France bans filtering, bikers protest

Muahahaha

There was major protests by bikers in the big cities over last weekend as the French RSA has banned motorbikers filtering. By law they now have to sit in traffic behind cars. If caught its a 135 euro fine and 3 points on your license.

It pretty much defeats motorbiking as a commuter if you cant use your bike to beat the traffic.

Thousands of motorcyclists in France protested over the weekend against a decision that bans them from squeezing in and out of other vehicles on the roads.
The practice has been totally prohibited since February 1, under penalty of a fine of € 135 and three points on the driver’s license.
It was in fact not 100% legal in France before February 1, because it had only been authorized “experimentally” on certain roads since 2016.

The practice is now banned across the country.

But thousands of motorcyclists demonstrated in several cities in France against the ban this weekend, including in Paris, Lille, Toulouse and Lyon.

The motorcycles hit the road yesterday after an angry call from the French Federation motorcycle user group.

https://www.fr24news.com/a/2021/02/motorcyclists-protest-against-frances-ban-on-lane-weaving.html



https://twitter.com/AD14_26/status/1363099108567834624?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1363207467623215108%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es2_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fr24news.com%2Fa%2F2021%2F02%2Fmotorcyclists-protest-against-frances-ban-on-lane-weaving.html


Kudos to the French bikers, they're not taking it lying down

Dubit11

Looks like more anti motorbike measures are creeping in all over Europe. I have to say i do admire the French greatly for consistently standing up for themselves no matter the issue.

Betsy Og

Why don't they make a bike lane between 2 car lanes, can be fine and narrow, cars keep out of it - might make them think/look before jumping lanes, put the grippy stuff on it so it a) stands out & b) gives better grip to bikes- THATs a safety solution.

two wheels good

Champs Élysées
Apparently filtering was only permitted during a 5 year trial which resulted in a report that found accidents increased by 12% on roads where filtering was permitted.
I always thought filtering was permitted in France except on motorways, judging by the behaviour of the local motards and the obliging attitude of drivers.

BTW The Telegraph is referring to a ban on motorbikes "weaving through traffic". Maybe Johnson wrote the article.

beauf

In not a biker. But that's impressive.

Del2005

two wheels good wrote: »

Champs Élysées
Apparently filtering was only permitted during a 5 year trial which resulted in a report that found accidents increased by 12% on roads where filtering was permitted.
I always thought filtering was permitted in France except on motorways, judging by the behaviour of the local motards and the obliging attitude of drivers.

BTW The Telegraph is referring to a ban on motorbikes "weaving through traffic". Maybe Johnson wrote the article.

Having driven around Paris in a car the bikers where very assertive, some even aggressive, in moving cars out of their way when filtering between the 2 outside lanes of the motorway even when traffic was moving at a decent pace.

When ridding across France I didn't notice the bikes filtering as I wasn't in big cities too often and was on a bike. But the car drivers do make an effort to get out of bikes way when they see you unlike hear were they make an effort to get in your way.

Max Headroom

Daily Star.....Ireland to ban filtering for motorcycles...
" Ireland is to follow France in making it illegal to filter through traffic....
A demonstration organised and sponsored by Costa, up to 10 bikers (6 of them in cars) caused no traffic obstruction or public inconvienience.."

curiousb

two wheels good wrote: »

I always thought filtering was permitted in France except on motorways, judging by the behaviour of the local motards and the obliging attitude of drivers.

Same here, always thought it was legal. Car drivers would always move well out of the way in plenty of time, was like Moses's parting of the Red Sea

fenris

Motorbikes are a nuisance from the viewpoint of self driving cars as we are not predictable in our movements and our presence, especially filtering is seen as an exception by the car, making the cars drop back down in speed and revert to manual control.
The business case for self driving vehicles only really works when they can be managed as a system (maybe a self driving road train with cars speed and separation managed centrally), a bike filtering up the middle makes a balls of that, so I think that we are going to see a lot more bike hostile regulations over time, maybe even autonomous vehicle only roads, when that happens our day will be numbered.

CJhaughey

fenris wrote: »

Motorbikes are a nuisance from the viewpoint of self driving cars as we are not predictable in our movements and our presence, especially filtering is seen as an exception by the car, making the cars drop back down in speed and revert to manual control.
The business case for self driving vehicles only really works when they can be managed as a system (maybe a self driving road train with cars speed and separation managed centrally), a bike filtering up the middle makes a balls of that, so I think that we are going to see a lot more bike hostile regulations over time, maybe even autonomous vehicle only roads, when that happens our day will be numbered.

