Nieuws
Motorrijders woest over uitstel veiliger vangrails
Motorrijders zijn zeer ontevreden dat een besluit over veiliger vangrails alsmaar vertraging oploopt. Een Europees comité voor de technische eisen heeft een besluit over testvoorschriften uitgesteld tot minstens na de zomer, wegens een veelheid aan vragen en wijzigingsvoorstellen.
"Belachelijk dat dit besluit door gedetailleerde muggenzifterij nu blijft hangen", zei voorzitter Nico Perk van de Motorrijders Actie Groep (MAG) dinsdag. De MAG is bij het besluit betrokken via de overkoepelende Europese federatie van belangenverenigingen voor motorrijders FEMA. "Het is politiek over de ruggen van motorrijders. Tijdens dit tijdrovende gesteggel sterven er weer een paar motorrijders tegen de vangrails."
(foto is in scene gezet)
Doel van de EU is dat vangrails dicht worden gemaakt tot aan de grond. Dat voorkomt dat uitglijdende motorrijders zich verwonden aan de paaltjes onder de vangrails. De paaltjes zorgen nu jaarlijks voor heel wat gebroken botten en dwarsleasies, stelt Perk.
De actiegroep is al bijna twintig jaar bezig voor veiliger vangrails. De groep had zijn hoop gevestigd op het Europese comité CEN voor technische eisen aan verkeersattributen. "Maar zelfs dit besluit over voorschriften voor een test sleept al jaren. Dan duurt het wel tien jaar voor de veiliger vangrails in Europa verplicht worden."
Perk prijst zich wel gelukkig dat veel Nederlandse overheden zelf al vrijwillig de dichte vangrails aanleggen, vooral in buitenbochten. Zo bouwt de provincie Noord-Holland dezer dagen dit nieuwe type langs de N201.
Bron: www.telegraaf.nl
++++++++++
Het originele persbericht van de FEMA (Federation of European Motorcyclists' Associations), waar de MAG actief lid van is:
PRESS RELEASE
June 10th, 2009
Motorcyclists' Protection Guardrails: CEN members give priority to details rather than saving lives
Last week, CEN's technical committee on road equipment (TC226) held its annual meeting in Berlin. The draft standard which would make guardrails safer for motorcyclists was not on the agenda for adoption. Too many comments received. FEMA will push again this issue at the next sub-committee meeting (TG1) in September!
The Federation of European Motorcyclists' Associations (FEMA) is sad to announce that its efforts to get the draft standard for motorcycle-friendly guardrails adopted in 2009 have not been successful. The draft proposal, based on the Spanish standard, has not been submitted for the formal voting in Technical Committee 226, which met on Thursday and Friday last week in Berlin, due to more than a hundred comments received.
One may reasonably ponder the reasons behind such an amount of comments over an existing standard with proven efficiency records, also used by several other countries in their national efforts to find a solution for motorcyclists hitting crash barriers. Indeed, every stakeholder around the table is defending different interests in the development of the standard, or indeed non-development, and economic interests at stake are not negligible.
FEMA's General Secretary, who has actively participated in the preparation of the draft, says: "I believe some CEN participants tend to forget the reality behind the objective. Some participants are trying to minimize the problem while some others only focus on detailed technical criteria in order to have the best standard at first shot. But the truth is that motorcyclists are being killed sliding on roads in the meantime. And to those who complain that this issue is a minor problem considering the number of motorcycles in comparison to other vehicles, I would like to strongly remind them of one very essential principle in road safety: whatever minority or majority of road users it is about, in no way should the safety of some endanger the life of others! FEMA wouldn't have spent 20 years of energy and motorcyclists' money if this was not a real issue!"
FEMA supports the draft standard proposal as it is. Any other impact configurations and/or technical improvements of the proposed standard should be considered at a later stage. FEMA members will not accept that 20 years of efforts raising awareness and financing FEMA's work on the issue will simply deserve vertical archiving for whatever interests behind.
The next TC266 sub committee (TG1) meeting is expected to take place sometime in September. FEMA will propose to split comments received into 2 categories: those that can be considered for this version of the standard and those to be analyzed once the standard has been adopted, hopefully not later than 2010.