What are the most common serious failures in motorcycle technical inspections?

Today, June 5th, marks World Environment Day, a significant date for the United Nations (UN) as it aims to promote global awareness and action in favour of environmental protection. On such a day, attention is often drawn to certain statistics related to the role vehicles play in this desired and necessary respect for the environment.

It is noteworthy that more than half of the motorcycles in Spain are over 15 years old, and 30% of the fleet lacks an environmental label, according to the DGT. This leads to a curious yet alarming fact about the most common serious failures in motorcycle technical inspections, indicating that, behind lighting and signalling system malfunctions, excessive pollutant emissions rank second, according to data from the Spanish Association of Collaborating Entities of the Administration in Inspection (AECA-ITV), on the occasion of today's World Environment Day.

In detail, nearly 128,000 motorcycles failed the ITV during the first inspection due to operational defects and irregularities in some components of the lighting and signalling system. Regarding emissions, about 60,000 failed the test for exceeding the stipulated pollutant levels.

One of the main causes of this situation, as pointed out by the Spanish manufacturer of electric motorcycles Velca, lies in the aforementioned age of the fleet in Spain, as more than half - specifically, 2,082,305 motorcycles out of a total of 4,162,850 - are over 15 years old, according to the DGT. This factor, the "age," negatively impacts both the safety of its users and the harmful pollutant particles they emit into the air.

As a result of this high age, 30% of the fleet - slightly more than 1,180,000 motorcycles - does not have the environmental label and, therefore, cannot circulate in the low emission zones (LEZ) of cities.

In light of this situation and the progressive implementation of low emission zones in cities - currently, around 70 out of a total of 149 are already in force - electric motorcycle brands "raise their hand" highlighting the great opportunity that switching to this type of non-polluting vehicles represents, which have a Zero environmental label and no circulation limitations in the LEZ.

According to Emilio Froján, CEO and co-founder of Velca, "the latest assessment of air quality impact on health by the European Environment Agency (EEA) indicates that in Europe, around 253,000 deaths occur due to exposure to fine particles and NOx - nitrogen oxides. Therefore, opting for zero-emission mobility not only helps create a more sustainable environment but also a healthier one for everyone."