There’s something about the idea of riding a motorcycle that appeals to the outlaw in all of us. It’s not just the freedom of the open road, the wind in your hair and the power of the engine between your legs that holds so much appeal. With growing traffic congestion in our towns and cities, longer commuting distances and increasing road costs, more and more Irish people are swapping four wheels for two.

It doesn’t take a scientific survey to come to the conclusion that there are many more bikes on the road now than there were ten years ago. Some of the increase is undoubtedly down to the new generation of affordable scooters and mopeds – popular among teenagers and commuters. But increasingly, people in their thirties, forties and beyond (known among the biking fraternity as “born agains”) are rediscovering the joys of motorcycles, not to mention the convenience of getting about much faster than they do in cars.
But the freedom that comes with taking to the highways on a motorcycle comes with a price. If the latest statistics are anything to go by, bikers are increasingly paying with their own lives. According to Trisha Warner of The Irish Rider Training Association, motorcyclists make up just 2% of road users but account for 22% of road deaths. And things are getting worse, as she explains. “There were 45 motorcyclists killed in the whole of last year. This year the total so far is 42, so, sadly, it looks like the figure will be much higher by the end of the year.”
Warner puts much of the growing carnage among bikers on Irish roads down to a lack of training and education. “There’s something wrong when a youngster can get his or her licence in the post and go out and buy a bike with no training whatsoever,” she offers. “In other countries, in Germany for example, you have to do 25 hours of theory followed by 15 hours of practical training before you even get your provisional licence. Even in places like Latvia or Yugoslavia they have much stricter rules in place than we have.”
The Irish Rider Training Association was formed in 1999 by a group of experienced motorcyclists within the Irish Motorcyclists’ Action Group (MAG Ireland) who were concerned that in most parts of the country there were no instructors and, even where there were, often those who were providing training lacked any qualifications. “We train instructors and we hold a register of qualified instructors,” Warner explains. “Our training scheme is quite stringent and we have very high standards among our instructors which are widely recognised.”
Though the organisation is funded by the Department of the Environment, through the National Safety Council and has been supported by donations from the Drinks Industry Group of Ireland, Warner says they are way under-funded to do a proper job. “We received just Ä19,0000 this year for our whole operation. If we were a sports club we could get anything up to E250,000 but we’re obviously not as important as they are. We’re just trying to save lives.”
Linda O’Loideoin is Road Safety Officer with MAG and agrees that training is the key to improved standards of motorcycle riding in Ireland.
“It’s just not good enough to get your mate or your dad to show you how to ride a bike,” she says. “I’ve been riding for 30 years and I still need further training. I’d love to do an advanced training course for example – you never stop learning.”
The government have been active recently in bringing in new road safety legislation, including the introduction of penalty points and amended speed limits on our roads. Among the plans Roads Minister Seamus Brennan has announced recently is compulsory training for provisional drivers. “It’s not enough” says O’Loideoin, adding that
“Compulsory Basic Training (CBT) should be for all road users not just provisional licence holders,” she insists. “Seamus Brennan was talking about introducing it for provisional drivers this autumn, but it’s autumn now and there’s still no sign of it happening yet. He has a working group looking at it but the first thing they need to do is to set up a register of instructors which hasn’t been done yet.”
She also criticises the standard of roads in Ireland, which she says contributes to many of the accidents involving motorcycles. “Road safety starts with the surfaces and generally they are a disgrace,” she says. “It’s got to the stage now where we are advising bikers not to use the Naas Road because of the Luas works. I’ve been having a standing row myself with the site managers out there for putting those temporary metal plates across the road and I’ve seen other bikers arguing with the roadworkers as well. And it’s not just Luas who are causing the problem. It’s everyone – the ESB, Gas, Telecom etc. They dig up the road and they put back lumpy tarmac around these metal plates. And as for loose chippings, whoever thought of that idea should be forced to ride a bike on a surface like that and they’d quickly change their mind.”
For anyone thinking of taking up biking, or for others who might feel the need for re-training, there are qualified IRTA registered instructors available all around Ireland .
Terry Cronin, who has been involved in riding bikes for 14 years, runs a Dublin-based training school for bikers: According to Cronin the main elements in training people to ride bikes involve “a good grasp of machine control, positioning on the road and observation and hazard awareness.”
“The facts are that 78% of bike accidents happen in built up areas and 70% of those happen at junctions,” he explains. “It’s a combination of a lack of awareness of other road users and, in truth, not looking around properly. Poor braking figures in a lot of accidents and that can be down to a lack of understanding on how the front and back brakes on a bike work. People coming up from riding a push bike have a fear of using the front brakes – they think they’re going to go over the handlebars which is not the case with motorcycles.”
The message is loud and clear. Too many bikers are dying out there, needlessly. It doesn’t have to be that way. If you want to “live to ride and ride to live” get some instruction – before it’s
too late...