Many of you will know that I produce a weekly motorcycle column usually called, predictably enough, Motorcycle Weekly, for some 100 newspapers around Australia.

Well, it used to be 100 newspapers. Now it’s more like 80, because Rural Press, one of the newspaper groups that used to run the column, has dropped it as a cost saving. This means that I will be drinking generic bourbon from now on, an unacceptable situation.

So what do I want you to do about this?

Well, if your local paper (be it the Wooglewomp Gazette or the Canberra Times) does not run the column, I’d like you to contact them and ask them to. It’s available from marque.com.au Automotive News Service, which is Australia's largest independent motoring news service. For over 50 years it has been providing high quality, independent and unbiased automotive news to newspapers in every Australian state as well as several overseas publications. And it distributes my column as well…

You can see how that’s going to help me.

How will it help you?

Well, you’ll be able to read somewhat different versions of the bike tests that appear in ARR and Cruiser, but much earlier!

And it costs you nothing…

Yep, the latest news is that bikies are even worse for the country and for each of us individually than the various governments had thought. Recent figures estimate that rather than killing one bloke at Sydney Airport, they kill 4550 each and every year. Worse yet, they knock two years off your – yes, your! – lifespan. Time to do something!

Oh, sorry. That’s hospitals that kill 4550 people each year, and the current standard of health care that reduces all of our lives by two years. Not bikies at all. Whew. That’s great. Now we don’t need to do anything about it.

If you’ve ever needed to have the government’s bikie panic put into context, that should do it.

But why was the official reaction to the bikie “threat” so severe, while nothing at all seems to be being done about the vast number of unnecessary deaths in hospitals?

Why are doctors pushing “road safety” scare campaigns that, let’s face it, affect very few people when they can’t even keep people alive in their hospitals?

What is it about motorcycles and motorcyclists that brings out the red-eyed control freak in officials of all persuasions?

I’d like to see everyone who has any input into motorcycle laws and their enforcement pass a simple test. I’d like them to prove that their mum or dad never forbade them to have a bike when they were young.

Yes, I think there must be some jealousy there somewhere.

How else do you explain it?

You may have noticed over the past few days some new buttons have popped up on the blog and new item pages.

The buttons under ‘Share this’ help you send that particular news item or blog to friends through email and social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace and Twitter. You can also bookmark the page, print it off or post it on your own blog if you have one.

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Here’s an interesting idea from Motorcycling Australia, which now styles itself “Australia’s peak body for motorcyclists”. Has anyone told the Motorcycle Council about this?

Anyway, here’s a quick paraphrase of the press release:

When it comes to road crashes, motorcyclists and scooter riders are vulnerable and restrictions on the use of bicycle lanes should be lifted.

“There has been an enormous investment in creating safer lanes for bicycles in capitals and major cities across the country,” said Motorcycling Australia’s Dan Rotman, “but riders of scooters and motorcycles- Powered Two Wheelers (PTWs) - are locked out of them because of legislation and regulation.”

He said that there had rightly been an effort to protect bicycle riders from other traffic, but that legislators and road constructors seemed to have forgotten that riders of PTWs were even more vulnerable than bicyclists.

“While injury trends for bicycle riders and car occupants are in decline, riders of PTWs remain highly vulnerable, and part of the solution could be extending the use of bicycle lanes in selected locations,” Rotman said.

Bicycle and PTW riders have a lot in common - a similar exposure to risk, size and footprint - and much of the new bicycle lane infrastructure could safely and easily accommodate both user groups.

“Not every bicycle lane would be appropriate,” Rotman said, “but there’s a great opportunity to conduct a trial to establish how and where the protection of these exclusive lanes could be extended to all vulnerable road users.”

Motorcycling Australia said that it would like to work with bicycle user groups, the MRA, car user groups and Government to work out how this could be best achieved.

For more information check out www.ma.org.au/rights.

Remember Laugh In?

“Interesting... but...”

Figures released by the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) show 55,500 motorcycles, scooters and all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) were sold in the six months to the end of June - a 14 percent decline compared to the same period in 2008.

"This result reflects the impact of broader economic conditions," FCAI Chief Executive Andrew McKellar said. "Motorcycle sales are now at the level we would expect them to be and are broadly consistent with the trends in new car sales."

