Motorcycle Action Group

24/10/2026

The clocks go back tonight, and a lot of bikes are about to be put away for winter. Plenty will sit in a lock-up garage that gets checked every few weeks, if that.

If one of those bikes is stolen in November and nobody opens the door until January, it goes into the theft figures as a January theft. The monthly numbers you may see published come from snapshots of the Police National Computer, and a bike only appears there once someone reports it missing. A quiet winter on paper can hide thefts nobody has discovered yet, and a spring “rise” can include bikes taken months earlier.

The delay costs the owner too. Every week a stolen bike goes unreported is another week it can be stripped, moved or sold on before the police know to look for it.
If it happens to you, tell the police when you last saw the bike as well as when you found it gone. That window helps the investigation and helps get the numbers right. Getting motorcycle theft counted properly is the first of MAG’s four Fight Motorcycle Theft asks.

Motorcycles are stolen 11x more than cars. MAG's four-point plan — get theft counted, caught, designed out, and bikes brought back. See how you can help

23/10/2026

A huge thank you to Brighton Motorcycle Action Group (Brighton MAG) for their generous donation of £500 to the MAG Fighting Fund.

Congratulations to all the volunteers, supporters and riders who helped make Magfest 8 a success.

Magfest 9 Down South Rally is confirmed for 17th to 19th September 2027. Follow Brighton MAG on Facebook for ticket release and line-up announcements.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/Brightonmag/

22/10/2026

Next Wednesday the Chancellor delivers the Autumn Budget. If you ride for work, one number matters.

The motorcycle mileage rate has been 24p a mile since April 2002. Car and van drivers went up to 55p this April, and the Treasury never published what that rise cost.

In June, Treasury wrote to MAG saying the mileage system, “including other rates, will be considered at a future fiscal event.” Next Wednesday is that event. So we put a fully costed case to the Chancellor through the official Budget process. We asked for the motorcycle rate to go up to 45p, which would cost no more than £34 million a year, and to be reviewed regularly so it never freezes for another twenty-four years.

We’ll find out on 28 October whether the evidence counted. Read the full case:

Motorcycle mileage rates haven't risen since 2002. MAG has submitted a fully costed case to the Treasury ahead of the 28th October Budget. Here's what's at stake

21/10/2026

In April, the Motorcycle Industry Association warned that ending the electric motorcycle grant would cost the market £50 million and 6,500 sales by 2030. MCIA hasn't published the analysis behind that figure, so we can't judge how solid it is. What we could check is what the grant actually paid out since 2016: £10,038,434.59, across 16,203 mopeds and motorcycles, every one of them priced under £10,000 and on the government's approved list. Never a subsidy for electric motorcycling as a whole, just its cheapest end.

By June, MCIA's tone had changed completely: registrations up, “strong year-on-year growth.” By August, still growing, and already flagging a new incentives push to come.

We didn't hear a single rider bemoaning the loss of the grant. The organisations who missed it sell the bikes. They don't ride them.

MAG isn't asking for the grant back, and we're not against electric motorcycles. We're against government mandating the switch on a timetable it sets, rather than letting the market, and riders, work it out for themselves.

Read the full breakdown:

The UK's electric motorcycle grant paid out £10m over a decade. Two months after warning of its loss, industry was celebrating strong sales growth.

19/10/2026

Written to the DfT about a ban on petrol motorcycles? You’ve probably been told there are “no policies in place” on phase-out dates.

That’s true as far as it goes. The Government’s 2021 commitment to end sales of all new petrol and diesel road vehicles by 2040, motorcycles included, has never been withdrawn. Its 2022 proposal for 2030 and 2035 dates was never answered, and the Department’s records show no decision to drop it.

In November 2020 the DfT told MAG that motorcycles were “not in scope”. Eight months later they were.

How many of us mean it when we tell our partner this will be the last bike we buy? “No plans” lasts until somebody makes one.

