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Category: Organisations

  1. KillSpills Campaign To End

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    Thee KillSpills campaign, founded in 2003 to counter the menace of diesel spillage and particularly the danger it presents to motorcyclists, has come to an end.

    Announcing the end of the campaign, the KillSpills team leader Stephen Edwards said that the increased pressure of his ‘day job’ coupled with family domestic needs meant that he could no longer give the campaign the time and resources it needed.

    Although sponsored and supported by the BMF since 2005, (and from 2008 also by the IAM) the small volunteer KillSpills team remained just that and it is to their credit that they achieved so much in raising the profile of the spilt diesel menace.

    Highlights over the past seven and a half years included the annual London KillSpills Rally, at one time attracting over 7500, riders converging on Parliament with regular reports and petitions taken to the Prime Minister’s office at 10 Downing Street.

    Thanks to KillSpills, the Highway Code now includes a section on the danger of diesel spillage and due to the Highways Agency support, leaflets and guidance were issued to fleet operators and drivers. The DfT also came on board and commissioned and funded a study into best practice on cleaning up diesel spills.

    The high profile campaign also presented annual awards to companies who had done the most to lessen the risks and improve awareness of diesel spills. Recipients included big fleet operators, ASDA and Sainsbury’s, and TruckProtect, the makers of an innovative and now widely adopted anti-spill device. Awards were also presented to the Highways Agency and to the DfT in recognition of their work on the topic.

    Speaking on the announcement, KillSpills founder, R1 riding Stephen Edwards, a 45 year old Accountant from Lancashire said: “This has been an extremely difficult decision for me but I’ve come to the end of my personal road on this. We’ve achieved so much and I’ve enjoyed what we’ve done, but this is it, I really can’t do any more. My thanks go to my team and the many people who have helped us along the way and of course to the BMF and IAM whose support has been invaluable.”

    For the BMF, spokesman Jeff Stone said:  “From the day I first met Steve way back in 2003, I was impressed by his enthusiasm and professionalism and was pleased to be able to offer BMF support. The BMF have battled the diesel menace for years and gained some improvements, but Steve raised the bar and by concentrating on this single issue gave it a whole new dimension. Motorcyclists owe a lot to Steve and the KillSpills team.”

    The BMF will continue to lobby on the diesel spills issue as part of its broader campaigning programme.

    See www.killspills.org.uk for more on the campaign.

  2. BMF Launches ‘Rider Active’ Campaigning Initiative

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    In a new initiative, ‘Rider Active’, designed to involve all motorcyclists in tackling common issues adversely affecting their motorcycling safety and enjoyment, the BMF has today launched an on-line survey to gather their concerns and from those topics highlighted, construct an action plan to deal with them.

    The ‘Rider Active’ initiative follows an impromptu ‘What’s Bugging You?’ survey of visitors to the BMF’s stand at last year’s International Motorcycle Show and triggered the need for a wider survey of rider’s concerns.

    The survey captured such a diverse range of concerns that the BMF now wants to break them down into priority order by surveying not only its 80,000 members though direct mailing, but also, through the on-line survey, all interested motorcyclists.

    In this way say the BMF, it will not be a top-down project but will involve the BMF’s regional network of representatives too. After collecting riders concerns, guidance and briefings focused on local findings will be available enabling those riders, along with local BMF Regional Representatives, to take action themselves along with any national action taken by the BMF.

    Over the year, four major issues will be focussed on as determined by the survey, all of them designed to gather grass roots concerns and involve local riders.

    Launched today, the Rider Active survey will also be carried in the BMF’s re-launched Motorcycle Rider magazine published later this month.

    Chris Hodder, the BMF’s Government Relations Executive said: “This represents a new way of working for the BMF, empowering local riders and putting the resources of the BMF in their hands. In this way we will be addressing the issues that they really care about.”

    For further information and to take part in the survey, riders should log on.

  3. Truck Protect Wins the 2010 KillSpills Award

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    TruckProtect Ltd, the manufacturer of the best-selling NeckIt! fuel anti-siphon device (ASD), is this year’s winner of the KillSpills/bmf/IAM Award 2010 for ‘Achievement in Reducing Diesel Spills’.

    The annual award was first introduced in 2005 in order to recognise the achievements of those working to reduce the menace to motorcyclists of spilt diesel on our roads. The 2010 award once more goes to TruckProtect Ltd in recognition of the work they have done in developing programmes to promote the KillSpills campaign and the dangers of diesel spillage.

    Last year TruckProtect won the award for the development of the world’s first anti-spill device to fit within an anti-siphon device and therefore prevent diesel spills from a fuel tank even when a fuel cap has not been replaced or is broken. The device is now being launched by DAF and Scania, amongst others, across Europe.

    Commenting, KillSpills founder Stephen Edwards said: “The engineering that has gone into this product is truly impressive, but more than that, TruckProtect have shown real commitment and interest in ending the diesel spill menace faced by motorcyclists. They are a worthy winner of the 2010 KillSpills Award for Achievement in Reducing Diesel Spills.”

    In receiving the award, Russell Fowler, Chief Executive of TruckProtect, said: “We are doubly delighted to be honoured once again by the KillSpills award. While our device started as a means of preventing diesel spillage and fuel siphoning, since first winning the award we have realised its importance to motorcyclists so have also stressed this aspect within the industry and with our customers. Some major publicity programmes will start soon following close work between KillSpills and ourselves. Their team is to be congratulated for their tireless efforts in raising this awareness”

    This is the sixth year of the award, previous winners being ASDA in 2005, Sainsbury’s in 2006, the Highways Agency in 2007 and the DFT in 2008, all of them recognised for the work they had done in raising awareness of the dangers of diesel spillage and taking measures to prevent it.

    Note: KillSpills (www.killspills.org.uk.), sponsored by the bmf and IAM, was formed in 2003 to counter the menace of diesel spillage and particularly, the danger it presents to motorcyclists.

    More details on TruckProtect can be found at:  www.TruckProtect.com.

  5. Brussels says: “You will have anti-Lock Brakes and like them.”

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    Riders will have anti-lock braking systems (ABS) with no option to disable them whether they like them or not if the European Commission gets its way. The Commission plans to enforce the fitment of ABS to all new bikes above 125cc.
     
    A compromise that might have enabled riders to switch their ABS off has been rejected by the Commission on the grounds that ABS will offer safety benefits far more often than it will pose safety problems. The Commission is concerned that what they describe as false anxiety about ABS, may lead riders to disable their systems in normal on-road use and thus lose the benefits these systems offer.
     
    The Commission acknowledges that ABS may pose disadvantages in off-road situations but considers the number of citizens living in areas with a high percentage of unpaved roads as negligible compared to the broader riding population.
     
    MAG President Ian Mutch said, “This is typical Commission bullishness of the ‘one size fits all philosophy.’ Very few road accidents have anything to do with the machines themselves.  Unless we can steer the Commission away from this obsession with technical solutions then we are just going to face a lot of expense with no certainty that it will reduce accidents at all.”
     
    The Federation of European Motorcyclists Associations (FEMA) argues that in addition to the limitation of consumer choice, the fitment of ABS will significantly increase the purchase cost and maintenance cost of motorcycles.
     
    On a positive note, following FEMA’s suggestion, the Commission proposes to prohibit member states from applying national power limits like the 100hp limit currently in place in France.
     
    NB MAGUK is a founder member of FEMA . One Euro from each £25 MAGUK membership subscription goes to help fund the cost of running FEMA.