You can make a whole lot of self driving cars move away if you are too close to their sensors.
In that case we may be relegated to one of these.
https://youtu.be/taeucixxrdM

Hotblack Desiato

Yeah got an email about this from FEMA the other day, the 12% is a crock

https://www.femamotorcycling.eu/french-lane-splitting-experiment/

French motorcyclists’ organization FFMC (member of FEMA) has been involved in the experiment from the start and was one of the organizations that helped set up guidelines for lane splitting. Eric Thiollier, board member of FFMC, says: “The behaviour and the safety records improved significantly during the five year period of the experiment, showing that setting rules had a positive impact, although not enough to be satisfying. The increase in accidents could also be linked to the fact that more powered two-wheelers were lane splitting.”

FFMC regularly reminds riders that filtering will only work if everyone takes their responsibility. To help improve riders’ skills, FFMC have even made an instructive video (see below).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3xuI3Kb4Q8

Having ridden around the Peripherique, central Paris, etc. EVERYBODY on two wheels filters and cars always leave a "motorcycle lane" between the two outermost lanes. An awful lot of minor m/c accidents go unreported so it's not really surprising that accident rates go up once they're monitoring certain roads more closely...

fenris

Imagine the havoc if you were to have a backpack that looked like a stop sign, level crossing sign or just a 30 kmh speed limit sign :-)

beauf

There are different automated systems. Some use Cameras, some Lidar, and some a bit of both.
They are not fool proof but they are impressive and every day they get incrementally better.
The next step is every vehicle talks to each other. Hi, I'm over here, this is what I'm doing.
So its multiple layers of redundancy.

But outside of the above, the issue is no one can see 360 all the time. Not even fighter pilots, there are gaps in your visual scan.
Once the brain gets busy its starts ignoring visual stuff it thinks it not important. Which is why people seem to be unable to see things in front of them.

So filtering unless where its expected can be missed.

It maybe they will have paint or reflectors that make the bike pick up better on self driving systems. So the bike is the size of a truck to the computer.

JimmyVik

fenris wrote: »

Imagine the havoc if you were to have a backpack that looked like a stop sign, level crossing sign or just a 30 kmh speed limit sign :-)

Like those "polite bike" jackets
Theres goign to be a big push to self driving cars.
Any manual driving, cars or bikes is not going to be allowed.
And all cars will just film someone breaking the law and upload it to a central AI which will issue the fines.

Lorddrakul

The only thing in our favour here is the fact that motorcycles have been so roundly ignored by the government that they may not get off their collective holes to actually enact this.

Here's hoping.

Breezin

JimmyVik wrote: »

Like those "polite bike" jackets
Theres goign to be a big push to self driving cars.
Any manual driving, cars or bikes is not going to be allowed.
And all cars will just film someone breaking the law and upload it to a central AI which will issue the fines.

Ah jaysus.

Cienciano

Dubit11 wrote: »

Looks like more anti motorbike measures are creeping in all over Europe. I have to say i do admire the French greatly for consistently standing up for themselves no matter the issue.

I don't think it's anti motorcycle. What these guys do (high ranking county council members, TD's etc) is ask themselves a few questions:

Can we say it's safer?
How much does it cost?
Will it hurt us politically?
Do we care enough about the negative impact it might cause?

Basically, guys sit around an office, someone comes up with this idea. Will it píss off people? Yes, but they'll tell themselves that everyone is against change no matter what. Some lad has a pie chart with accident stats on it and on the next page there's a projected chart of what will happen if they ban filtering and of course, it'll be less.
It passes all the above tests and go through. Not enough bikers to protest about it or vote anyone out. You can have a big one off protest if you like, they're meaningless. If the protest in the photo is sustained over a period of weeks, I'll change that.

In 2 years whoever came up with the idea of banning filtering, probably a guy who never road a bike in his life will probably be in a different department and can't even remember it and he'll have cherry picked slightly different stats to "prove" his idea was a success. Any negative impacts will be ignored or downplayed. Anyone else involved in the initial decision will want to pretend they were part of a good policy change, so they'll all agree they done a great job and the world is now a better place.

So it's not anti bike, we're just an easy target unfortunately.

Breezin

Cienciano wrote: »

I don't think it's anti motorcycle. What these guys do (high ranking county council members, TD's etc) is ask themselves a few questions:

Can we say it's safer?
How much does it cost?
Will it hurt us politically?
Do we care enough about the negative impact it might cause?

