Monday, April 23, 2007

Motorcycle Enmity

It dawned on me yesterday. I can't believe I didn't see this before.

The Quebec gubmint has increased and will continue to increase motorcycle registration fees. It's in the 360$ range right now and indications are that it will go up to 1000$ or more.

I was wondering why in hell would they be doing something like this?

1) Health/compensation in case of injury?

This first seems obvious as there are, assumedly, more parapelegics created in motorcycle accidents than other vehicles. However, the fee increase would not offset the compensation, because quite frankly, there just aren't enough motorcycles around to fill the void at 3 times the cost.

Debunk 1

2) Limit user-access

This is an age old ploy to prevent youngsters from from buying crotch rockets and go about killing themselves. A noble if misguided attempt. I have known many a young-n ride without a license of any kind on account that it was already too expensive. There will just be more of them.

Ah, but we can put cops on patrol and pull over EVERY motorcyclist and check. Yeah, ok, like that's going to work. Above mentioned youngsters have avowed to me that they take off at breakneck speeds if they see a cop. In reality, unless there is a roadblock up ahead, there is no way that a cruiser is going to catch a bike rider hell bent on escape. Nightmare visions of high speed chases and old ladies getting mowed down crossing the street.

Just an ugly situation all around.

Debunk 2

3) Easy target for a money grab

Not so easy as one would think, since there are quite a few motorcycle clubs around, and while they may not have much clout in the grand scheme of things, they tend to have marginal members of rather vocal groups such as lawyers, politicians, and such.

Which is actually contributing the the problem, inasmuch as 1000$ for these people is a lot of money, but not prohibitve by any stretch. Remember these highway cruisers cost upward of 25 kilo-bucks in Canada.

Debunk 3

And finally, yesterday it came to me in a flash.

Global warming. Yes, the price of fuel will go up some 60 to 100% in the near future. Economy of fuel will become tantamount and quality of life as we know it will suffer greatly as people are given no other choice but to use communal transport. Freedom of movement will be curtailed, by default, until mass transit gains a foothold in our society's habits and psychology, and is shored up to be adequate - read not sardines in a can.

You see where this is going?

The practical solution for freedom of movement will be the motorcycle, affording personal transportation and self fulfillment, while remaining a very economical alternative. It is somewhat of a standard in Europe where the Vespa and other assorted motorized cycles are de rigeur for personnal transportation on a moments notice.

And this just will not do! Our so-called gubmint does not want us to consider this to be viable alternative, given injury costs et al, and given they really want everyone to be herded onto public transpo buses and trains.

In effect, they are establishing groundwork to keep the general populace off these death traps.

Now it all makes sense. My cynical bias is intact.



NofA: My '86 Ninja 900, does 10 litre/100km (28mi/ImpGallon) on a really bad day, full of max-throttle accelerations and the like. On a reasonable day, I'm seeing about 8.8/100 or 32mi/ImpGal, that's 26mi/US-gal. This is for an 1986 vintage full-on sport bike mind you, that is totally out of tune. The equivalent car would be an '88 5.0 Mustang, and that thing did 15 on a GOOD day!