Time to ride roughshod

PERSONALITIES and a lack of business acumen lost one good chance to set up a motorbike riding centre in the Shire of Cardinia and land wheeling and dealing lost a chance to have an indoor riding centre in the City of Casey.
So where are we with recreational motorbikes?
Trail bikes are enormously popular, but generate immense emotional polarisation of community feeling, with one section devoted to the sport and another in protest because of noise and nuisance value. But the machines are an accepted industry and an accepted sport.
Councils and governments allow their production in factories and for them to be sold in shops, but will not provide bonefide facilities for their use in a disciplined environment. This is a general dereliction of responsibility.
If the wider community and councils are not prepared to have outdoor riding tracks because of noise then they will need to house the sport indoors.
We need to use technology that will moderate noise and to support clubs and private enterprise that teach young riders ways and means of using their machines in a safe and sensible manner.
And having provided these facilities, come down hard on and prevent illegal and noisy riding that upsets residents.
Casey mayor Colin Butler has called for a report on the use of trail bikes on private property. He said during a Casey council meeting that bike riders were making life hell for some residents.
He said this must stop and it must.
I would like to see Cr Butler as mayor take this on as one of his main issues because it is about time someone with a bit of spine took hold of the issue and did something about it.
He said people needed to understand what the rules were about and that councils needed to lay down some regulations.
Management of the bike riding problems in Cardinia Shire and the City of Casey has been wanting and debate has led nowhere.
Cr Butler and Cardinia mayor Kate Lempriere both have a history of concern about recreational bike riding in the wild.
Perhaps they could join forces to reestablish a recreational bike riding committee that is not impacted by politics and set about using their mayoral years to tame the beast.