MAG Ireland is actively campaigning on a number of issues which affect Irish motorcyclists. Campaigns can and sometimes do run for years, such as with the bus lanes or VAT on PPE issues. This does not mean that MAG Ireland’s campaign on the issue is dormant. The nature of what we do is that the various government departments, quangos, committees, special interest groups and so on will often try to drag their heels and bog down a campaign in endless rounds of consultations, or commission reports or studies that take years to complete.
A key difficulty in every campaign we run is overcoming what we call the “passive hostility” of the authorities towards motorcycles in general. Motorcycles are seen as a “problem” and not a “solution“.
To better understand the difficulties we face, consider the way the Irish transport authorities actively promote cycling;
There’s a national cycling strategy backed up by millions of Euro, cycling lobby group reps sitting on key transport committees at government level, a growing network of cycle lanes, tax breaks for commuter cycling, the active promotion of cycling in the media and by Government spokespeople, a cycle hire scheme, a requirement to consider the needs of cyclists at every stage of infrastructure planning, and… well you get the idea.
Now consider the way the Irish transport authorities actively promote motorcycling;
Err… No, we couldn’t think of a single instance of it ever happening either.
In fact, the Irish transport authorities actively discourage motorcycling, for example by upholding the exclusion of motorcycles from bus lanes despite their own studies finding no evidence to justify this position. This is what we mean by “passive hostility“.
This happens because motorcycling is seen as a “problem” whereas cycling is seen as a “solution“.
It’s the reason why you only ever hear Government spokespeople talk about motorcycling in a negative context. It’s the reason why newspaper headlines so often say “motorcycle collided with car”. It’s the reason why your safety helmet is subject to punitive rates of VAT, but a builders safety helmet is not. As a result, representing riders and defending our rights is always going to be much more difficult than it should be.
It’s also partly why some campaigns drag on for years, and why we need riders to be aware of the fact that despite the apparent lack of activity in some areas MAG Ireland is absolutely determined to make progress on the issues which affect us as riders. To do that we need your support too. For less than 7 cents a day, you can make a real difference.