The European Association of Motorcycle Manufacturers (ACEM) staged their 12th annual conference in Brussels in September, with the focus firmly on continuing improvements to the safety of Europe’s riding community.
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| Stephan Schaller: “In order to achieve lasting safety improvements, further cooperation between all relevant stakeholders is needed” |
In a keynote speech that warned against complacency and highlighted opportunity in equal measure, Stephan Schaller, the President of ACEM, IMMA and BMW Motorrad, said that “over the last decade we have witnessed a substantial improvement in motorcycle safety.
“The latest data available from the OECD’s International Road Traffic Accident Database (Organisation for Economic Development/IRTAD) shows that the number of fatal accidents involving powered two-wheeler users decreased from 7,612 to 4,262 between 2000 and 2014, a reduction of 44%.
“Although these statistics are certainly encouraging, they should not be a reason for complacency. Our industry strongly believes that further efforts are needed to reduce road fatalities and serious injuries”.
“This is why, in addition to manufacturing some of the safest and most advanced vehicles in the world today, we are already preparing our industry for the future. The industry has adopted a Memorandum of Understanding on Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), and is working together with the car industry in the Car2Car Communication Consortium”.
Additionally, in 2015 three of ACEM’s members launched the Connected Motorcycle Consortium, a platform open to members in the motorcycle and automotive industry to carry out joint R&D activities in the field of Connected-ITS.
“Motorcycle training is another priority for our industry. Motorcyclists must be able to make better and informed decisions about their training, so that they can ride confidently and safely. For this reason, ACEM has joined with the German Road Safety Council to launch a European Training Quality Label for post-license training (see page 10).
“But in order to achieve lasting safety improvements, further cooperation between all relevant stakeholders is needed. We all have a responsibility for road safety – either as transport providers, road users or road authorities. This is one of the reasons why throughout 2016 ACEM organised a series of thematic workshops in different European countries to identify opportunities to further improve motorcycle safety at national level.
“We must be instrumental in doing what we can to make Europe’s roads better and safer for all of us. Doing so will help society to further reap the benefits that motorcycling brings through quality of life, jobs and services, affordable mobility and reduced traffic congestion levels, to name just some of them”.
