The Norwegian Public Roads Administration and FEMA member organization NMCU did a joint presentation at a key road safety conference in Sweden.

The Norwegian Public Roads Administration (NPRA) had invited Morten Hansen from riders’ rights organization NMCU to do a joint presentation about the cooperation on the national motorcycle strategy in Norway. In his part of the presentation Karsten Nikolaisen from NPRA said that the cooperation was based on trust and respect, built over many years.

Among other things he said that NMCU’s initiative to organize a round-table conference on rider training in 1999 was the start of the new model for rider training, and that the NMCU’s ‘Full Control‘ book was used as a basis for the new motorcycle training that was introduced in 2005. He continued by saying that NMCU was invited by NPRA to be part of the organizing committee of the OECD workshop on motorcycle safety in Lillehammer in 2008, and that NMCU was a member of the reference group for the new rider training in 2005. NMCU was also part of the group that did the in-depth analysis of fatal accidents on motorcycle 2005-2014.

Karsten Nikolaisen said that it was the Ministry of Transport that demanded that NMCU should be part of the mission to create the national strategy for mopeds and motorcycles, but that it would have been natural for NPRA to make use of NMCU in that work anyway. Mr. Nikolaisen used two examples from the motorcycle strategy to explain that cooperation is built on trust and generosity: NPRA will examine the negative and positive consequences of raising the minimum license age for light motorcycles from 16 to 18 years. This is not at the top of NMCU’s wish list, but NMCU accepts and supports that the case must be investigated and NMCU trusts the NPRA to make an unbiased decision based on facts.

NMCU in turn wanted to encourage motorcyclists to “choose the right time and right place” when training riding technique. This is hardly an action that the NPRA would choose, but they support it because they trust NMCU’s professionalism. “We have benefited greatly from NMCU’s expertise when working with analyses, guidelines and strategies. NMCU is always willing to cooperate and is a positive partner, says Mr. Karsten Nikolaisen in his presentation.

Part of the future agenda is to revise the measures in the motorcycle strategy. In this work, the new in-depth analysis of fatal accidents is an important tool to adjust the direction of the safety work. Guro Ranes, road safety director in the Norwegian Public Roads Administration said: “Mutual trust and respect, understanding for each other’s roles and responsibilities is the key to good results.”