Ride your way out of lockdown!

15 June 2020

Ride your way out of lockdown!

Two wheeled transport is booming as folk try to find a safe, practical and fun new way to get to work.

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The MCIA are clearly ahead of the curve in their initiative to promote two wheeled transport for all, and it seems that a trend is developing after the stresses and strains of lockdown. The ever-resourceful travelling public have put their thinking caps on and come up with the ideal solution to post lockdown commuting...riding a motorcycle, scooter or moped!

In the last week of May demand for powered two wheelers doubled, and it has tripled so far during June relative to last year's figures for this period – so it is clearly something which is in the zeitgeist at the moment.

Although the government advice is still to work from home if you can, that leaves a lot of people who can't, having to go back to a place of work and find a safe way to get there. The advice is to avoid public transport if at all possible and over half of the public said that they would not feel happy getting buses, tubes or trains to work in the rush hour when it would be very difficult to maintain social distancing. It's not always practical to drive a car as, in modern congested Britain, you can often find yourself in a traffic jam made up of a queue of cars with one person in, thus exponentially increasing your journey time and adding to exhaust pollution for everyone while you do it.

Whilst the government is trying to promote healthy means of transport like bicycles or good old Shanks's pony, these are not always practical unless you live quite near to your work. So mopeds, scooters or motorcycles seem like the obvious choice for getting from A to B, particularly in towns and cities, where car traffic is already pretty much up to capacity and more would just lead to hours of queueing. Powered two wheelers are cheaper to run than cars, better in traffic and much easier to park when you get there so what's not to like?

So perhaps the British landscape is changing – certainly a move towards motorcycles and away from cars would be better for our road travel and it looks as though we are voting with our feet, let's hope it will stick. It would be nice to think that a resurgence in motorcycling and maybe some new recruits who might discover the joy of two wheels, might be a positive way forward as we come out of the lockdown and start the country again. We say good luck to the motorcycle industry – we know it makes sense!

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