Another “Non!” from the French to the EU Commission’s proposal for extended roadworthiness testing, this time from The Committee of European Affairs in the National Assembly.
In a unanimous decision, the committee condemned the proposals for hitting the less well off at a time when they can least afford the cost which the committee believes will be between sixty and eighty Euro.
The source (in French) is here:
http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/presse/communiques/20121016-01.asp
Translation here:
http://www.microsofttranslator.com/bv.aspx?from=&to=en&a=http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/presse/communiques/20121016-01.asp
Elsewhere, Siim Kallas, Vice-President of the European Commission and Commissioner for Transport repeated the unfounded 8% claim at a DEKRA hosted event in Brussels on 15th October.
Siim Kallas
(Image: EU Commission)
Our sources tell us that Commissioner Kallas gave a speech praising DEKRA’s work and the Commission’s achievements during which he claimed that 8% of motorcycle accidents are caused by or linked to technical failures (6% for cars) which in his view justifies the Commission’s proposal. We understand the Commissioner left immediately after his speech without taking questions from the floor. DEKRA is, we believe, the testing company which is the source of the 8% claim – a figure that is five times more than the 1.6% found during the internationally accepted MAIDS study which the EU Commission co-funded.
Clearly, Commissioner Kallas has more faith in the unverifiable statistics provided by a testing company with a vested interest in extending testing than he has in the extensive, long running and publicly accessible reasearch carried out as part of the MAIDS study.
Here at home MAG Ireland continues to push for a fully independent and transparent cost benefit analysis to be carried out on the proposal in line with the provisions of the National Motorcycle Safety Action Plan 2010-2014 and will continue to pursue this issue with the Irish MEPs and through our colleagues in FEMA, the Federation of European Motorcyclists’ Associations.