Emission Regulations For Motorbikes - Carbon Monoxide

There are currently no emissions regulations for motorcycles, at least not for used ones although under Euro 5 I expect that at least they must have a minimum standard for new ones.
Since current VED for cars is based on their emissions but bikes aren't explains why you can tax a car with a 1 litre engine for £20 or less but a but a bike that uses a similar amount of fuel, takes up less than a 1/4 of the road space, weighs a fraction and consequently causes next no wear to the roads and reduces congestion considerably is now paying well over £100!

 

Actually, Ducati started to care about emissions when Euro norms got introduced (Euro1: Jan 1st 1993 to Jul 1st 1996).

My 94-95 748/916 worshop manual explains that due to « international anti-pollution standards » street bikes idling mixture was tuned lean at the factory (1,5%CO). Optimal setting actually being between 4% and 6%. Every bike I plugged my AFR gauge to (1996 916 biposto, 1996 916 SP3 and 2004 998 Matrix) came out between 1% and 2% CO. Each time I aimed at 5% and gained in both throttle response and mileage. No surprise.

 

You can take a motorcycle into the Bristol clean air zone with no charge, exempt

 

...and we can use (almost) all the bus lanes too

 

What I said above. So why isn't bike tax based on emissions?

 

Be careful what you wish for! If the system is changed to an emissions based one, you can bet it will not be a revenue-neutral change!!

 

All the garages which offer bike MOTs would have to buy exhaust gas analysers, like all car MOT places do.

It'll come, just you wait. Then all the de-catted bikes will be in difficulty.