Hello fellow motorcyclists and supporters of getting the protection we need while riding in Portsmouth. 

As I mentioned last time I wanted to share with you the so called assesment from the safety team employed by your taxes at PCC HQ. 

They helpfully pointed me to the government guidance initially , you may remember this guidance, it suggested that councils engaged with the public over the decisions about who should get access to the bus lanes. Evidence of such consultation, of course, has not been forthcoming from the councillor I'm told in charge of these things, leading me to suspect it never happened at all. 

Link below will get you to the govt guidance , just cut and paste into your browser. 

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/motorcyclists-using-bus-lanes-tal-124

So lets take a look at the text I received from the (keeping specific names out of it for the moment) so lets call them the 'safety team'.  

'Following an initial review it has been found that on balance the improvements to journey time for motorcycles are outweighed by the risk to pedal cyclists, motorcycle riders, and pedestrians due to increased speed on unobstructed lanes by motorcycles and mixing of vulnerable road user types. Additionally, expected reductions to congestion are expected to be minimal. As such a change to policy proposals for bus lane use would not be justified.'

So lets start with the first point from the 'safety team'?. It looks at journey time for motorcycles. Why would that be a consideration when we are talking about safety , jouney time for a motorcyclist is always going to be better than a car bus or a private hire vehicle as that is the attraction of using a motorcycle in these days of congestion in our cities. The government own advice cites safety as the most important aspect of the bus lane considerations yet PCC's own safety boffins seem to fail to rail to recognise this. What happened to safety first? 

The next point is the assessment is that adding motorcycles to the mix will increase speed ?. Er, where is the evidence for that?, its pure nonsence, we all have to obey speed limits and existing bus lanes users would already be travelling at the max speed allowed so where do motorcyclists introduce a further hike in speed. ? 

The final point they state is that congestion would not be reduced, really? I see the bus lanes every day and they are not congested and could easily accommodate motorcycles within their lanes and that would be a straight forward swap of the motorcycles from the very congested (at times) roads that run along the bus lanes. Surely freeing up space for the remaining traffic routes around the city.  

In summary I'm afraid I'm led to the conclusion that safety has not been properly considered as a priority by PCC and despite their name they have failed to live up to their role in what should have been a properly considered debate around the access to the bus lanes of Portsmouth. 

In so doing they have decided to put the safety of all you fellow motorcyclists as a minor consideration, if a consideration at all. Which frankly is a failure of your so called representatives in keeping you and I safe in the city. 

I will come back to you with my thoughts around what we can may do to move this past the deaf eared administration we seem to have in PCC.