OK, over the weekend I received another Welsh Assembly response, this time from AM Glyn Davies. Pointing out that most of the road network is controlled by the councils, he did tell me that Assembly Minister Andrew Davies is the man in charge of their input. I feel an Email coming on :)

Nothing other than that though. I don't think my local council will welcome questions from the public, but that's my next step; to find out if the incidence of accidents that include bikes has as a contributing factor sub-standard road surfaces.

Also, I'm considering tackling the thorny subject of loud exhausts from bikes. I wonder; if bikes were as quiet as cars, would they be as objectionable?.

The next response came from Elin Jones AM, my Plaid Cymru Welsh Assembly representative.

Helpful, as well as friendly, Elin pointed out that only the main trunk roads are under the control of the Welsh Assembly, but so is the money for all road improvement and maintenance:

"Thank you for your email and I'll try and answer some of the issues raised.
Most roads in Ceredigion are owned and maintained by the County Council.
The only exceptions are the 2 Trunk Roads - the A44 and the A487 - these
roads are
owmed and managed by the Assembly.
Funding for county road maintenance is decided by the County Council and the
Assembly decides
on Trunk Road maintenance and improvement. Major road investment even for
county roads is funded
by the Assembly - for example, the work just started on the Synod Inn to
Carmarthen road has a £31 million
budget allocation in the Assembly."

Although it's not the specific answer that i was after, I was impressed with Elin's manner and approachability, and her offer to help with my crusade:


"In terms of road safety, I know that County and Assembly monitor road
accidents that are reported.
Local councillors also play a role in providing information. Where there
are particular problems then
action may be taken - for example the Tesco Juction in Cardigan was closed
due to the number of
accidents.

My answers to you are pretty general, but if there is any specific road or
juction that
you are concerned about as a motorcyclist then let me know and I'll raise it
with the relevant authority.
I've never ridden a motorcycle myself, but I can just imagine the impact
that poor road surface can have
on a motorbike, compared to a car. Mind you, I did suffer 2 burst tyres due
to poor road/hedge work on a raoad in Ceredigion a few weeks ago.

It's interesting to see Elin mention a junction in Cardigan which was closed due to the number of accidents.

At the time, the junction was blamed, the designers were blamed, the planners were blamed, and those responsible for approving the junction were blamed.

Not once did I read a news article casting car drivers in Cardigan as hooligans, stupid kids out for thrills, morons who need restricting to a lawn-mower or fools in need of several years worth of training. I never crashed there, and I'd been driving through that junction since I was a learner.

Perhaps I should use that stretch of road as a banner advert for my proposal to restrict all car drivers to no more than 35bhp and 1 passenger, no music, definately no toys stuck to windows, 40 MPH and a night-time curfew of 6pm : )

In 2003, though, out of 73 fatal road accidents involving vehicles, only 13 involved bikes. So why is the car test so easy? Why is it so hard to lose your license?.

Why don't we re-test every five years or so?.

More questions, but not really any answers. So, off I go to tilt at Windy Miller.

Tuss.

The news so far; www.writetothem.com is a fantastic resource, and although they do warn you that missives sent through them might take a fortnight, it is going to be a while longer if the politicians you seek are on holiday. Doh.

Strangely, it was a representative of tory Nick Bourne who replied first (they need as much support as they can get);

"The Welsh Assembly Government has responsibility for maintaining and improving the trunk road network in Wales and for spending the proportion of the budget allocated to transport from the block grant received from Westminster.Details of current expenditure and programmes can be found by going to www.wales.gov.uk then clicking on the Welsh Assembly Government link. If you then click on Transport, this will provide links to the information you require Including the Wales Transport Strategy".

So, better than nothing, and a start, but not the answers that i had hoped for. Investigations will be resumed.

MEP Jonathan Davies, on the other hand, was at work and found time to respond to my email within 24 hours. Who says they do no work in Brussels...

"Thank you for your email regarding the Third European Directive on
Driver Licenses.

I am pleased to say that I, along with my colleagues in the British
Conservatives in the European Parliament wholeheartedly support your
position.

Our Conservative Transport spokesman, Mr Bradbourn has been working very
closely with the Motorcycle Association in amending the proposal to
reject the new provisions on gaining a motorcycle licence, such as
increased age limits and proposed changes to the test criteria on more
powerful bikes. We believe that the DVLA structure should remain in
place without overarching EU interference.

As you may know, the Third European Directive on Driver Licenses was
discussed at the December 2005 Transport council meeting in which no
agreement as reached. However, this does not mean that the threat of the
Directive has disappeared, and Mr Bradbourn will be submitting a
rejection notice to the entire proposal when it is referred back to
Parliament. Unfortunately Labour and Liberal Democrat MEPs are
supporting the Commission proposals.

Please do not hesitate to contact me on this or any other issue.

Jonathan Evans MEP (Wales)
Chairman of the Delegation for Relations with the U.S. "

I wrote back to him asking what could be done to forestall or oppose this legislation, also asking where I could find out more about the statistics compiled to support this directive.

