New French Motorcycle Law!

I am sure many of us regularly tour on our bikes in France, well as from the 1st April we may all have a big problem thanks to the French law makers.

I first picked up on this new law following a brief article letter posted in the April edition of the The BMW Club Journal and immediately found the following more detailed explanation on the internet at http://www.motosportsbusiness.com/new-french-motorcycle-laws-protest-nest-pas/

Its amazing that a US biker site has this but there is nothing in the UK biker press about it. Anyway quoting from www.motorsportsbusiness.com 's article here is the new French law:-

"A new motorcycle law that comes into effect in April. Any law enforcement officer, with nothing more to go on that a suspicion, can take away a motorcycle, have it towed (at the owners expense) to a garage to have a technical person check out your motorcycle for legal nonconformity. The law does not stipulate that the person checking out your motorcycle needs to be technically proficient with motorcycles - any old car mechanic is “qualified” to do the job!

After the owner has “repaired” his or her motorcycle to put it into a “legal” state, they will need to have it verified again by the so-called experts. The owner will need to pay for everything, the towing, the initial expert review, the repairs and the validation by the experts. If a motorcycle is towed, and found to be legal, too bad for the owner, he still needs to pay!"

Our question here at www.inter-bike.co.uk to all you bikers out there, does anyone know if this applies to bikes visiting France as well or just French registered bikes? Cos if it applies to any bike not only do the French local bikers have a big problem but any of us who choose to tour on motorbikes in France may well have.

I am sure most of us have modified our bikes in some way, after-market screen, aftermarket legal exhaust etc.,. This new law is a potential minefield!

Anyway, please can someone let us know more detail, so we can share it with all bikers out there?

That's all for now!

Ride safe.


Jon Booth
Email: webmaster@inter-bike.co.uk
Blog: http://inter-bike.blogspot.com/
Swicki: http://motorcycling-swicki.eurekster.com/