Thunder Roads LA Magazine September 2017 Thunder Roads September | Page 32

india world’s
Biker News Bytes
largest motorcycle
manufacturer
bY: bILL bISH, ncom
THE AIM/NCOM MOTORCYCLE E-NEWS SERVICE is brought to you
by Aid to Injured Motorcyclists (A.I.M.) and the National Coalition
of Motorcyclists (NCOM), and is sponsored by the Law Offices of
Richard M. Lester. If you’ve been involved in any kind of accident,
call us at 1-(800) ON-A-BIKE or visit www.ON-A-BIKE.com.
MOTORCYCLE INDUSTRY WELCOMES BAN ON
GAS POWERED VEHICLES The Motorcycle Industry
Association (U.K.) has welcomed reports of a ban on
new fossil fuel-powered vehicles starting 2040, saying
it will be a “tremendous stimulus” for bike makers.
The Government is due to announce a ban on
the sale of new petrol (gasoline) and diesel vehicles
from 2040 as part of an effort to tackle air pollution,
according to several national newspapers. The
measure is expected to include a ban on new hybrid
vehicles and “could mark the beginning of the
end of the prevalence of the internal combustion
engine in automotive transport,” reports www.
BritishDealerNews.co.uk.
The announcement will be in line with a similar
commitment already made by France.
Steve Kenward, CEO of the Motorcycle Industry
Association (MCIA), pointed out that no specific
mention had been made of motorcycles but added: “I
think there’s a great opportunity.”
“For all the congestion-busting abilities of
motorcycles and the abilities to make electric bikes
I think it’s a tremendous stimulus for the motorcycle
industry,” Kenward predicts. “It’s a tremendous
commercial trigger to push on with electric
motorcycles.”
Motorcycles made before 2007 are already set to
be hit by a £12.50 ($16.10 USD) daily pollution toll for
entering London beginning in 2020.
INDIA BECOMES WORLD’S LARGEST MOTORCYCLE
MANUFACTURER India has dethroned China from
a long reign as the world’s largest motorcycle
manufacturer, having already overtaken China to
become the largest domestic motorcycle market
three years ago. The growth curve is continuing, as
India’s g rowing domestic market and partnerships
with English and European bike builders have put the
country at the forefront of worldwide two-wheeled
production.
While overall new motorcycle sales in the U.S.
have been about 500,000 a year, and around 125,000
are sold in the United Kingdom, the total sales of
machines made in India for the last financial year
came to 17.6 million – more every three days than are
sold in the UK in a year; more every 11 days than are
sold annually in America.
Meanwhile, China’s domestic motorcycle market
has been in decline for five years as government policy
has incentivized electric bicycle sales and denied
motorcycles access to city centers across China.
Conversely, the relentless growth of motorcycle
sales in India is beginning to reshape the global
marketplace. According to New Atlas, sales within
India grew 6.9% last year, thanks to a fast-growing
1.32 billion domestic population that is quickly
urbanizing and emerging from poverty -- India has
the fastest GDP growth of any major country. A
massive India-wide road construction program is also
fueling car and bike sales, just as it did in America a
century ago.
Currently India’s domestic motorcycle marketplace
is dominated by sub-125cc scooters and motorcycles,
but larger capacity “luxury” classes are taking an
increasing share as the market matures. Royal Enfield,
built in India for the past 62 years, sold more than
700,000 motorcycles last year, a figure nearly equal
to the combined worldwide sales of Harley-Davidson,
KTM, BMW, Triumph, and Ducati, and their production
target for this fiscal year is 900,000.
MILLIONS OF LICENSED MOTORCYCLISTS DON’T
RIDE Nearly 8 million Americans have a motorcycle
license, but don’t own a bike. These phantom riders,
referred to as “Sleeping License Holders,” have come
to the attention of motorcycle manufacturers seeking
new customers as baby boomers age out of riding;
wanting to wake them up.
