According to a study of the EPA, if a motorcycle is fully maintained and has regular inspections, then, compared to a bike with no maintenance, pollution can be reduced 40%. ITRI also points out that if certain parts are periodically adjusted, pollution can be reduced 15%.

Tsai Shing-yuan says that even if an engine meets the strictest standards when it is new, after three months of use it will begin to crack. If it is not maintained, it will be hard to maintain the standards for emissions met by the new model. Thus, the EPA has stipulated that in the future manufacturers will have to give new bikes a guarantee that emission standards will be as good as new for 100,000 km. Bikes must pass random testing at the plant, conducted by ITRI. At least new bikes won't be a problem.

But what about the seven million bikes now on the streets?

Today, almost no one is willing to keep up their bikes. This is a major cause of pollution. Further, young kids like to modify their motorcycles, causing an increase in noise, fuel consumption, and polluting emissions. Jerry C.L. Chow, manager of the Motorcycle Technology Department of the Power Machinery Engineering Division at ITRI, says the pollution produced may be three to four times greater than the original.

Overage bikes also create enormous pollution. According to the Ministry of Communications, of existing "heavy" motor-cycles, 15% are over ten years old. "They leak oil, their exhaust pipes cough up smoke--or they don't have exhaust pipes at all!" says Jun-lun Mao, general secretary of the Taiwan Transportation Vehicle Manufacturers' Association.

Almost every vehicle necessarily makes pollution. The police have no way to test whether or not emissions are over the limit. They have no way even to catch the "octopus vehicles"; if they grab them and give out a ticket, there's no way to make sure the ticket is enforced. Thus even "pollution citations" are no use.

Chen Yen-hui, an engineer in the Railway and Highway Department of the MoC, points out that for statistical purposes people are supposed to report when they discard a motorcycle, but a lot of people just discard them on the roadside. When the license plates were changed over in 1985, there were eight million bikes registered under the old plates, but only five million bikes got new plates. No one knows what happened to the remaining motorcycles! "The real difficulty in controlling motor-cycles is right here!" he says.

As for the problem of discarded bikes, the EPA has already empowered the private sector to do the work of collecting them. In order to reduce the pollution of motor-cycles in use, the Taipei City Department of Environmental Protection brought together businesses in the field to establish several provisional inspection stations to do roadside tests, adjust parts, and do basic maintenance. But because the activity is not compulsory, participation is not active. Riders of older bikes fear being fined, and aren't willing to accept the "good intentions" of environmental agencies.

Automobiles must go for inspection once a year, and twice a year if the car is over five years old. Similar regulations existed for motorcycles, but were scrapped after the rapid growth in the number of bikes swamped inadequate inspection facilities. If you wanted to have compulsory inspection today, every station would have to inspect over 1,000 bikes a day. "It would certainly become perfunctory," says Chen.

But the EPA doesn't want to lightly abandon inspections. "Is manpower inadequate? Others can be empowered to do inspections, as with manufacturers doing them for cars," believes Guo-zer Su of the Burean of Air Quality Protection and Noise Control at the EPA.

However difficult, the EPA has already decided in its "Blue Skies Plan" to expand the number of inspection stations for inspecting motorcycle and car emissions. Currently the motorcycle industry has recommended more than 40 enterprises designated as agents to receive training from the EPA. The EPA also plans to establish a network of computer centers to allow the establishment of files on motorcycles with periodic inspections.

Once the inspection stations are opened, those riders who have never taken main-tenance seriously won't be able to avoid getting nabbed.

[Picture Caption]

Periodic maintenance can sustain a motorcycle's functions as well as cut down on pollution.