ANCMA calls for tax relief for motorcyclist safety

ANCMA – The meeting with the Deputy Minister of Economy and Finance, Luigi Casero, and with the Vice President of the Transport Commission, Vincenzo Garofalo, represented the opportunity for a discussion between the political world, industry and the world of scientific research on motorcyclist safety and the role of protective clothing.

In a country, like Italy, where around 8 million two-wheeled vehicles, including mopeds and motorcycles, circulate, attention to user safety is a must. Scooters and motorbikes, in fact, represent an essential way of moving, especially within urban contexts, promoting traffic decongestion and the overall reduction of environmental pollution.: according to a study by Ambrosetti, if 10% of motorists switched to two wheels, the resulting time savings would be worth around 1 billion euros. Despite progress in reducing road accidents (-30% of victims on motorized two-wheelers in the last 5 years), much work still remains to be done, as demonstrated by the 814 victims and 55 thousand injured in motorcycle accidents which occurred in 2014, the latest available year of ACI/ISTAT surveys.

A study carried out by the Istituto Superiore di Sanità as part of the ST.EP project (Back Protector Effectiveness Study) highlights that the use of a back protector reduces the risk of sustaining spinal injuries in the event of an accident by 40%. Nonetheless, as emerges from the same study, only a quarter of motorcyclists use this safety device during their journeys. According to Confindustria ANCMA, the spread of these protections would be favored by the introduction of tax relief. For this reason he asks politicians to support the request to provide for a 50% deduction from the purchase price of these technical items in the next Budget Law. The measure would cost public coffers approximately 2,5 million euros compared, as we have seen, to a reduction in social costs quantifiable at 21 million euros.

The national motorcycle protective clothing industry represents an excellence of manufacturing production in Europe and in the world, above all for the high quality of its products, the result of important investments in technological innovation, which represents the true added value of national production . Italian companies in the sector generate a turnover of around 300 million euros, corresponding to around 10% of the overall turnover of the motorcycle industry.