We will keep asking until the Government withdraws the proposal or rules motorcycles out. Would you forgive us for going quiet?

The DfT says there are "no policies in place" on a petrol motorcycle ban. But the 2030 and 2035 proposals were never withdrawn. Here's what MAG found.

16/10/2026

Press Release: MAG welcomes new road repair guidance that puts riders on councils’’ radar

The Motorcycle Action Group (MAG) has welcomed new national guidance on how councils look after the UK’s roads, which now recognises that potholes and other road surface defects can be far more dangerous to motorcyclists than to drivers. The changes reflect the case MAG made when it responded to the consultation on the guidance earlier this year.

The Well-Managed Highway Infrastructure Code of Practice, launched on 14 October by the UK Roads Leadership Group, is the guidance councils use to decide how roads are inspected, which defects get repaired and how quickly. MAG recognises that while few riders will ever read it, it shapes the surface under the wheels of every motorcycle on a council road. Until now, it said very little about the risks faced by motorcyclists.

Continue reading:

MAG welcomes new national road repair guidance that recognises potholes and road defects are far more dangerous to motorcyclists than to drivers.

15/10/2026

No garage means the bike lives under a cover, and you hope for the best. Plenty of riders know that routine.

Armadillo Boxes builds the alternative. Their galvanised steel units are made to order at their Bournemouth workshop, sized for your bike and the space you actually have. Dry, secure, with room for your gear and locks too.

They’ve supplied nearly 1,500 across the UK since 2017. UK-wide delivery and assembly is available, together with pallet delivery for customers further afield.

A warm welcome to new MAG Corporate Member, Armadillo Boxes

Welcome to the Heavy weight Division. Engineers holding City of Guilds and BTEC nationals with distinctions. Buy secure motorbike sheds from Armadillo Boxes.

14/10/2026

More than £2 billion of developer money is sitting unspent in council accounts across England and Wales, and the rules already allow it to be spent on roads. Colin went to the launch of the APPG for Better Roads report at the House of Commons to find out how riders can help get it spent.

MAG is the UK's leading campaigning voice for motorcyclists.

📝 How to ask your council (full blog): https://mag-uk.org/councils-hold-2-2-billion-that-could-help-fix-our-roads/

🔗 The APPG for Better Roads report:https://www.appg-betterroads.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/CIL.pdf

🔗 MAG Resurface Our Roads campaign: https://mag-uk.org/resurface-our-roads/

14/10/2026

MAG is at Highways UK at the NEC today.

On Monday we were in Westminster talking about how road maintenance gets paid for. Highways UK is where the people who design, build and repair the roads meet, and that is where a lot of rider safety is decided: how often a road is inspected, what counts as a defect worth fixing, and whether a repair leaves loose chippings on a bend.

In DfT's STATS19 data, a poor road surface was a factor in 4% of motorcyclist deaths and serious injuries over the last ten years. For car occupants and cyclists it was 2%. That gap has not moved in a decade.

A revised national Code of Practice for how councils inspect and repair roads is due this month. MAG asked for motorcyclists to be treated as a distinct risk when defects are assessed, and we will report back on whether that made it in.

https://mag-uk.org/resurface-our-roads/

14/10/2026

What if there was money for road repairs that nobody had to find?

A new report from the All Party Parliamentary Group for Better Roads points to more than £2.2 billion of Community Infrastructure Levy, paid by developers, sitting unspent with councils in England and Wales. The rules already allow it to be spent on roads. Yet only 14% of councils responding to the Asphalt Industry Alliance's annual survey put any of it into the road surface.

This isn't new money. It needs spending, and the decisions are made locally.

MAG's Colin Brown was at the launch at the House of Commons. Our explainer covers what CIL is, what it means for riders, and the questions to put to your councillor, including if your council doesn't charge the levy at all.

Councils hold £2.2bn in unspent Community Infrastructure Levy that could fix our roads. Here’s what the APPG report means for riders and how to act on it.