This petition, initially sponsored by Miguel Santos, is set to be submitted to the European Parliament with the backing of the Portuguese Motorcycling Federation, the Motorcyclist Action Group, and various Portuguese motorcycle clubs.
According to its organizers, the petition currently has 7,000 paper signatures and 13,614 online signatures via its dedicated electronic platform, which remains active until the 23rd of this month.
Today at 14:30, Miguel Santos and deputy Gonçalo Laje, leaders of the Portuguese Federation and national motorcycle clubs, will depart from the Assembly of the Republic. They will first head to Paris, where they plan to meet at the headquarters of the French federation for a work meeting, a media event, and discussions with French and Portuguese-descendant deputies.
On the 24th, the group will travel to Brussels, again in procession, this time joined by the French group and another contingent arriving from the Netherlands. A reception at the European Parliament is scheduled to coincide with the petition’s submission.
The contested directive proposal from the Commission, according to the petition’s signatories, “claims to enhance motorcycle road safety.”
“However, the directive itself indicates that vehicle technical defects account for only a minor fraction of road accidents and does not justify the Mandatory Periodic Inspections (MOT) with impartial information, studies, or cost-benefit analyses focused on motorcycles,” they argue.
According to the petition signatories, “public studies are unanimous: technical failures in motorcycles are a negligible cause of accidents,” and the commission, with its suggestions, “breaches the principles of proportionality.”
For the petitioners, the main causes of accidents “are human error and risky behaviors by motorcyclists and other road users, as well as infrastructure conditions—factors not mitigated by a technical inspection.”
“Truly effective measures for motorcyclist safety include, for instance, improving road surface quality and removing hazards for two-wheelers, adapting signage for motorcycle riding, installing specific protective barriers, and launching awareness campaigns for drivers and specialized training for motorcyclists,” they add.
