A good half dozen Wakefield MAG members met a number of others at the Eastbound Hartshead Moor services on the M62, on Sunday 13th September, en-route to the MAG supported MCN Reclaim North Wales Demo. Our contingent, together with many other Regional and Local MAG Reps and other MAG members from all around the country were among an estimated 10,000 riders who travelled in defiance of North Wales Police (NWP) treatment of visiting bikers in recent weeks.
NWP are apparently flouting national policing guidance by ‘trawling for offences’ during stop and check operations delaying up to 400 riders every weekend, 90% of whom have been found to have done nothing wrong, but NWP say they are determined to carry on.
Riders are not buying the official line that this is just an opportunity for police to offer ‘road safety advice’. But if the real purpose is to deter riders from visiting North Wales, it has clearly been a monumental failure.
The roads around the various meeting points for the Reclaim Wales event were so packed that MAG members say it was almost impossible to move.
MAG General Secretary Nich Brown will tell the Road Safety Wales conference that this sort of confrontational approach is not going to solve any local problems. MAG is working to inform Welsh roads authorities so that motorcycles are first and foremost seen as a legitimate way of travel - not a road safety problem to be 'cracked'.