John Brophy on the price motorcyclists pay for two-wheel freedom.
It's a horrible, damp, cold morning on the M50 and you're on your trusty motorbike. Feeling good, too, because you can filter through the heavy traffic, and the new jacket and gloves are already earning their keep.
Then you get to the toll bridge and the grief begins. All bikers know them, but it was PR person, nay guru, Don Hall, who has a BMW 850, who has listed the action . . .
Chapter 1: Select a lane with a cashier booth open, and don't get flattened as you move into it. Occupy lane - the big Mack behind you is no hamburger: it's 40-ton-plus of HGV with a driver in a hurry.
Wait for vehicle in front to clear, and allow 2.4 seconds for exhaust cloud to clear - sucking diesel is one thing, getting a lungful on a cold morning is another. Put bike into first gear, and crawl to toll station window.
Stop bike, using brake on right hand, and clutch on left, and use left foot to put bike in neutral.
Note to chapter 1: in a car, you can just hold down the clutch for the couple of seconds it takes to pay. But on a bike you have to make sure you're at a complete stop, and supporting the bike with both feet firmly on ground.
Estimated time: 20 seconds.
Chapter 2: Lift visor, which will otherwise fog up with warm breath of stressed biker. Remove both gloves, including unfastening Velcro strips at wrist. Find place to put gloves on either tank or handlebars. Undo Velcro strip on front of jacket, unzip jacket, remove wallet/coin-holder from pocket, extract note or coins and give to cashier. Accept change, place in wallet or coin holder, return to pocket and zip up pocket.
Note to Chapter 2: A car driver can sort change from coin-holder or ashtray while approaching booth, but bikes don't have ashtrays, and you need both hands to move, especially at slow speeds.
Estimated time: 30 seconds.
Chapter 3: Rezip jacket and arrange front Velcro strip. Replace gloves and refasten them. Check if barrier is clear, engage first gear, lower visor and proceed in an orderly manner.
Estimated time: 20 seconds.
Further note: The real fun is when gloves and/or cash fall on ground. Biker normally has to turn off engine, lower side stand, dismount in confined space of toll lane, retrieve gloves and/or cash, moving bike if necessary, before paying toll.
Non-bikers don't realise that with many bikes, you can't lower the stand and leave the engine running. Some makes have aengine cut-out, so that the engine stops as soon as you change gear from neutral if the side stand is down. This is to stop you moving with side-stand down, which has very nasty consequences.
The worst possible thing is that a biker who is agitated and flustered may not put the stand fully down. Then the bike drops.
Only a biker knows what this means. Certainly in a machine under 250cc, you can pick up the bike and little damage may result. But with a bigger bike, you're lucky to get away with a damaged mirror or bent foot-rest. Brake and clutch levers are deliberately made very brittle, to break off if there is an accident.
When a big bike drops, it's a very strenuous job to get it upright again. Normally it takes two people. Some super-bikes, such as the Honda Goldwing, are made so that they don't go over on their side, but even getting them back to vertical is no job for the unfit.
Dropping a bike is an unnerving experience - and biking is an activity where confidence and competence are paramount. Depending on lubrication systems, some engines can seize if sump oil flows away even for a short while.
With BMW bikes, and Don Hall is a beemer-dreamer, models where cylinder heads protrude at the side are especially vulnerable, though the makers put in protective bars and plates.
Hall also factors in a "possible pig-headedness" delay: "Maybe you have to engage in meaningful dialogue with the Big Mack driver behind, after he has demonstrated the sub-woofer qualities of his double-klaxon auditory alert equipment to indicate frustration with the delay he thinks you are causing.
"Or maybe you want to indulge your Celtic fantasy. Sure, it's not in New York or London that the streets are paved with gold - it's at the toll bridge. Every lane must have about €30-worth of coins embedded in the roadway. Car drivers, cossetted in their mobile metal boxes, don't see this El Dorado . . . but bikers do, and the temptation is to see what you can dig up.
You might even need a little blow-torch to warm the tar and free the coins - but be careful not to torch the bike and wreck your profit." In any case, you can allow another 30 seconds for such activity.
Going by the East Link, matters are much easier: bikes are not tolled. So, you can vanish into the slip lane, get away fast and warm, and even say hello to the hooker, Galway boat variety, moored in the estuary.
Don Hall argues that tolling bikes, especially at peak hours, isn't worth the money, the effort or the delay. The least that can be done is to let bikers through free, as a recognition of their contribution to solving traffic problems and low energy use.
When the AA started the campaign to open the toll-booths at peak hours, it said the Westlink Bridge was handling about 70,000 vehicles per day on average, generating over €30 million.
At its maximum the Westlink Bridge transits 6,500 vehicles per hour. The AA's estimate for the four peak hours daily is 20,000 to 22,000 vehicles - this equates to daily revenue of €24,000 to €26,400, substantially less than the Government's €33,000 take from the bridge.
In 1987, when the deal was signed with Westlink, it was expected that there would be no VAT on tolls and that daily traffic would by now be about 45,000. But in September, 2000, the European Court ruled that France, the Netherlands, Greece, Ireland and Britain were breaking Community law by not levying VAT on road and motorway tolls. That's why a lot of folks now are looking for VAT receipts - it all adds up.
Some people have suggested that bikers can use the electronic Easypay strip on their windscreens, but not all bikes have windscreens especially at the height where the strip can be read by the Easypay machine. Beside, there is the problem that the strip will be stolen from the bike, as happens already with tax discs.
So, I phoned the National Roads Authority (NRA), since some 10 toll roads are planned. Be nice to bikers, quoth I. Surprise surprise, the news wasn't great. Spokeswoman Caroline O'Brien said that the policy was to collect tolls from all vehicles that pay road tax.
The NRA would be very willing to meet any group - but the feeling I got was that it's more likely to think of a lane for bikes rather letting them through free.
The AA has consistently said that tolls are a blunt form of tax: if they're too high, we can deter everyone from using the roads.
For bikers, though, a practical demonstration could prove a lot. An outing of, say, 30 bikers, could rapidly prove the case.