Many of these ‘sleepers’ were active motorcyclists
who had things happen in their life that caused them
to quit riding: marriage, kids, financial pressures, a job
that demands most of their time or simply a change in
interests. Others completed rider training, got their
license, but never bought a bike.
All of which has led Harley-Davidson, Indian and
other bike makers to devise new marketing strategies.
Harley has set a goal of attracting 2 million new U.S.
riders in the next decade and says it’s committed to
introducing 100 new motorcycles over the next 10
years, including an electric bike, and that effort is
expected to bring some sleeping license holders into
bike ownership.
Indian Motorcycle Co. is also digging into why
the sleepers aren’t taking that next step to become
motorcycle owners. “I think, collectively as an
30 Thunder Roads Magazine Louisiana | September 2017 | www.thunderroadslouisiana.com
industry, we need to answer that,” said Kevin Reilly,
vice president of motorcycle marketing for Indian.
The median age of U.S. motorcyclists is about 45,
according to a report in Cycle World magazine, with
an overwhelming number of new bike buyers over the
age of 50.
‘E-DUI’ LAW TARGETS DRIVING UNDER THE
INFLUENCE OF ELECTRONICS Washington state has
enacted a new ‘E-DUI’ law that imposes stiff penalties
for driving under the influence... of electronic devices.
Under their new distracted driving law, referred to as
“E-DUI,” drivers in the Evergreen State will no longer
be able to use a cell phone or any electronic device
while driving, even when stopped at a traffic light.
The bill was drafted in response to a 32% increase in
deaths from distracted driving from 2014 to 2015.
“Put the cell phones down, preserve life,” Gov. Jay
Inslee said on the steps of the Capitol in Olympia,
according to Q13 Fox News. Inslee says the bill is
called “electronic driving while impaired” for a reason.
“When you are driving with a cell phone, you are a
more dangerous driver than if you are driving drunk
with a .08 blood alcohol level,” he said.
The first citation will cost drivers $136, nearly
doubling for a second offense within five years.
Tickets issued for driving while using hand-held
electronics will go on a motorist’s record and reported
to their insurance provider, says a website set up by
the state explaining the new law.
In addition, according to the new law, drivers can
also get a $99 ticket for other types of distractions like
grooming, smoking, eating or reading if it interferes
with safe driving and you are pulled over for another
traffic offense.
NATIONWIDE ENFORCEMENT CAMPAIGN TO CURB
DRINKING AND RIDING A nationwide campaign to
crack down on motorcyclists driving drunk or impaired
is underway until Labor Day, with local police and
Highway Patrol out in force until after the holiday
weekend.
The end of the summer is universally celebrated by
millions of Americans on Labor Day weekend, and for
many motorcyclists the weekend is a chance to close
down summer with that last long ride.
So ride aware that this high-visibility national
enforcement campaign, “Ride Sober or Get Pulled
Over,” runs from August 18 through September 4,
2017. During this period, local law enforcement will
show zero tolerance for alcohol or drug impaired
riding. Increased state and national messages
about the dangers of riding impaired, coupled with
enforcement and increased officers on the road, aim
to drastically reduce death and injuries on our nation’s
roadways.
Anyone caught riding impaired can expect the
impact of a DUI arrest to include jail time, fines, fees,
DUI classes, license suspensions and other expenses
that can exceed $10,000.
STURGIS-BOUND BIKE-RIDING MUSIC EXECS
BECOME HIGHWAY HEROES A group of Music
Row power brokers bound for Sturgis from Nashville
helped yank 10 people from their cars and trucks Aug.
4, 2017, just before fire raced through the scene of a
crash in southern Illinois.
A semi-truck had plowed full speed into cars that
had stopped for construction on the highway, explains
a newspaper article appearing in The Tennessean,
causing a chain-reaction eight-car pileup. Jus t in front
of that pileup: A 10-person crew of music industry
executives riding bikes from Nashville to the Sturgis
Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota.
