Australia’s motorcycle industry is now counting down the hours to the kick-off for the industry-wide campaign (October 8-15) in which riders all around the country are being urged to ride their motorcycles to work.
National Ride Your Motorcycle To Work Week (www.ridetoworkweek.com.au) is being supported by a website and a Facebook page, and an events diary has been set up on social media where riders can see where local groups are gathering for collective rides and activities.
The week is seen as a way of celebrating Australia’s motorcycling fraternity and gathering rider numbers together as a signal to policymakers at all levels of government that the needs of riders should not be ignored.
Some of Australia’s motorcycle dealer networks are supporting the campaign with free safety checks and national motorcycle media have joined the promotion of the campaign which, although in its infancy, is expected to grow and flourish in the years ahead as awareness in the riding community increases.
Riders around the country have praised the idea on social media with comments such as: “This is a great initiative . . . I hope more people get behind this!”, “Great way to promote and make road users more aware”, “I’ve devoted my life to motorcycles big, small, fast or cool – I love them all! I support Ride to Work Week every week!” and “ . . . my favourite part is that no matter how bad the traffic is I am never late with the filtering laws, plus the cheeky detours on the way home just for fun!”
Rhys Griffiths, the Motorcycle Manager for the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries which is coordinating the campaign, said that awareness of the activity has gathered momentum in the past few weeks and urged all riders to get on board.
“Just by getting some friends or workmates together and making the ride into work together during the week you are building awareness of motorcycling out the community and among other road users, which is what this campaign is all about,” Rhys said.
If you have a ride to work event planned in your city next week, go to the Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/ridetoworkweek/ and post the details.