We know what biker mobilizations mean: people, noise, engines roaring and exhaust pipes backfiring. With, sometimes, laws taking side roads – or even sidings – to avoid head-on collisions.
We remember the abandoned motorcycle sticker. From the license plate at the front, forgotten. Mandatory wearing of a fluorescent vest, stored at the bottom of the bag. And, for several years, technical inspection, seriously abused by hordes of angry bikers. This will again be the case this weekend, on the eve of the effective implementation of technical inspection, from Monday April 15: motorcycle federations and communities are calling for demonstrations throughout France.
A reputation that comes from far away
This is because we are talking about a mode of travel often synonymous with freedom, an echo of the images conveyed since the 1950s by Hollywood productions. Listen to a biker discussion… Who didn’t feel, like Marlon Brando in The wild team, a feeling of injustice in the face of authority? What motorcyclist, even a “Sunday” one, has not taken advantage of a straight line offered on his way back from work to force, just for an instant, the throttle like Maverick in Top Gun ?
If bikers have a world that belongs to them and that they defend, does that make them big complainers? Complainers with the – natural – right to free themselves from the rules imposed on other road users? Nothing obvious about that. It all depends on how the turns are negotiated.
“The principle is to surpass the rules”
In fact, yes, there are numerous biker mobilizations. Opposition to the reform of the motorcycle license in the 1980s, picnic actions in the second homes of personalities who had voted for the motorcycle sticker, refusal of the obligation to have CE safety gloves… Not to mention the demonstrations against paid parking in Parisian streets or in favor of inter-line traffic, against wearing a mask during Covid-19, or against the Crit’air sticker.
A real game of a thousand terminals, and whirring noises that end up annoying. Even if it means outright calling them “idiots”, as mentioned on the site Carfree, life without a car. “The very principle of motorcycling consists of surpassing the rules, of freeing oneself from them in order to show others in what low esteem they place them,” assures the author of a diatribe under the pseudonym Autominus. Bikers think that all other road users are idiots: motorists likened to sheep bumper to bumper, pedestrians whose slowness annoys them and bikes that steal their nickname of Epinal image of cow -boy riding his faithful steed.” The top box is full.
Noise pollution, dangers
According to a survey carried out in 2021 by Odoxa for Keneo and RTL, bikers are also accused of noise pollution by 74% of the population. But they deny it. “A biker will not tell you that his engine makes noise, but that it has a nice sound,” laughs Michel Esselin, coordinator 67 of the Angry Bikers Federation (FFMC). Noise ? Danger too. If motorcycles (or scooters) are perceived, according to the same survey, to be dangerous for 77% of those consulted, it is in particular because of supposed bad behavior on the road, according to 55% of respondents. They are generally criticized for not respecting speed limits, crossing white stripes and putting pressure on motorists to move to the right when they pass them or even brushing against cyclists…
And to load the bike, there are the figures from the National Interministerial Observatory of Road Safety: motorized two-wheelers represented around 20% of road deaths in 2022 and 33% of serious injuries, for less than 2% of motorized traffic. Statistics which do not justify the technical inspection which is arriving, according to Didier Renoux, of the FFMC. It reduces the number of motorized two-wheeler accidents caused by a technical defect to 0.3%, whereas this percentage was 17% for automobiles when it was implemented in 1985.
In the end, appearances are deceiving. Because despite all these bad points, people rather “like” them, their bikers. Still according to the Odoxa survey, 59% of French people have a good image of it. Not nothing.
Our road safety file
So are bikers real complainers? A question brushed aside by the FFMC 67. “We are mainly talking about a solidarity which is a little more visible than among motorists or other road users,” defends Michel Esselin. Bikers can and know mobilize easily, they are united “. And rebellious in nature? “There is a slightly more significant feeling of movement, of freedom. But we are also attacked from all sides, there is a set of restrictions which can be taken as an obstacle to circulation,” he explains.
As the fateful date of April 15 approaches, bikers intend to remain mobilized, with the faint hope to see the government cancel this technical inspection, or at least delay it. “MPs have tabled a moratorium in this regard,” assures Michel Esselin. A control that is so poorly understood that in the first year, it will only be visual, the centers not being sufficiently equipped. “We are going to charge for checks that each motorcyclist can carry out when taking their motorbike out of their garage. It’s giving money for not much,” concludes the FFMC. Enough to carve out the road.