Westminster Council about to charge for motorcycle parking

[PeckhamRose]

In order to pay your one pound fifty to park your motorcycle in an unsecured bike park (ie someone could lift it to the edge or off the bay area because Westminster have not bothered putting rails in the bike bays yet), you have to text your reg no and a space and the day you want or something and a space and then something else, and if you make a mistake you won't know you've made a mistake. Not till you get home and find they have not emailed you a confirmation - because you made a mistake. And if you made a mistake and find you did not get a confirmation email, that means you've just found out you parked illegally even though you were sure you did everything correct. Which means a parking fine will arrive shortly or will be stuck to the bike of course. If you want a TEXT to your mobile for confirmation that your text was correctly sent, that's more money.

[SteveT]

Other than that PeckhamRose, er 'ows yer day bin?

[josef]

Hi Guys,

To show your support please join the campaign site http://www.notobikeparkingfees.com and also join our forum here: http://forum.notobikeparkingfees.com we need as much support as possible, there is an organised demo/protest on 28th September at 10:30am Hanover Square please come along and show your support, for more details of the route please view this page http://www.notobikeparkingfees.com/events/ Thank you!

[PeckhamRose]

Fabulous

Have the groups like MAG BMF www.TheLondonBikers.Com and www.Londonbikers.com been informed?

I shall inform www.TheLondonBikers.com right now (if they've not been, already).

Thanks for the alert.

[nutty]

http://www.notobikeparkingfees.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/14th_december_protest_banner.gif

[Keef]

I don't get why motorbikes should be excluded from parking fees.

[Mark]

If more people rode motorbikes instead of cars in London then there would be less congestion. 4 people each in a car use up enough space for about 12 - 18 people on motorbikes (my own figures). People should be encouraged to use motorbikes (as well as walking, bicycles and public transport) and use their cars less.

Introducing a parking charge for motorbikes doesn't encourage their use.

ps This is not a motorbike vs public transport argument.

[Moos]

Aren't motorbikes quite dangerous, though?

I don't have any personal experience, so would be interested to know what people think. I have a friend who is a regular motorcyclist and she said 'you've got to be realistic - at some point you WILL come off', and a colleague of mine spent month in hospital after an accident that broke both his arms. Those two things have coloured my perception, but it's pretty limited information.

If they are dangerous, then I can see why the councils would hesitate to push motorcycling as a recommended form of transport.

[Keef]

Not sure I buy in to the whole motorbikes saving congestion and the environment, I'd pick a Smart car over a bike any day.

Admit it Mark, you just want to look cool, and you should pay for it! ;-)

RE: the safety thing, I'm sure bikers could produce figures showing that they are actually quite safe, but I know more than one person who has been killed in a bike accident, and several who have been really badly hurt. I don't really know anyone who has come out of a car accident so badly. Of course it happens, but this is my experience.

Having said all that, I do like the idea of a dirty big Harley with chopper handlebars, and my guitar strapped to the back B)

[SeanMacGabhann]

who mentioned the environment Keef? I know congestion if often conflated with environmental issues (and sometimes correctly so) but congestion is sometimes just about getting more people around more quickly - bikes (manual and motor) and buses can clearly do that better than cars - smart cars are a start tho I agree. But you have to draw the line somewhere re: us lanes or the whole point of them becomes moot. As thinsg stand I'm unsure about wether I think motorbikes using them is a good thing or not

[Keef]

Not so good for sharing though are they? And having 2 people on a bike definitely increaces risk!

Anyway, I am not at all anti bike, I just think they should pay parking fees like anyone else, and the council should use some of the money raised to make sure there are lots of safe bike parking places.

PS. Sean, I really didn't need telling that congestion is not an environmental issue (exclusively), I read some of the thread, and it was mentioned earlier (I ignored the whole thread when it was first being discussed, but I am bored today and fancied a ruck).

[SeanMacGabhann]

fair dues keef, and I'm not surprised you didn't need telling. But I hear people on the radio and TV all the combine the two just to make their own point when it suits them and it hacks me off.... So when I saw it again, even knowingly, I thought I would stick my oar in

[PeckhamRose]

"Aren't motorbikes quite dangerous, though?" asks Moos.

Well, no. Mine sits there. Utterly quiet. Not moving anything. Waiting. Calm. Gleaming (thanks to Marmora Man's son) and gorgeous.

Then I get on it and press the switch.

Today I saved someone's life. I do it most days. My skill - learned over years - means that today I was able to anticipate the possibility that that idiot on the pavement listening on her iPod and talking in her phone was going to walk into the road any .. .. .. second .. .. .. NOW and I hoot the horn loudly just as she does so, at which point she turns and screams a hurl of abuse at me. I've just saved her life and you ask if motorbikes are dangerous!

Many motorcycles are charged at a HIGHER tax rate than many cars (and that's a fact not heavily publicised when the chancellor tells us he's not going to increase car tax), yet we do more mph and many emit less nasty exhaust. My two certainly do. Yet I use less road space and also thus wear out less road space.

Just a few facts for you to mull over.

Motorcycles aren't dangerous.

Idiots can be who drive them and idiot other road users and pedestrians can be dangerous. Old argument, worth repeating.

[Moos]

OK, well I didn't think they were dangerous in the same way that, say, tigers are dangerous.

But my goodness me, I had no idea that they could actually save lives in that remarkable way! Does the NHS know about this? All we need are lots of people on bikes going around preserving lives like this and we won't need any more ambulances!

Thank you so much for your very reasonable response. I don't know what I was thinking asking such a question.

"I've just saved her life and you ask if motorbikes are dangerous!"

My personal favourite sentence from your post. I'll be preserving it to keep me warm (and safe) in these cold winter days.

[PeckhamRose]

Ta!

[ladywotlunches]

Very well said, Peckham Rose. I don't ride my vespa now as don't commute into town often, but when I did, EVERY day I'd be pootling up denmark hill to Camberwell green (say - and pretty much the rest of the route too) and when the traffic is in a queue going SLOWLY up the outside (litte known fact - if you are going more than 15 mph and you get knocked off by a muppet in a car turning right its your fault, if less than that its theirs), when along came some ?$%^%^^ (fill in preferred choice) on a 'big' bike (not necessarily the full 1000cc but they'd love it to be!) on the outside of me, just cos they can.

And for that show of bravado and stupid extra risk - they'd get precisely 2 metres infront of me at the next set of lights.

hey ho.