Ninety-one per cent of motorists do not trust the government to reinvest money made from tolls on new roads, according to a survey by the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM).  

Sixty per cent of motorists do not support toll roads, and seventy-nine per cent of motorists would not support the introduction of tolls on existing roads. 

Forty per cent of motorists would back more expensive tax discs instead of charging tolls on roads. Forty-one per cent wouldn’t support toll roads even if other types of tax were reduced. 

Motorists were divided on using toll roads. Forty-seven per cent of motorists said they don’t plan their journey to deliberately avoid using toll roads, while forty-four per cent of motorists do. 

Motorists feel strongly about toll roads in their local area. Fifty-six per cent of respondents said that they would use rural or local roads to avoid the toll charges, if a toll was enforced on their local motorway. 

IAM chief executive Simon Best said:  “The cost of motoring is currently at an all-time high, and it’s clear that the idea of bringing in toll roads has no support among everyday motorists. A toll on motorways, our safest roads, may force motorists on to more dangerous rural roads, to save money. The government has a very hard job ahead to convince drivers that tolls are the only way to deliver new roads and improve existing ones.  Only by reducing other motoring taxes can this policy gain the support of the motorist.”

From March 25 to June 24, 2013, author, adventurer and Sunday Times motorcycle columnist Geoff Hill and former road racer Gary Walker will recreate the journey of American writer Carl Stearns Clancy, the first person to take a motorbike around the world 100 years ago.

Since Clancy’s father was Irish, he started the ride in Dublin with colleague Walter Storey and rode through Ireland and the UK, then on through Holland and Belgium to Paris.  Storey, who had never ridden a motorbike before the trip and had been badly shaken after being hit by a Dublin tram on the very first day, then returned home, and with incredible courage, 22-year-old Clancy continued alone, riding down through Europe and across Algeria and Tunisia.

When he found he couldn’t get petrol in India, he shipped the bike to Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, rode around there and part of Malaysia, then hopped up through Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai to Nagasaki, rode around Japan, shipped to San Francisco and rode home to New York.

The main sponsor is motorcycle insurance broker, Adelaide Insurance Services, supported by BMW Motorrad, which will be providing the motorbikes for the trip: R1200GS Adventures which would probably seem like spaceships to Clancy compared to the 1912 Henderson he used – a 934cc inline four with one gear and no front brake which made 7bhp and was advertised at the time as the fastest motorcycle in the world.

Dr Gregory W Frazier, the American author and bike adventurer who wrote Motorcycle Adventurer after 16 years of research into Clancy’s original articles and pictures in the American magazine The Bicycling World and Motorcycle Review, is organising a major series of PR events across the United States in June 2013 which Geoff and Gary will be joining and which will add to the critical mass of publicity.

Rather wonderfully, Geoff and Gary will be taking Clancy’s original boots on their second journey around the world 100 years after they did it the first time.

When Clancy died in Virginia in 1971, his housekeeper gave the boots to 16-year-old neighbour Liam O’Connor. Now a Professor in Western Australia, Liam has donated them to Geoff and Gary to pass on to Dr Frazier for donation to a museum, along with some of Clancy’s original notebooks and other travel documents from the trip.

During our journey, as well as producing stories and pictures for several newspapers, Geoff and Gary will be blogging on www.adelaideadventures.com, linked to other websites such as BMW Motorrad, Horizons Unlimited and facebook, along with blogging weekly to the Times Online motoring site.

The book on the adventure has already been commissioned by Blackstaff Press, which has published all of Geoff’s best-selling books, including several on previous motorbike adventures such as Delhi to Belfast, Route 66, Chile to Alaska and around Australia.

Gary, a former actor as well as top road racer, starred with Joey and Robert Dunlop in the iconic 1992 documentary Between the Hedges.

His career highlights so far include being chatted up by Lena Zavaroni, minding Julie Christie and riding his race bike sideways along a dry stone wall at 140mph, although not all in the same weekend.

See Amazon for the book

Many thanks to everyone who passed by our stand for THE BIKER GUIDE this weekend @ the Manchester Bike Show, where a good time was had by all.

It was great to see so many visitors to the website, winners of competitions, new Bikers and especially all those people who gushingly told us how much you 'love' the website, booklet and facebook page/group!

IAM director of policy and research Neil Greig said: “The publication of a new Green Paper for young drivers is a once in a generation opportunity to help new drivers survive the crucial first six months of driving.  The IAM want to see a system that embeds continuous learning for all new drivers so that once basic skills are learned under supervision they can gain the solo driving experience they need as safely as possible." 

“It makes no sense that the current system abandons new drivers after the test to learn by their often fatal mistakes, but any new approach must be based on saving lives and not reducing insurance premiums warns the IAM. The IAM support post test help for new drivers but we are worried that curfews and restrictions will merely restrict their ability to gain the real world knowledge that will save their lives.  For example, young drivers are most likely to die on rural  roads but these are often missing from test routes.  We have no objection to learners on motorways as they are our safest roads and a minimum learning period may also be useful providing the time can be put to good use.  We look forward with great interest to seeing exactly what the government has planned.”

Thousands of bikers are now emerging from winter hibernation and to coincide with the start of the biking season proper, Somerset Road Safety is launching a local Think Bike, Think Biker publicity campaign.

The four-week long “Professionals” campaign will feature actual motorcyclists from Somerset and highlight the work that they each do for the local community, including a fire-fighter, a nurse and a doctor. The hope is that this will cause other road users to look out for moped, scooter and motorcycle riders if they can associate with a real person beneath the crash helmet.

Head of Road Safety for Somerset, Terry Beale, explains; “Research for the Department for Transport has shown that road users who personally know bikers – as friends, relatives, or work colleagues for example, are much more likely to be respectful and watching out for motorcyclists in general. We want to remove the anonymity of motorcyclists and to try and reduce the number of collisions in which they are involved. ‘Sorry Mate, I didn’t see you’, isn’t an excuse when you put someone else in danger; nor is ‘Sorry Mate, I didn’t know you“.

The campaign starts on the 26th of March and will use bus back advertising on Somerset roads, where higher than average numbers of collisions involving bikers have occurred in recent years. It is also timed to follow on from the national ‘Think Bike, Think Biker’ campaign that is using television, radio and outdoor media to highlight the same message.

Free campaign posters are available to any business, college or other organisation in Somerset that wishes to display them. Please contact Jim Newman at Somerset Road Safety on (01823) 423 430 or email [email protected]

For more information about the work of Somerset Road Safety, go to www.somersetroadsafety.org