Michael Brunson on Motorbikes

Cross posted from my forum:

There’s an interesting article in this month’s Motorcycle Rider (The BMF magazine) by Jeff Stone. In it, he refers to a piece written by Michael Brunson (he of ITN News) for the Saga Magazine. Still with me? Anyway, in his piece, Mr Brunson berates what he calls:

“The powerful motorbike, which appears from nowhere, headlight blazing, engine roaring, scorching past in a blaze of Day-Glo metal and leather at a suicidal, and clearly illegal, speed”

Yes, right….

Of course, that image will apply to some. However, I would have expected someone like Brunson to be more careful before tagging us all with such a lurid description. As Jeff Stone points out though:

“Responding to such articles is quite difficult because I could see why he, as a non motorcyclist, could perceive us all as a bunch of nutters. We’re not all nutters of course, but the casual observer doesn’t notice the quiet, stealthlike progress of a rider ‘making good progress’. No, he notices the noisy sod, blasting past at twice the traffic speed, dazzling the driver by tail-gating him and then darting past into the driver’s buffer zone before doing the same to the next driver.”

And that’s the problem – we can all relate to the nutters who give us a bad name. Unfortunately, the uneducated will see them and ignore the rest of us.

Perhaps most worrying is the clichéd call for government intervention in the form of yet more legislation – like we don’t have enough already. Indeed, Mr Brunson’s brilliant solution to the problem is this particularly well thought through little gem:

“Secondly, the road tax for their machines should rise very sharply.. . for all but the smallest machines, it should be much higher than the rate for cars. For the very powerful bikes, I don’t think £500 a year would be too much.”

If I didn’t think the man was an idiot before, I certainly do now. What he is saying is make using high performance bikes badly impossible for all but the wealthy few. Now there’s a piece of reason for you. I mean, don’t waste energy thinking the issue through and, lord forbid, come to a rational conclusion when a lurid idiotic sound bite will do…