Fight not over for bikers

They’ve been allowed by the Makati Regional Trial Court to use the expressways. But for the country’s thousands of motorcycle riders, the fight is not yet over. In fact it is just heating up.

About 50 bikers belonging to different motorcycle clubs were apprehended last Saturday by Philippine National Construction Corp. (PNCC) traffic enforcers for entering the South Luzon Tollways. They were given tickets and cited for reckless driving in spite of their insistence that a Makati judge has already ruled that the ban on motorcycles from expressways is illegal.

The riders readily took the tickets. "We’re going to use these as evidence in a comtempt of court suit we’re filing against the PNCC," they said.

The PNCC has agreed to open the South and North Luzon Tollways (SLT and NLT) to motorcycles with engine displacements of 400 cc and above. It also issued guidelines which bikers should follow before they can use the tollways. The guidelines were as follows:

• Motorcycles should have engine displacement of at least 400cc, must be roadworthy and comply with all provisions of the Land Transportation Office, and must only have two riders.

• No cargo shall be allowed on the bikes except for saddle bags and luggage carriers designed for motorcycle use.

• The back rider should have a seat and footrest.

• The motorcycle must travel with its headlights on at all times.

• There shall be no lane splitting or overtaking between lanes, and a minimum speed of 70 kph and maximum of 100 kph must be observed.

• All riders must wear a helmet and pay the same rate as those riding cars.

However, Frank Woolf, president of Freedom Riders motorcycle club, said these guidelines, including the banning of smaller bikes, are illegal.

"The PNCC has no power to ban motorcycles, so how can they ban smaller bikes?" asked Woolf in a telephone interview Monday night from Hong Kong where he is in a business trip. "If you assume that it is legal, then in effect you are banning 99 percent of motorcycles in the Philippines and allowing only the big bikes which comprise a mere 1 percent of the motorcyle population."

Woolf, an Englishman married to a Filipina, said in other countries, only mopeds or scooters that are 50cc and below are banned from expressways or freeways. The ban, he explained, is due to the inability of these tiny bikes to meet the minimum speed on these highways.

"But will you ban a 150cc scooter? I tell you a 150cc scooter is faster than a 1200cc Harley Davidson. The ban is pointless, elitist and nothing but plain and simple discrimination."

Woolf pointed out that they have come up with "pages and pages" of statictics which prove that expressways such as the SLT and the NLT are the safest roads for motorcycles.

"Seventy percent of accidents involving motorcycles are caused by vehicles pulling out of side turnings and this condition is totally non-existent on expressways, making them completely safe for bikers," he said.

PNCC chairman Luis Sison, who claims to be a biker himself, has said that he is willing to allow bikes into the tollways but would "fight up to the Supreme Court" if he is asked to do the same for small bikes like scooters.

"I wouldn’t allow a kid to get himself killed in there," he said. "We are putting limits because of safety considerations. The bikers are not the ones who will be held accountable when someone on a moped gets killed on the expressway so I hope they understand our situation."

There have been suggestions to set aside a motorcycle lane on the SLT and NLT but Sison said it couldn’t be done because the two highways are, in general, only two-lane thoroughfares.

Woolf agreed with Sison in this aspect, but he had a different reason for opposing a motorcycle lane. "In the world, the only country to my knowledge that has a motorcycle lane is Malaysia but it is now thinking of scrapping it because it proves to be more dangerous to bikers," he said. "The motorcycle lane gets all the rubbish and the gravel from the main highway and it gets too narrow on some parts. It tends to be more accident-prone over the years." – Junep Ocampo