Road bikes lost only 13.4 percent of sales compared to last year, with 20,763 sales. Scooter sales fell 29.3 percent. Cruisers remained the strongest selling road bikes with 22.5 percent of the market followed by 250s on 15.5 percent and supersport bikes on 12.5 percent. Interestingly, Suzuki, with 3563 sales, actually led the road bike market in front of Harley-Davidson with 3548 sales, with Honda third on 3477.

So… yes, sales are down and there is clearly more pain to come by way of unemployment, although it looks more like 7.5 percent rather than the 11 percent the Americans expect. But all the Hanrahans who reckoned we were “rooned” might like to have a look at the general economic indicators.

The Westpac-Melbourne Institute index of consumer sentiment rose by 23 percent in the past couple of months, to its highest level since December 2007. New Housing loans are at a 16 month high. House prices are up everywhere but Perth. And the Reserve bank’s estimate that real gross domestic product would shrink by 1 percent in 2009 is about to be revised – probably to growth of half a percent.

Things are tough in the rest of the world, true. But Australia, probably more by luck than good management, has avoided the worst of the recession.

Most of the motorcycle industry seems to agree.

“All things considered we're doing quite well,” says Harley-Davidson’s Adrian O’Donoughue. Honda’s Tony Sesto reckons that “for the remainder of the year, we have a couple of all-new bikes to look forward to” and that will stimulate sales. For BMW, Cameron Cuthill sees that “the outlook for the remainder of the year looks very positive”. Over at Triumph, Mal Jarrett is “particularly pleased to be in a positive position, given the current economic climate”.

Obviously I can’t see the future, but the glimpses I get are pretty positive. I’m going to stop worrying, and I’m going to book a doozy of a holiday.

Want to join me?

No doubt you’ve noticed the travel stories about America that run in both ARR and Cruiser. We’ve had a mixed reaction to them, with some readers dying to take the trip themselves and others annoyed because we’re not covering Australia enough.

Okay. Apart from the fact that there is no other motorcycle magazine in this country that runs anywhere near as many stories about Australia as we do, we also write about places that are not just the obvious travel destinations. When did you last read in any other magazine about riding to,  say, Woomera?

There is also a wealth of Aussie travel information in both the Hema Maps motorcycle Atlas and my book “On the Road Again”, all provided by me.

And then there’s the fact that we really like the US.

Even when, as happens occasionally, their dollar is inexplicably worth two of ours. And we still reckon that it’s a great destination – and not necessarily expensive. On our swing through the South last year, Mike and I found a pork restaurant where we got a huge helping of roasted meat plus potato salad plus coleslaw or beans plus a beer, all for ten bucks – hey, you’re not going to get that for even $20 in good old Pacific Pesos back here!

And check this. On a trawl through the Internet to find some info about Vegas (yes, Leanne of all people is going there for a nudge nudge conference) we came upon this review of Circus Circus:

“…from 11 a.m. to midnight, a different circus act performs on the midway above the casino. Once we saw a man spinning with towels in his mouth. On the other end of the towels were dogs, swinging through the air. Now that's entertainment!”

Is there any doubt that America still leads the free world??

The US is an absolute top motorcycle travel destination. You’ll be reading more about my recent ride in California soon – and no apologies! Especially when it now costs less than $A1000 to fly to LA and back.

Well, it’s come to this: motorcycle-mounted paramedics in Sydney are being spat at and insulted by pedestrians on their way to urgent cases. These blokes have saved a lot of lives because they can get to someone very quickly after they’ve suffered (especially) a heart attack. The quicker you get medical attention, the less likely you are to sustain brain damage or die.

They don’t just do a good job, they do a life-and-death job. And yet

I don’t know whether aggression against bike paramedics has increased since the launch of the State government’s hysterical anti-Bikie campaign, but I’ve never heard of anything like this before. What it looks like to me is a government well past its use-by date trying to create a sense of fear – because a scared community is more likely to stick with the devil it knows, come election time. And all motorcyclists are suffering.

From South Australia, for instance, I’m getting reports of Ulysses Club members being refused service in pubs. For those who don’t know about this organisation (about two or three of you, I’d say), it’s an almost painfully respectable social club made up of motorcyclists aged at least 40. Not a major threat to public order anywhere, except perhaps if the glucosamine supplies run out.

It’s very easy for the government to say that of course they’re not the intended target of the various campaigns, but if you fling enough mud a bit of it will always stick – and not just to your intended target.

Maybe you’d like to consult Brendan Nelson’s excellent guide to affecting the political process (in ARR #53) and let your representative know that you don’t appreciate this. The paramedics certainly don’t.