The issue of front ID/front number plates for motorcycles has been on the government's agenda for years. Recently the Motorcycle
Riders Association of Australia had published a article outlining VicRoads attempted to pass legislation on the issue.
Not
only is this a problem for Victorians, but for all Australian motorcyclists as this could be a nation wide introduction of
"Front ID's".
This excerpt was taken from the article posted on maa.org.au (23/1/2008) :
"The Victorian Police
(almost uniquely of all the World’s Police Forces) seem to be unable to use well tested cameras to photograph the rear
of motorcycles and scooters.
In an effort to stigmatise motorcyclists still further for their own operational shortfalls,
they are now once again pressing for front number plates for all motorcycles, despite the fact that internationally the only
countries that require this are that paragon of road safety – India, and that defender of personal freedoms –
Singapore.
The Motorcycle Riders Association may be forced to re-visit its Front Number Plate campaign if a draft Regulatory
Impact Statement (RIS), dated December 2007 and issued by Vic Roads without consultation with the Victorian Motorcycle Advisory
Council, currently doing State government rounds with a view to introducing front identification decals commencing 2009 goes
ahead.
The RIS is circulating amongst other Australian government agencies and is scheduled for sign off at an Australian
Transport Council meeting, attended by all State and Federal Transport ministers, sometime this year to meet the proposed
2009 introduction.Users to Pay Motorcycle riders will be forced to pay up to $200 for every motorcycle they own as part of
the retrofit/installation requirements associated with the introduction of the Frontal Identification.
This even includes
vintage machines only used on the road under Club permit limitations. Added to the costs are safety and aesthetic considerations
for those motorcycles that will need brackets affixed to the front or holes drilled to hold the proposed decals.
The
timing of this RIS with CRIMTRAKS recent announcement of the planned use of hundreds of nation wide ANPR cameras suggests
that this RIS may not be about safety at all, but rather about real time surveillance and data base building of the movements
of the entire driving population. Otherwise why this almost uniquely Australian need to rely on frontal detection?
MRAA
has argued in the past that the $22million cost of introducing Frontal Identification is wasteful for the net recovery of
about $300,000 in extra speeding fines.
According to MRA Vice-President John Karmouche, one of a group of past leaders/organizers
of a campaign to stop the introduction of Frontal ID in 2003, "Riders are already paying a $50 safety levy, and there is a
lot of good work being done in other areas that negates the effect of going down this path.
The RIS is based on injury/fatality
data pre 2005. Since 2005 fatalities/injuries have come down and per-capita this reduction has been magnified by the fact
that the number of motorcycles and scooters on Australia's roads has more than doubled since 2005.
"The MRA has contacted
internationally recognised transport expert Professor Marcus Wigan, author of the initial reports on which the FNP program
at VicRoads was based. Dr Wigan has agreed to comment on the current Draft RIS in the interests of properly informed public
debate.
Professor Wigan is Emeritus Professor of Computing and Transport Systems at Napier University, Edinburgh, and
Professorial Fellow, Civil and Environmental Engineering, at the University of Melbourne. He is also the convenor for Data
and Surveillance for the Australian Privacy Foundation."
Petition:
Please visit GoPetition
and sign the petitionhttp://www.gopetition.com/online/16944.html
