Letters from Europe #4: A Document Signed by 77 Organisations, and 50km Around Brussels

Last time I wrote about the graffiti painted on a road surface in Germany: "Bikers must die." The whole time I was writing it, I was thinking about something else. What matters more than the hostility itself, surely, is what European riders are actually doing about it. The answer is rather dull. They are organising, writing documents, and putting politicians on their own motorcycles. It is not a story about going around scrubbing off graffiti. What is happening in Europe this year is that sort of plain, clerical work. But in terms of the relationship with society, it is the plain work that tells in the end. Emotion makes an article; it does not make a clause in a law.

On 26 March, FEMA (the Federation of European Motorcyclists' Associations), FIM Europe and the UK's NMC published a joint set of position papers. Between them the three bodies represent 77 rider organisations; FEMA alone speaks for 20 organisations across 17 countries. The scope runs from sustainable transport strategy and infrastructure design to licensing, training and emerging technologies — which is to say, almost every condition that will be set for motorcycling in Europe from here on. Jesper Christensen, who chaired the working group, said the documents are "based on millions of kilometres of riding experience, on scientific research, and most importantly on common sense." FEMA General Secretary Wim Taal stressed the essential role of motorcycles in sustainable mobility and the need for fair, realistic regulation. I felt this back when I lived in London: over here, a document like that is not a place to write down your anger. It is a place to lay out evidence in a form the people making the decision can quote directly. That is a distinctly different character from the industry papers I grew up reading in Japan. And do not shrug at that figure of 77. Each member body talks to legislators in its own country and files its own submissions to its own transport authority. Holding a common document means the same words get used simultaneously across seventeen countries and more. For anyone working in Brussels, there is no easier counterpart to deal with. Put the other way round: an industry that arrives with nothing but scattered demands never makes it onto the agenda at all.

Then, on 1 July, the "Motorcycling MEP Club" was launched inside the European Parliament. It is an official cross-party group, and its board carries the names of MEPs including Andreas Glück (Germany), Matej Tonin (Slovenia), Bernd Lange (Germany) and Nora Junco García (Spain). ACEM, the manufacturers' association, runs it; FIM and FEMA sit in as observers. Licensing, vehicle standards, the environment, infrastructure, safety — the agenda overlaps almost exactly with those position papers. The interesting part is what came next. After the inaugural meeting, the MEPs, European Commission officials and federation representatives rode some 50 kilometres around Brussels. Not just handing over the paperwork, but putting them on the bike. I think that is the single most effective move available. How a motorcycle behaves alongside a queue of stationary traffic, which kind of joint in the road surface is frightening — you will never see that from the back seat of a car. Get them on a bike once, and their eyes change the next time they read a clause.

Reality, of course, does not wait. In France, the rollout of noise-detecting cameras is spreading. "Medusa," developed by Bruitparif, pairs a central 360-degree camera with several microphones around it and triggers when it picks up sound above the threshold. The figure being used is 90 decibels, and the fine runs up to €135. Paris has had them since 2021, and they have now reached the Yvelines and the Chevreuse valley. A village like Saint-Forget reportedly sees something in the order of 500 motorcycles a day in summer. The residents have a fair point. So, on the other side, do the riders: cars with loud exhausts are just as common on those roads, yet the ones singled out as the target are scooters and motorcycles. The equipment is still in its calibration phase, and even that figure of 90 may yet move. Even so, what I want to credit in Europe this year is the order of operations — instead of shouting back at the unfairness, they set out a chair in the room where things get decided. Scrubbing off graffiti changes not one line of regulation. But a document carrying the names of 77 organisations, and a room with MEPs in it who have actually ridden a bike, can change a line in the next bill. Asked whether Japanese motorcycling has a permanent circuit of this shape, I cannot confidently say that it does. In Europe, the answer to hostility has become politics. Whether that is the best answer is another question. At the very least, they are fighting somewhere other than the place where they were hit.