Middle-aged bikers blamed for rising road death tolls

Life News

Jul 13, 2005, 5:09 GMT

London - Middle aged motorbikers trying to recapture their youth are responsible for a growing death toll on the highways and byways of major Western nations. In Britain the situation has become so bad that legislation has been introduced to reduce casualties on that country's roads. "The problem at the moment is people over 40 returning to motorcycles," Tory party transport spokesman Lord Hanningfield told the House of Lords. "They have suddenly prospered a bit in their later age and they think they are 20 again and are buying motorcycles. But they haven't got the reflexes they had when they were 20. The heaviest death toll now is men over 40 on motorcycles. "So we are trying to take particular measures and courses to try and encourage safety." The legislation aims to reduce the death toll on the roads and crack down on drink driving offences. It supports the push towards achieving the Government`s casualty reduction targets of 40 per cent in the numbers killed and seriously injured - 50 per cent for children by 2010. Lord Hanningfield said his party was concerned about the decline of dedicated road traffic police. "Figures obtained from the government earlier this year show a drop of nearly 3,000 traffic officers since 1997, a quarter of the total. "It is clearly regrettable that we are seeing more and more technology, notably speed cameras taking the place of the actual dedicated traffic police." © dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur

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