Basically, guys sit around an office, someone comes up with this idea. Will it píss off people? Yes, but they'll tell themselves that everyone is against change no matter what. Some lad has a pie chart with accident stats on it and on the next page there's a projected chart of what will happen if they ban filtering and of course, it'll be less.
It passes all the above tests and go through. Not enough bikers to protest about it or vote anyone out. You can have a big one off protest if you like, they're meaningless. If the protest in the photo is sustained over a period of weeks, I'll change that.

In 2 years whoever came up with the idea of banning filtering, probably a guy who never road a bike in his life will probably be in a different department and can't even remember it and he'll have cherry picked slightly different stats to "prove" his idea was a success. Any negative impacts will be ignored or downplayed. Anyone else involved in the initial decision will want to pretend they were part of a good policy change, so they'll all agree they done a great job and the world is now a better place.

So it's not anti bike, we're just an easy target unfortunately.

Probably true. Although in some of the instances I've seen, like in Germany, it looks kind of spiteful.



Maybe they want us all to drive big, fat SUVs instead and add massively to traffic congestion. No filtering in those!

frozenfrozen

people with licenses, training, and insurance, on vehicles taxed yearly with registration plates (you know so you can actually track who is committing road offences) who take up less space on the road and less parking space and flow better in city traffic.

force them into private cars. Excellent thinking well done. If they're lucky some of them will switch to bicycles who will still be able to filter of course.

and most filtering accidents are probably mild enough unless you get kicked under a bus which would be fatal on a bicycle also....

fenris

One of the main benefits of 5G is its potential for low latency transmission, so you can manage the traffic in real time, so that means that the cars can talk to each other and be co-ordinated centrally in real time, that makes some mad stuff possible, like a junction where the traffic flows through by interleaving the gaps in the cross traffic without stopping either flow, technically possible by removing human input, but getting insurance for it as everyone in the vehicle is technically a passenger, maybe less so! :-)
Politicians and civil servants will follow the money, no malice needed for a decision that really impacts a particular group, just the desire to push something else through and be able to chalk it up as a career success facilitating the next step or get the contract to provide the infrastructure awarded to a crony.
The only defence is to make the project politically toxic and look financially risky from an early stage, before investment and ego get fully involved.

two wheels good

What are these new regulations creeping in across Europe?
The ban on home servicing and custom mods was seen off with protests almost a decade ago. The introduction of NCT/Controle Technique is no longer a threat AFAIK.
Mandatory ABS is here and I can't honestly object to that.
So what's next?

positron

To take self-driving cars to the level of swarms and interacting as a system etc, the world will need "fully automated road systems" - sections of the of the road barricaded off so that people, animals, non-self-driving vehicles etc all kept out of there. A lot like train lines, or tunnels. That is NOT going to sit well with the city traffic or most of the existing infrastructure.

Here in Ireland, if they are to ban filtering, it will completely remove the whole point of commuting by motorbike into Dublin. Motorbikes will become weekend / track toys, and will all but disappear from regular use.

beauf

JimmyVik wrote: »

Like those "polite bike" jackets
Theres goign to be a big push to self driving cars.
Any manual driving, cars or bikes is not going to be allowed.
And all cars will just film someone breaking the law and upload it to a central AI which will issue the fines.

That won't happen for some time yet.

BaronVon

two wheels good wrote: »

So what's next?

Mandatory data recorders is next for cars anyway, not sure about bikes....

Cienciano

positron wrote: »

To take self-driving cars to the level of swarms and interacting as a system etc, the world will need "fully automated road systems" - sections of the of the road barricaded off so that people, animals, non-self-driving vehicles etc all kept out of there. A lot like train lines, or tunnels. That is NOT going to sit well with the city traffic or most of the existing infrastructure.

Here in Ireland, if they are to ban filtering, it will completely remove the whole point of commuting by motorbike into Dublin. Motorbikes will become weekend / track toys, and will all but disappear from regular use.

The only reason bikes might avoid stuff like that is that bikes in ireland generally fly under the radar. Lot of grey areas and nothing is really enforced. Parking is one thing, bus lanes is another. Technically we shouldn't park on a footpath, technically we shouldn't go into a bus lane. Number plate size more often than not goes under the radar, NCT's etc.
Having a small amount of bikers is a good and bad thing. I mean a small amount compared to Paris where they have rows and rows of motorcycles and scooters parked around the place. Sometimes it's good to be ignored and fly under the radar politically.

Del2005

Sure if they ban us from filtering it'll be enforced as much as all the other illegal activities, still no talk of bikes in bus lanes but they want to allow EVs

Self driving cars are still ages away, the tech is advancing but they need to figure out the software and legal responsibility which is the hard bit. Until they figure out who to kill when a collision is inevitable and who's responsible they will only be used on highly controlled roads

JimmyVik

I think what will happen, and soon enough, is that insurance will go sky high for any vehicle that requires a driver, as they will be the most as risk of being the cause of accidents when traffic is automated.

