The Motorcycle Action Group (MAG) is demanding the UK government to show proof that self-driving cars is safe for motorcyclist in the country.
UK wants to fully allow self-driving vehicles on UK roads by 2025.
MAG demands a solid evidence that self-driving cars are safe for riders.
MAG believes that self-driving vehicles present a dangerous threat to riders if they are allowed on the road.
The UK government plans to fully allow self-driving vehicles to be on UK roads by 2025 as announced last week.
However, MAG is concerned that the safety of riders is not put into consideration during the decision making process.
“It is a source of great concern that – once again – the interests of motorcyclists are an afterthought.
“Years of development of these systems have not taken sufficient care of motorcyclists’ interests. Whilst the elimination of driver error may be a laudable goal, it is of no interest if that error is simply replaced by automatic incompetence.
“We will be holding the Government and authorities to account and demanding to see genuine evidence that these vehicles will not place riders at higher risk than human drivers do.
“Given that independent testing is yet to commence, I find it hard to understand how the [Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps] can be so confident that the roll-out is sensible at this time,” said MAG.
Based on a research conducted by the Netherlands Vehicle Authority (RDW) in 2016, self-driving cars struggled to adapt when there is a motorcycle riding close to the edge of their lane. The driver had to take control of the car to avoid contact.
I was working as soon as I finished my SPM examinations. Didn’t go on a long holiday with friends, didn’t even bum out at the beach night after night with a cold drink. “Time to earn your own money, Son.”
Through the help of a few friends, I became a waiter in a hip new pub in Penang, called “20 Leith Street.” The place has since been converted to a hawker centre and it’s just next door to the blue-coloured Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion, which is now a boutique hotel. Back then, the latter was overgrown, run down and pitch black like a haunted house. I didn’t dare step near it.
Anyway, one morning after work, the five of us guys stood outside, just chilling, talking gibberish and smoking. Our supervisor whistled at and teased the transgenders who walked up and down the street outside. A homeless man in torn shirt and pants sat on the sidewalk opposite ours, mumbling to himself (hoped he didn’t see dead people). Yeah, those were the bad ol’ days.
Anyways, we talked about all sorts of stuff. Fishing, camping, hiking, swimming… There was no such thing as Astro and PlayStation in 1998.
Boys being boys, we got around to talking about cars and motorcycles. (About girls too, of course, on how we don’t understand them – and we still don’t today – but that’s for another story).
Among us, only Poh Keat owned a bike, a used Honda C90.
The rest of us wanted a bike for ourselves too, but we haven’t ridden one before. Then Chris got super-enthusiastic and wanted to learn how to ride at that very moment. The compound was huge, tarred over as a parking lot and there’s no one around to be a bother
After much cajoling, Poh Keat gave in to Chris’ requests. He pointed out on how to get it in gear, roll out and stop.
As Chris got moving, we started throwing insults at him. We were his buddies, right. But he ignored us and started doing pretty descent by his second orbit around Poh Keat, who stood in the middle and barked orders.
We lost interest in teasing him so we went back to talking about girls. I was still single, okay. All the while, Chris passed by like clockwork, getting a little faster each time.
Then on one pass, Chris gunned the throttle a little too much, casuing the bike to roar forward. Surprised, he instantaneously chopped the throttle, which resulted in the rear hopping and squirming (he must’ve been in first gear). His arms went straight immediately and his legs came off the footpegs, looking like a character from The Flinstones trying to brake by dragging his feet on the ground.
The bike now went straight, instead of turning into the circle and headed for the tall wall separating 20th Leith Street and Cheong Fatt Tze!
At this point, we heard “BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!” all the way to the wall. THWACK! The bike’s front tyre tapped the wall like how when someone walked into a glass door.
Chris and the bike plopped over like sacks of potatoes stacked too high. And the horn was still on! BEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeppppp….. its sound tapering off as it got hotter.
Picture 112
Poh Keat had caught up to Chris and tried to lift the bike up. We ran over to help too.
“WHY DIDN’T YOU BRAKE?!” yelled the unfortunate bike owner.
“I did try to brake!” replied Chris in defiant defense. “But instead of stopping, your stupid bike only went beeeeeeeeeeeep!”
Our wisecrack Supervisor spoke up, “So did the wall move out of the way when you honked at it?” Apart from Poh Keat and Chris, I believe the other three of us have never laughed any harder than that morning until this day.
While the help is still pouring in into the affected flood locations on the east side of the country, lets not forget others that also needs a helping hand.
For that a small troop of 11 bikers and some with their pillions, from the Honda CB500 group gave up part of their long weekend to lend some help at the Mesra Home, Ampang.
The bikers helped clean up parts of the house including the storage room, trim the lawn and some gardening work, made sure the drains surrounding the house was clear and even did some plumbing work.
The newly established Mesra Home is home to five female senior citizens from 60-years-old and older and they are taken care by a husband and wife team.
On top of the work, the group also handed over RM345.00 which they had collected amongst themselves and also pass on some daily sanitary needs such as soaps and toothpaste for residences.
The Honda CB500 group is a collection of owners of the Honda CB500 series, CBR500, CB500F and CB500X bike.
If you have a story to tell then we are happy to hear about it, email us the details and contact and we’ll get back to you.
Over the weekend 179 owners of various versions of the Honda CBR gathered together at the Alrawsha Arabian restaurant near the KG Pandan round-about for their second annual mega gathering.
Some members came from as far as Johor Bharu and even the northern states. This beat their first Mega gathering last year with 136 bikes in MAEPS Serdang.
The group started about two years ago with three CBR owners, Hairullah ibrahim (poklah), Shaiful Amri Ramlee (Amri), and Muryadi Mokhtar who wanted to unite and share their love of the CBR variant.
Currently the group have about 280 members which connects mainly through Whatsapp and Facebook. And apart from the Mega gathering, its just like any other biker group with the usual TTS, rides and charity program.
In the near future, they also planning to organise trackdays and some long distance ride like across the border.
“We love to make our pool of friends bigger so interested CBR owners can join us by going over to the CBR-RR FB group,” said founder Poklah.
Calling all bikers, the Rainbow of Life Forces (ROLF) is looking for friendly bikers to help them distribute some happiness to underprivileged children on their Grant-A-Wish campaign.
The campaign will commence in November where the ROLF will distribute the gifts to the selected homes.
Each child already have a wish thats been collected by ROLF and bikers can contribute by buying the gift for the child, you can log on to http://www.rolfcommunity.org on how to do that.
Or you can give your time instead and
join the ROLF team at the event venue and interact with the kids. There will be games and also a fun ride session where you give the kids a ride on your bike.
Rainbow of Life Forces or ROLF is a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Campaign which is initiated to give hope to all children regardless of race, religion, background and nationality.
ROLF brings nations together in mutually supportive relationships when it comes to enhancing the quality of life for children, particularly in mitigating pains and sufferings of the young.
ROLF consists of 7 campaigns. They are Blue Ribbon Campaign, followed by Gold, Orange, Red, Yellow, Green, and Purple. Each of the campaigns is formed to support and help children in different situation.
Interested bikers to join the charity event can contact Kev of Bikingmsia at 0173233363.
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