and all presidential candidates for them to come up with a revised road safety policy that satisfies the angry bikers, otherwise France will continue to see enormous demonstrations that have the power to humiliate the government and bring the whole country to a complete standstill. No retreat, no surrender!

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL FRENCH BIKERS FOR STANDING UP AGAINST THEIR GOVERNMENT AND HAVING THE COURAGE AND DETERMINATION TO SAY ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

We now leave you with a series of videos that will give you a good idea of how French bikers demonstrate and cause complete chaos when they are angry.

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If you’re based in France and want to take part in the fight against the Government’s proposed introduction of a compulsory annual environmental and road safety test for motorcycles and their continued policy to ban motorcyclists from filtering through traffic, then contact the Fédération Française des Motards en Colère (FFMC – French Federation of Angry Bikers).

Si vous habitez en France et souhaitez participer aux manifestations contre la proposition du gouvernement d’introduire un controle technique pour les 2 roues motorises ansi que de continuer a empecher la circulation inter files pour les motocyclistes dans les embouteillages, contactez la Fédération Française des Motards en Colère (FFMC).

ANY_CHARACTER_HERE

Please join and support the campaign to stop Westminster Council from stealth taxing motorcyclists to park before their scheme spreads all over the UK and the rest of Europe. For further details, visit http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/

Rejoignez le groupe de manifestants contre le stationnement payant des motocyclistes a Westminster avant que cela ne se propage dans le reste du Royaume-Uni et l’Union Europeenne. Pour plus d’informations, consultez http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/

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If you have a story you would like to see published on UK France bikers.com, please contact us here.

Si vous avez une experience a partager et que vous souhaiteriez voir publiee sur UK France bikers.com, n’hesitez pas a nous contacter en cliquant ici.

Who would have imagined that someone could possibly come up with the idea of banning motorbikes and scooters from city centres, when the same motorbikes and scooters are the transport solution to ever increasing congestion and pollution issues? Well, only one politician has come up with such a ridiculous idea and that is Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet (left) from the French green party, who has successfully submitted proposals to ban all vehicles manufactured prior to 2004 from city centres, including motorcycles.

Riders who commute on bikes that were manufactured before 2004 may not enter French city centres or else see their machines immobilised and issued with a fine of 65 euros payable on the spot. The same rules apply to their car counterparts in an attempt to reduce congestion and pollution in all cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants. The French government has recently approved Kosciusko-Morizet’s proposals although no official date has yet been announced for their implementation.

One could wonder how long it may take a French citizen or organisation to start legal procedures to sue the French government in the European Courts for discrimination against those who cannot afford to buy a new vehicle, especially during the present economic downturn that is causing thousands upon thousands of job losses across the whole of France. We have indeed heard of plans to sue the French government in Europe in an attempt to force Kosciusko-Morizet to scrap, or at least revise, her stupid and possibly discriminatory plans.

Whilst other European countries have taken a series of measures to reduce pollution and congestion in city centres, none has so far taken measures that consists of banning motorcycles. The congestion charge in the British capital does not affect motorcycles nor does the low emission zone measures. Whilst London’s Westminster Council decided a few years ago to treat bikers like cash cows by introducing a unique pay-by-phone bike parking tax (the method of which is currently being challenged before the European Court of Human Rights), other councils across London, the rest of the United Kingdom and beyond have thankfully not followed suit, mainly because of the socially exclusive aspect of charging bikers by mobile phone in the absence of any other suitable on-street charging method.

Not only may Kosciusko-Morizet’s proposals be discriminatory towards those with financial difficulties but they may also be detrimental to the French economy as many car and motorcycle dealers may not be able to sustain their second hand business any longer. Has she thought about the wider implications of her proposals rather than concentrate solely on green issues? We suspect that such proposals have been made by a politician from the comfort of her own office and who has never sat on a motorcycle before.

A series of enormous demonstrations designed to bring the whole of France to a complete standstill by more than 100,000 bikers are scheduled for 24 and 25 March 2012. The demonstrations, organised by the most respected Fédération Française des Motards en Colère - FFMC – (French Federation of Angry Bikers), will be to show the bikers’ opposition to Kosciusko-Morizet’s proposals but also to express their disgust at the French government’s attitude to treat motorcyclists like cash cows by imposing measures designed to make riding difficult and expensive (e.g. the continued ban on traffic filtering or lane splitting, obligation to wear a small reflective strap around the arm even during day light when it is not reflective at all). Let’s hope that the demonstrations, which will take place less than four weeks before the first round of the presidential elections, will be a real slap in the face for a number of presidential candidates for whom road policies and safety are nothing but an opportunity to grab as much money as possible from motorcyclists who are keen to relieve congestion and pollution by using a mode of transport that is greener and less congesting than its four wheel counterparts.

ANY_CHARACTER_HERE

If you’re based in France and want to take part of the fight against the Government’s proposed introduction of a compulsory annual environmental and road safety test for motorcycles and their continued policy to ban motorcyclists from filtering through traffic, then contact the Fédération Française des Motards en Colère (FFMC – French Federation of Angry Bikers).

Si vous habitez en France et souhaitez participer aux manifestations contre la proposition du gouvernement d’introduire un controle technique pour les 2 roues motorises ansi que de continuer a empecher la circulation inter files pour les motocyclistes dans les embouteillages, contactez la Fédération Française des Motards en Colère (FFMC).

ANY_CHARACTER_HERE

Please join and support the campaign to stop Westminster Council from stealth taxing motorcyclists to park before their scheme spreads all over the UK and the rest of Europe. For further details, visit http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/

Rejoignez le groupe de manifestants contre le stationnement payant des motocyclistes a Westminster avant que cela ne se propage dans le reste du Royaume-Uni et l’Union Europeenne. Pour plus d’informations, consultez http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/

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If you have a story you would like to see published on UK France bikers.com, please contact us here.

Si vous avez une experience a partager et que vous souhaiteriez voir publiee sur UK France bikers.com, n’hesitez pas a nous contacter en cliquant ici.

Who would have imagined