With regard to the question of a German ban on motorcycles in certain areas, help was donated by Sloper of GBBikers.co.uk, who found some German motorcycle forums on which questions could be asked. The responses were, as expected, indicative of the use of supposition and dubious representation of the facts by the Police officer making the suggestion to ban biked from national parks;

" I don't think there is any parkland with a blanket ban for motorcycles while being open to cars. Besides, we don't have "national parks", at least nowhere near as many as the US of A. Those that we have, are generally open for MCs.

What we do have, are a few roads that are off-limits for MCs. Some were closed because local authorities considered the MC accident rate unacceptable. Some are closed on week-ends or at night to avoid excessive MC noise.

But in the end, MC bans are nothing I'd worry about when planning a MC trip through Germany. The percentage of closed roads is very, very low. Your chance of actually running into one of those is slim. In the unlikely case that you do come across one, you'll have to take a very small detour (usualy way less than 10 miles) and that's it.

Still worried? OK, here's two lists of MC bans in Germany:

http://www.jokko.de/html/deutsch/verkehrsinfos/strassensperrungen_fuer _motorraeder/strassensperrungen_fuer_motorraeder.php
http://www.bvdm.de/modules.php?name=Sperrungen "

" Of course, what Greg wrote ist perfectly right: Almost every public
road which is open for car use, may also be used with a motorbike.
There are only very few exceptions. Only if you ride a very small
motorcycle with 50cc engine, which runs slower than 60 kph, you may
not use Autobahns and other fast lanes."

"

There are some, very few roads in Germany, where motorcycle use is restricted on weekends, because these roads were crowded with motorbikes each weekend, and there were quite a few accidents due to that. But it does not really hit the point to say that motorcycles were banned in certain areas. We are talking about some single roads." It would be interesting to guage the public's response to shutting the Cat and Fiddle Pass on weekends, or stopping bikes from going to Snowdon in the summer. Even though car accidents vastly outweight bike accidents, and RAF jets cause significantly more noise when they (regularly) fly over all rural areas...

Well, after the DCC of North Wales decided to announce on his blog that bikes hsould be banned from places he likes, I decided to get involved in the politics of such decisions and find out just what's going on.

After a smart guy suggested that i use the website www.writetothem.com I did indeed find my local councillor, and asked him some questions:


"Who is in charge of assessing the condition of our roads?.
Who decides what is done to our roads, where and when?.
What are the criteria for action or change?.
Where does the money come from?.
How is it spent?.
Who is in charge of assessing the effects of road condition on the likelyhood of accidents?.
Are any statistics gathered to investigate the effects of road condition on road users, or the part road conditions play in accidents?."

Obviously, I've left out the niceties. I've a lot to say here, and need to save space ;)

Then i sent the same questions to the 4 Welsh Parliament representatives, AMs, and my MP, Mark Williams.

I also included the 4 MEPs that serve Wales, but with different questions related to the incredibly harsh restrictions forced on British learners by the EP;


"Are there reasons why motorcycles, which are quite heavily restricted at the moment in terms of access to them, are regulated when cars are not?.

In your opinion, why were cars not dealt with in the same way?.

Is there a significant body of statisical evidence to show that motorcyclists are more dangerous than car drivers?.

Are motorcycles so proven to be more dangerous than cars?.

How was the decision made of which motorcycles to restrict newly-qualified riders to?

Did you play any part in this decision?."

Then I sent some more in-depth, wide-ranging questions to the Minister of State for Transport Stephen Ladyman (who makes the most of his status as a motorcyclist) and also found a Lord who might at least have some answers, even though they aren't geographically obligated to represent me in the same way MPs are. He is Lord Davies of Oldham, the deputy Chief Whip for the Hof L;

"I was hoping that you might be able to help me with regard to some motorcycle-related issues, specifically the recent European Parliament decision regarding motorcycle restrictions for newly-qualified riders, the Nort Wales DCC blog advocating the restriction of motorcycles in national parks, restrictions placed on motorcyclists rather than car drivers and the conditions to be found of road surfaces throughout Britain.

Are there reasons why motorcycles, which are quite heavily restricted at the moment in terms of access to them, are regulated when cars are not?.

In your opinion, why were cars not dealt with in the same way?.

Is there a significant body of statisical evidence to show that motorcyclists are more dangerous than car drivers?.

Are motorcycles so proven to be more dangerous than cars?.

How was the decision made of which motorcycles to restrict newly-qualified riders to?

Did you play any part in this decision?.

Who is responsible for the maintenance of our roads?.

Who pays for that maintenance?.

How are they funded?.

Are there any government statistics for road traffic accidents which describe the reasons for the accidents involving motorcycles?.

Are there any unofficial statistics that you are aware of which describe the reasons for road traffic accidents involving motorcycles?

Are there any plans to institute limits on noise for vehicles?.

How will this be carried out?.

Are there any plans to restrict a motorcycle's access to National Parks?.

Would such a debate be possible if in return for the absence of motorcycles, a comensurate absence of cars could be offered?.

What is the total amount of tax income obtained from vehicle users?.

What percentage of this is spent on the roads?.

Who decides this percentage?."

So, with the aim in mind of finding out why the roads are so bad, who's going to chang eit, how it affects motorcyclists and how to change that, I'm off to find out why the media presents such a distorted view of motorcycles and motorcyclists.

Cheery pip !