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Easter action on speeding bikers
A MASSIVE police operation to clamp down on speeding motorcyclists will be launched tomorrow amid stark warnings that bikers are being given access to the most powerful machines ever produced.
Thousands of bikers are expected to descend on part of Yorkshire over the Easter weekend, which is traditionally seen as the start of the annual motorcycling season.
North Yorkshire's road network, which covers 5,000 miles and criss-crosses stunning countryside including the Yorkshire Dales and the North York Moors, is a huge draw for bikers from across the nation. However, it will be the first opportunity for many to take their high-powered machines out on to the roads since the winter months, prompting concerns that their riding skills may be rusty.
Four times British bike champion Mike Edwards, who lives in Harrogate, is helping to promote a wide-ranging road safety campaign, 95 Alive, and urged motorcyclists to take extra tuition to ensure they are capable of handling their machines.
A 600cc machine has roughly twice the power of a similar model from 15 years ago because of major technological advances, according to Mr Edwards, but he said: "That is not to say that high-powered bikes are a bad thing, it is simply that people need to know how to ride them. It is the rider who opens the throttle whether the bike has 33 brake horsepower or 133 brake horsepower.
"Bikes are more powerful than ever these days and people need to be aware. If they outstretch themselves it only takes a moment for something to go wrong."
In the past decade a total of 158 people have died on North Yorkshire's roads in accidents involving bikes and 1,347 have been seriously injured.
The vast majority of those injured or killed do not actually live in the county. Official figures have revealed about 75 per cent are from other areas including West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, Durham, Teesside, Tyneside, Cumbria and the Humber.
While the number of casualties has been reducing, three motorcyclists were killed last weekend alone in North Yorkshire.
Police yesterday named one as Alan Andrew England, 42, of Bolton. He died in a crash in the Dales on the A682 between Gisburn and Long Preston on Sunday. An inquest has been opened and adjourned. Two were killed in another accident when a Honda and a Suzuki collided at Askwith, near Otley, earlier that day.
More than 30 officers will be deployed throughout North Yorkshire to patrol roads during the Easter weekend and will use mobile speed cameras in an attempt to prevent more accidents. Officers will also visit well-known haunts of bikers such as the Squires cafe in Sherburn-in-Elmet to try to educate motorcyclists about the dangers they face on the roads.
However, Insp John Settle, the head of North Yorkshire Police's central area roads policing unit, stressed it is not only bikers who need to remain vigilant – motorists have to be conscious of often hard-to-spot motorcycles.
Insp Settle, who has been riding bikes for nearly 25 years, said: "Many of our officers are bikers themselves and can identify with riders and bike enthusiasts.
"However, dangerous and illegal riding will not be tolerated. They see first-hand the devastation and heartache suffered by those close to victims of road collisions. For every person killed or injured on our roads there are many loved ones, relatives and friends whose lives are changed forever because riders fail to heed the warnings."
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Weather for Yorkshire
Saturday 26 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 17 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 22 C
Wind Speed: 13 mph
Wind direction: East