Two of the bikers, brothers from a talent agency
who were paramedics for 10 years in San Diego, got
in touch with 911 operators and immediately began
organizing bystanders, while the amateur rescuers
went quickly vehicle by vehicle pulling victims to
safety: First, a family of six with children ages 6 to 11;
then, a couple of guys in a pick-up truck, one with a
bad head wound; finally, a woman, screaming, stuck
in a car that looked like a crushed beer can.
The Nashvillians couldn’t get her out of the car,
so they got about 10 guys together and dragged the
entire car, 3 feet at a time, across the highway into
a grassy median away from the fire. And like in the
movies they did so just before flames ripped through
three vehicles that already had been emptied of
passengers.
“It was a trip. I’m still tripped out by it,” one of the
highway saints was quoted as saying in USA Today.
“There’s no doubt, had we not sprung into action like
we did, there would’ve been fatalities.”
ROLLING ADS PROMOTE MOTORCYCLE
AWARENESS ACROSS NEBRASKA Eight delivery
trucks will carry a motorcycle awareness message for
10 weeks this summer while traversing the Cornhusker
State as part of a Nebraska Highway Safety Council
campaign. Signs on the delivery trucks’ panels warn
motorists to “watch for motorcycles everywhere,”
by checking mirrors and looking both ways when at
intersections and changing lanes.
The state Department of Transportation, law
enforcement and motorcycle safety groups created
the campaign to counter a spate of fatal accidents.
Nebraska Highway Safety Administrator Fred
Zwonechek said similar campaigns funded by federal
motorcycle safety grants have been used in the past
to push awareness. “You want to reach drivers, and
this is a way to do it,” Zwonechek told the Journal Star
newspaper.
HARLEY-DAVIDSON POLLUTION FINE REDUCED
The U.S. Justice Department has rescinded a
requirement that Harley-Davidson Inc spend $3
million on a project to reduce air pollution as part of
a $15 million fine the Obama administration levied
last year for selling illegal tuning kits that cause its
vehicles to emit too much pollution.
Under direction from the Trump administration,
however, the Justice Dept. has determined that
the $3 million to retrofit wood-fired stoves was not
appropriate, saying: “The original consent decree
would have required defendants to pay a non-
governmental third-party organization to carry out
the mitigation project. Questions exist as to whether
this mitigation project is consistent with the new
policy.”
The move followed a recent decision by Attorney
General Jeff Sessions to halt a longstanding practice
under which polluters could be compelled to pay for
environmental or community projects, in addition to
fines and direct compensation to victims.
Now, a bill working its way through Congress could
make AG Sessions’s policy law. The bill, sponsored
by Representative Robert W. Goodlatte (R-VA) would
prevent the government from using settlement
money from civil cases for purposes other than direct
victim compensation or remediation, like cleanups of
environmental disasters.
OVER A QUARTER OF DRIVERS FEEL “BIKER ENVY”
If you’ve ever come across one of those drivers who
seem determined to prevent you from passing on your
bike, you may feel a sense of satisfaction in knowing
that they’re probably just jealous... and it’s going to
take them some time to calm down after they arrive
late for work.
A recent survey has found that 27.8% of drivers
experienced ‘biker envy’ when motorcyclists passed
them in traffic and it took them an average of 34.2
minutes to feel calm and in control again after getting
to work late.
The survey of 2,000 commuters by British
motorcycle insurer Devitt Insurance also found that
employees lose on average 29.6 minutes of work
a week because of heavy traffic, costing the U.K.
economy £203,846,153 ($261,351,152 USD).
Almost 13% had missed a job interview while stuck
in traffic, while 32.3% said they would try to sneak
into work unno ticed on arriving late. Here’s a better
idea: get a bike!
QUOTABLE QUOTE: “We have but one flag, one country;
let us stand together. We may differ in color, but not in
sentiment…and I assure you that I am with you in heart
and in hand.”~ Lt. General Nathan Bedford Forrest C.S.A.,
in a Fourth of July speech in Memphis in 1875; today his
statue is targeted for removal.
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