After numerous twists and turns, technical inspection for two-wheelers will surely be put in place from 2023. The government finally adopted this measure, while the FFMC (French Federation of Angry Bikers) was formally opposed to it, notably with a mobilization last April, to denounce an overly simplistic control, which bikers can carry out by themselves.
Until now exempt from technical inspection, and after many twists and turns, motorized two and three-wheelers will soon be placed in the same boat as cars. Despite the drop in fatal accidents, the European Parliament wants at all costs to reduce the number of deaths on the roads and impose this measure from July 1, 2022 in France and neighboring countries. But that was without taking into account the pandemic, on the one hand, but also the opposition of the FFMC, an association which represents bikers.
The efforts of the FFMC, which tries as best it can to fight against this obligatory technical inspection, judged to be an “additional tax without benefit for security”, seem vain. Even if, according to the association, less than 1% of motorcycle accidents are due to technical problems, the General Directorate of Energy and Climate, which depends on the Ministry of Transport, is preparing a decree “aiming to establish the date and progressiveness of the implementation of a motorcycle technical inspection”. Its implementation should take place in 2023, officially the time to submit the decree to the Council of State, but especially after the presidential elections which will take place in 2022.
The technical inspection should therefore cost around €50, for an operation deemed too light by the FFMC. The latter is in fact divided into three stages. The first step will be to carry out a visual check of the brakes, tires and lighting, which every motorcyclist does daily, argues the FFMC. Then, it will be necessary to comply with noise control and pollution control, in order to comply with the standards imposed by the European Commission.
This is also the main criticism of the FFMC regarding this measure, which declares that “the implementation of a motorcycle technical inspection is therefore mainly driven by pressure from Europe, and the intimate conviction, which is not supported by any cost-benefit study, of the DGEC”. Still according to the FFMC, this compulsory technical inspection for two-wheelers is an unnecessary measure, since it has been proven that purely technical problems have an extremely minimal influence on the accident rate of two-wheelers.
The FFMC also highlighted a concern for the profitability of this measure. For them, the investment of technical inspection centers in suitable equipment would not be profitable for a long time, unless they charge a high price for the checks. In addition, some motorcyclists could be forced to travel tens of kilometers to pass these checks if all the centers are not equipped with the appropriate equipment.
The technical inspection will probably have to be carried out every two years, and should also be compulsory when reselling a two-wheeler, three-wheeler or quad. The legal train is moving, and it is only a matter of time before it becomes mandatory.