Hotblack Desiato

beauf wrote: »

It maybe they will have paint or reflectors that make the bike pick up better on self driving systems. So the bike is the size of a truck to the computer.

Active transponders on bikes in the future to let automated or driver assisted manual cars know you're there.

Laughable though that the prototype alert systems have the warnings appear down on the dash or centre console, do they want drivers to entirely give up looking out the window or what? Should be a head up display.

FEMA again :

https://www.femamotorcycling.eu/self-driving-cars-and-motorcycles/
https://www.femamotorcycling.eu/fema-joins-cmc/

Muahahaha

Cienciano wrote: »

The only reason bikes might avoid stuff like that is that bikes in ireland generally fly under the radar. Lot of grey areas and nothing is really enforced. Parking is one thing, bus lanes is another. Technically we shouldn't park on a footpath, technically we shouldn't go into a bus lane. Number plate size more often than not goes under the radar, NCT's etc.
Having a small amount of bikers is a good and bad thing. I mean a small amount compared to Paris where they have rows and rows of motorcycles and scooters parked around the place. Sometimes it's good to be ignored and fly under the radar politically.

Would agree that being under the radar is advantageous. However this move by France means that in a year or two there will be stats on the ban of filtering. Suddenly you'll have some lad in the RSA who wants to make a name for himself and internally at work he'll be pointing to 'the French example' and writing reports on how it could be implemented here.

AFAIK theres about 30 bikers killed on the roads every year here. At this stage road deaths have come down from a high of 650 per year in the 90s to the circa 150 deaths today and they've been hovering stubbornly around the 150 mark for several years now. In other words all the low hanging fruit is now well gone and if they want to get it down further they'll start to look at new things like banning filtering.

The thing as well is they'll know that if filtering were to be banned then that makes commuting by bike completely useless. They'll know many bikers commuters wont put up with the cold and rain if there absolutely no time advantage over a car. So banning filtering effectively becomes a trojan horse for getting bikers off the road altogether and onto some other mode of transport. In the RSA something like that would be seen as a great underhanded plan to reduce bikers and therefore reduce deaths.

Cienciano

Muahahaha wrote: »

Would agree that being under the radar is advantageous. However this move by France means that in a year or two there will be stats on the ban of filtering. Suddenly you'll have some lad in the RSA who wants to make a name for himself and internally at work he'll be pointing to 'the French example' and writing reports on how it could be implemented here.

AFAIK theres about 30 bikers killed on the roads every year here. At this stage road deaths have come down from a high of 650 per year in the 90s to the circa 150 deaths today and they've been hovering stubbornly around the 150 mark for several years now. In other words all the low hanging fruit is now well gone and if they want to get it down further they'll start to look at new things like banning filtering.

The thing as well is they'll know that if filtering were to be banned then that makes commuting by bike completely useless. They'll know many bikers commuters wont put up with the cold and rain if there absolutely no time advantage over a car. So banning filtering effectively becomes a trojan horse for getting bikers off the road altogether and onto some other mode of transport. In the RSA something like that would be seen as a great underhanded plan to reduce bikers and therefore reduce deaths.

True unfortunately.
Lobby groups are what's needed to nip these things in the bud before they even get started

two wheels good

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Active transponders on bikes in the future to let automated or driver assisted manual cars know you're there.

....


FEMA again :

https://www.femamotorcycling.eu/self-driving-cars-and-motorcycles/
https://www.femamotorcycling.eu/fema-joins-cmc/

After reading these links, and interesting comments about self-driving and driving aids, I'm thinking a race track could be a viable business in years to come. All those riders and drivers keen to escape a restrictive road environment and get back to a simpler world. Maybe include a mx track too.

BTW There was a plan to build a new race track in South Wales. Wonder how that's going.

Del2005

two wheels good wrote: »

After reading these links, and interesting comments about self-driving and driving aids, I'm thinking a race track could be a viable business in years to come. All those riders and drivers keen to escape a restrictive road environment and get back to a simpler world. Maybe include a mx track too.

BTW There was a plan to build a new race track in South Wales. Wonder how that's going.

Circuit of Wales isn't going ahead, it's already supposed to have been built and held races.

Norn Iorn is the newest one that isn't going ahead

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/business/northern-ireland/brakes-on-plans-for-30m-northern-ireland-race-track-as-site-up-for-sale-37972304.html

zubair

Lorddrakul wrote: »

The only thing in our favour here is the fact that motorcycles have been so roundly ignored by the government that they may not get off their collective holes to actually enact this.

