Owners of scooters or motorcycles will have to have their machine checked the first time within five years of putting it into circulation, then every three years.
The end of a long battle between environmental associations, bikers and the government. The technical inspection of motorized two-wheelers will be gradually implemented from April 2024 depending on the age of the vehicles, according to a decree and an order published Tuesday October 24 in the Official Journal.
The publication of these texts comes after months of procrastination to apply a 2014 European directive intended to combat road accidents and pollution. Who will be affected? From when ? Franceinfo answers questions that arise about this new regulation.
1Which vehicles are affected?
The decree published Monday extends technical inspection to all motorized vehicles with two or three wheels, as well as motorized quadricycles, i.e. all machines grouped by the Highway Code in category L. This therefore also concerns models of less than 125 cm3, which were not covered by the European directive, in particular scooters. The latter present “high accident rates and can also be the source of significant air or noise pollution in cities”had justified at the end of June the Minister of Transport, Clément Beaune, Rawby announcing their inclusion in the future system.
The text however excludes enduro and trial motorcycles, used as part of a sporting activity, “due to their technical specificities and their low traffic on public roads”. In total, the government estimates to four million the number of vehicles affected.
2 What does this control consist of?
The 2014 European directive leaves States free to define the control criteria concerning these vehicles. In France, the control must cover “on all areas of control (safety, atmospheric and noise pollution)” but will be “highly simplified” compared to cars, with a number of checkpoints divided by four, the Ministry of Transport warned in June.
The check must be carried out in an approved center, which must have the equipment and permits adapted to these new vehicles. The latter will nevertheless be able to benefit for one year, from April 2024, from an extension of their approval to two-wheelers if they are already authorized to carry out checks on light or heavy vehicles.
3 When will the monitoring start?
Staggering the entry into force of technical inspection should make it possible to avoid bottlenecks in the inspection centers. The first affected will be vehicles registered before January 1, 2017. They will have to carry out a first check from April 2024, and before mid-August or the end of 2024 depending on their date of entry into circulation.
The first inspection of vehicles registered between January 1, 2017 and December 31, 2019 must be carried out in 2025, and that of vehicles registered between January 1, 2020 and December 31, 2021 in 2026. For those registered after January 1, 2022, the first inspection will be carried out within six months preceding the expiry of a period of five years from the date of their first entry into circulation – compared to four years for cars. This check must be renewed every three years, and not every two years as for cars.
4 How much will it cost?
The government had indicated that it wanted control “as cheap and simple as possible” by advancing a price of “fifty euros”. But the subject arouses the anger of bikers who have demonstrated several times against such an obligation in recent months. The French Federation of Angry Bikers thus denounced following the publication of the texts in Official Journal One “technical inspection as useless as it is costly”. She also ensures that she studies “all possible avenues of appeal, including boycotting the measure.”
Its coordinator for Paris and its inner suburbs, Jean-Marc Belotti, had already estimated in June with AFP that the system was “a pure racket”, “strictly useless” for vehicles on which “all the security organs can be seen very easily with the naked eye.” As a reminder, drivers unable to present the technical inspection of their vehicle will be liable to a fourth class fine, i.e. 135 euros, and the immobilization of the vehicle.