Barun Roy: The trouble with motorcycles

ASIA FILE

Mention motorcycle, and two images come immediately to mind. One is of the open road, vast stretches of fields and water, wild ducks at the edge of cattails, pungent odours rising up from roadside marshes, wind blowing at 60 miles an hour, and a ride to a kind of nowhere, as immortalised in that wonderful book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

The other is of the sneering, tattooed outlaw in peaked hat, black leather jacket, heavy boots, and denim jeans, thundering down the highway and inspiring dread, a stereotype equally immortalised by Marlon Brando, Lee Marvin, and generations of American western movies.

But there's a third image surrounding motorcycles that might grow so big as to obliterate the other two.

Like Denis of the cartoon strip, the motorcycle today is being increasingly perceived as a menace on the road and a nuisance to traffic that must be curbed before it gets out of control.

As young Asians, like their counterparts in other parts of the world, get more money in their pockets, they move from scooters to motorcycles because these are louder, speedier, and more macho.

These motorcycle riders show their bravado by weaving through stopped cars, ignoring traffic lanes and lights, and even mounting pavements to get ahead and keep moving.

Motorists are infuriated, pedestrians are threatened, and the police are often helpless. Some people also associate the burgeoning of motorcycles with a rise in crimes like snatching, eve tea sing, and armed robbery. And few disagree that motorcycles are a growing pollution hazard in cities.

Yet their number keeps growing, especially in south-east Asia. According to an Asian Development Bank (ADB) report, motorcycles constitute 94.4 per cent of all motor vehicles in Vietnam, 80 per cent in Laos, 75.2 per cent in Indonesia, 75.2 per cent in Cambodia, 70.9 per cent in Thailand, 48.2 per cent in Malaysia, 37.7 per cent in the Philippines, 36.9 per cent in Myanmar; and 19 per cent in Singapore.

Two years ago, south-east Asia's total motorcycle market had topped 4 million units. In 2004, market analysts believe, sales in Indonesian alone might have reached above that number.

The percentages are not that overwhelming yet in China or India, but the two-wheeler markets of the two countries are exploding. Perhaps sizzling would be a better word.

With 120 manufacturers in the business, China produced 14 million units in 2003, or 48 per cent of the world output, and exported 3 million of them. Most of the rest were sold at home.

That made China the largest two-wheeler market in the world. Total motorcycle sales in India hit 4.17 million units during 2003-2004, which was 24 per cent more than in the previous corresponding period and made it the second largest.

This speed of growth is nothing short of furious, something that is worrying the authorities in many countries. More than anything else, motorcycles have been largely responsible for a rise in road injuries and deaths in recent years in many countries.

In China alone, more than 2,00,000 people are killed yearly and most of them are people on bicycles or motorcycles. In Vietnam, at least 100 get killed or seriously injured every day. In Thailand, four out of five accident deaths involve a motorcycle or a moped.

While Asia has only 16 per cent of the world's traffic, it accounts for about 60 per cent of some 10 million people who get severely injured or killed in road accidents in the world every year. Rash two-wheeler driving and bad roads are the main reasons.

Responding to the growing menace, some 170 large and medium-sized cities in China have either banned motorcycles or limited their use to 250 cc machines. Cities like Shanghai, Tianjin, and Nantong have stopped issuing new bike licenses.

Guangzhou is working towards banning motorcycles entirely by 2007, and has reduced the service life of a bike to eight years from 13 previously.

In Japan, where motorcycle use is on the decline, riding a bike between cars or twisting in and out of traffic is a punishable offence. Japan also enforces a lower speed limit than cars for motorcycles on expressways.

Malaysia has special "motorcycle only" lanes in their expressways. Planners in Vietnam are considering building "prioritised" routes for motorbikes.

Economic prosperity in Vietnam's urban areas has led to a rapid growth in the level of motorisation in the country and, to Vietnamese, owning a bike has become a better transport choice than a car.

But governments may soon be required to resort to more drastic measures to cope with the bike menace. It's now clear that the motorcycle is no longer only a reasonable transport choice but, like the cell phone, has emerged as a lifestyle expression for today's young people.

Today, all bike marketing is aimed precisely at this buyer segment. The result is going to be an even greater bike invasion of our cities, suburbs, and cross-country highways, swamping traffic like a tsunami.