Here's hoping.

And even it did change, guards are unlikely to do anything about it.

flashinthepan

May be an opportunity to pick up a cheap French bike if the ban sticks

CJhaughey

flashinthepan wrote: »

May be an opportunity to pick up a cheap French bike if the ban sticks

Remember the Alcohol testers that you are supposed to carry in France?
Maybe the retroreflective panels on your helmet or jacket?
What about the new rules for blind spot warning signs on Vans and trucks?
https://trans.info/en/france-to-require-blind-spot-warning-stickers-for-hgvs-as-it-implements-new-direct-vision-standards-210732

None of these amounted to much and I suspect this may just be more of the same thing.

flashinthepan

CJhaughey wrote: »

Remember the Alcohol testers that you are supposed to carry in France?
Maybe the retroreflective panels on your helmet or jacket?
What about the new rules for blind spot warning signs on Vans and trucks?
https://trans.info/en/france-to-require-blind-spot-warning-stickers-for-hgvs-as-it-implements-new-direct-vision-standards-210732

None of these amounted to much and I suspect this may just be more of the same thing.

Ah bummer

Was looking at a lovely red vespa for €900
Grab a parka and I would be back in my youth :-)

two wheels good

Reflective panels on helmets, maybe jackets too, required by locals but not visitors.

Two other requirements:
Spare bulbs required for cars, not sure about motos.
Hi-vis tabard required for car occupants and motos for breakdown situations.
Hard to imagine a gendarme enforcing these for a tourist moto but why take the chance.

galwaytt

two wheels good wrote: »

Reflective panels on helmets, maybe jackets too, required by locals but not visitors.

Two other requirements:
Spare bulbs required for cars, not sure about motos.
Hi-vis tabard required for car occupants and motos for breakdown situations.
Hard to imagine a gendarme enforcing these for a tourist moto but why take the chance.

Au contraire....tourists are easier pickings than locals. Under time pressures, they'll pay up more promptly.

Hotblack Desiato

Are we talking a cash "fine", no receipt, kind of thing?

two wheels good

galwaytt wrote: »

Au contraire....tourists are easier pickings than locals. Under time pressures, they'll pay up more promptly.

Everyone pays up - on the spot for speed traps.
If you need cash you go to an ATM while your passport/licence is retained.
So payment terms the same for locals and visitors.

To be fair the French cops in the moto cases I know about haven't gone looking for other infringments.

two wheels good

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Are we talking a cash "fine", no receipt, kind of thing?

No! Except in the Élysée Palace.

newmember2

fenris wrote: »

Imagine the havoc if you were to have a backpack that looked like a stop sign, level crossing sign or just a 30 kmh speed limit sign :-)

tbh I can't really see how a smart (dumb) driverless system can be introduced that will not be able to be easily manipulated.

Trigger Happy

Montana state has just legalised lane filtering under certain conditions.

https://blog.motorcycle.com/2021/03/03/motorcycle-news/montana-lane-sharing-legislation-becomes-law/

fenris

The simple and not so nice for us answer is to remove non automated traffic from the mix, pretty much how horses and slow vehicles are excluded from the motorways.

There is a lot of research on "Adversarial Attacks" on the image recognition, from simple putting a few bits of tape on a sign to screw up the recogniser.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/sensors/slight-street-sign-modifications-can-fool-machine-learning-algorithms

I do like this one though
https://nextconf.eu/2017/03/trapping-self-driving-car-magic-circle/
Basically drawing two circles, the inside one is a solid white line and the outside one is a broken while line paralyses the car because kids, as we all know you do not cross the solid while line :-)

two wheels good

Couldn't edit my previous post.
I checked with a local about 'bike regulations.

Spare Bulbs: Not mandatory to carry on a 'bike
Hi-viz: Mandatory to have one with you for breakdown/emergency
Fine: €11. or up to €38.
Fine for not wearing it on the roadside: €135 or up to €750
Gloves: Rider and pillion must wear CE-marked gloves
Fine: €68 Up to €450.

Roll-on holidays! Roll-off ferries.

MojoMaker

Jaysus, fines for the type of gloves you wear :rolleyes:

Classic riders won't like that at all.

two wheels good

They wouldn't want you acquitted on a technicality, such as wearing your marigolds.

Del2005

MojoMaker wrote: »

Jaysus, fines for the type of gloves you wear :rolleyes:

Classic riders won't like that at all.

Never knew that they can't make classic style gloves that meet CE criteria.

I'd say the guys buying cheap gloves off AliExpress and other such sites have more to worry about than someone who rides a classic.