-EU;
New rules on braking systems on all new bikes, which will be imposed shortly. All new machines will have to have either linked brakes or ABS fitted as standard.
New laws will also allow for ‘anti-tampering’ measures to prevent and/or make it illegal to improve performance. This seems to cover parts like alternative sprockets and aftermarket exhausts.
Type approval is being extended to cover some replacement parts, specifically mirrors, brake pads and brake shoes and tyres. This would make it illegal to replace any of these parts with a non-approved part and goes far beyond the ‘e-mark’ legislation currently in place.
-Belgia;
Compulsory protective clothing in Belgium. Belgium imposed new rules on 1 January 2011 which required all riders and passengers on two wheelers to wear long sleeves, trousers, gloves and boots that cover the ankle (plus the obligatory helmet, of course!).
-Frankrike;
France to ban bikes over seven years old from cities centres.
New French laws will also ban filtering and force all riders to remain stationary in traffic jams and retro-fit bigger rear numberplates [Rather bizarrely, Belgium has just legalised filtering on 1 January 2011, so long as it's within limits - you can't ride faster than 50Km/h or more than 20Km/h faster than the traffic you're filtering past.]
New French laws will give the police power to seize GPS units ‘capable of storing the locations of fixed speed cameras’. In the past, it was illegal to use a GPS to locate speed cameras and your GPS could be confiscated if used in this way, but it’s not clear whether this means any GPS capable of POI alerts contravenes the new regulations even if there are no such POIs in the memory.
-Irland;
Compulsory hi-vis in Ireland. The law was introduced a couple of years ago, but after a softly-softly period, it’s apparently been announced that it’s now to be strictly enforced. [EDIT] This appears to apply only to learner riders at the moment but there is a proposal to extend this to qualified riders [/EDIT]
-Spania;
Spain has banned headphones in helmets. It applies to car drivers too, but it means that using bike to bike/passenger intercoms is illegal south of the Pyrenees, as is using an earpiece to listen to GPS directions.
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