Police told not to implement bike law

Chief constables were asked by a minister to ignore a new law requiring motorcyclists to be trained because it could not be enforced, it was disclosed yesterday. The request came from John Bowis, junior transport minister, who pushed the legislation through the Commons saying there was no problem with its rapid introduction.

According to correspondence leaked to Liberal Democrats, Mr Bowis asked Sophie Lambert, head of the road and vehicle safety directorate in his department, to write to the Association of Chief Police Officers requesting them not to implement the new law. The legislation requires motorcyclists to have compulsory basic training before taking to the roads.

The letter says: "My minister has asked me to say that, if offences arising from this change in the licensing requirements come to the attention of police in the next two or three months, it would be helpful if such matters could be dealt with by way of advice or caution rather than prosecution."

The law affects nearly 300,000 motorcycle owners who do not have a full licence but use their car licence as a provisional licence for their motorbike. Since January, drivers taking up motorcycle riding are required to do a day's compulsory basic training to bring them into line with non-car drivers. Although the proposed changes had first been announced in August 1995, the draft legislation was not published until November 1996 and motorcycling groups were angry that there was not sufficient time to alert those affected and ensure they would be able to obtain the training. It was only in December 1996 that the Drivers Standards Agency wrote to the affected drivers advising them of the change. The local training centres, set up as a result of the legislation, were unable to cope with the sudden flood of work.

Mr Bowis's request got a frosty answer. He was told by Paul Manning, an assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and head of ACPO's traffic committee, that it was up to individual officers to use their discretion in "the manner in which they deal with an offence." The "seriousness of the offence should not be understated, especially if a breach of the conditions also renders ... insurance cover invalid."

Yesterday David Chidgey, the Lib Dem transport spokesman, wrote to Mr Bowis, asking him to resign: "Ministers were warned of impending chaos, yet were content to hide behind a barrier of evasive and misleading answers to Parliament." Mr Chidgey said Mr Bowis had refused his request to postpone implementation, yet had written asking the police not to enforce the law.

A spokesman for the Motorcyclists Riders' Training Association said: "The government did not give us anything like enough time to prepare for this. They only wrote just before Christmas and that was the first many people knew about it."

Training organisations had a backlog of several months which would not be cleared until Easter at the earliest, according to Mr Chidgey.