In April this year I was asked to attend a meeting in Brussels to consult with the Quavadis Project. Quavadis is a group set up by the European parliament to look at harmonising the various aspects of  disability and transport throughout Europe. Two of the areas they are looking at are Licensing categories, and adaptions to vehicles. On the licensing categories I had some involvement in the early stages of the project two years ago when I was asked by the Department of Transport to suggest six categories to cover various types of adaption for disabilities on motorcycles and trikes. The bulk of these suggestions have now been accepted by the Quavadis group.
On the adaptions to motorcycles and trikes we had not been consulted until earlier this year. But following this I was asked to attend a meeting in Brussels. It was also requested that I bring along a couple of adapted motorcycles to display at the meeting. I would have liked to have taken a Sharechair outfit or a trike adapted for a wheelchair user, as these types of adaption are inevitably made up of several lesser adaptions. However I only had three weeks notice of the date of the meeting and in that time I had to take what I could get, so I requested that I be allowed to bring somebody with me to help load and unload the bikes (as Quavadis were paying for the travel and hotel), and they agreed to this.
Alan Varrechia (Wellies) agreed to accompany me and Rob James (BJ) asked if he could accompany us at his own expense. This guaranteed a good session on the boat if nothing else.
It was eventually decided to take a Zephyr fitted with a Kliktronic Gearchanger, and a 125 Suzuki adapted for left arm disabilities. The ferry trip from Hull to Zeebrugge takes 13 hours, which gave us plenty of time for a beer or ten. As there were not many people on the boat the DJ in the cabaret lounge was fairly amenable and we soon convinced him to treat us to a couple of hours of rock music (it was very welcome after sitting through the dreadful cabaret duo). The Road from Zeebrugge to Brussels is a nice dual carriageway, which does little to prepare you for the abject terror of trying to drive in Brussels itself. They only seem to have one rule; nobody has right of way...ever. Needless to say whilst trying to avoid collisions every two minutes we got completely lost. We had a map, but it failed to mention that the main roads in Brussels disappear underground every few hundred yards and if you don't come up in the right place you have great difficulty going back the way you came. Consequently we overshot the turning for the hotel and ended up on the wrong side of the city. When we emerged from the tunnel we were on a road which seemed to be mostly comprised of foreign embassies. It was interesting to see that people were free to wander into any one of a dozen embassies as you would a library, but one embassy seemed somewhat different as it was surrounded by tank traps and armed guards and police were stopping and searching anybody who got close to the entrance. It came as no surprise that this was the American embassy.
After two hours of battling through the madness of Brussels traffic we finally found the hotel and booked in. Our rooms were on the 21st floor; it's quite a novelty looking down on pigeons as they fly past.As it was only 1.00pm and the meeting wasn't until 10.00am the following day we decided to do the tourist bit (well the bit that very thirsty tourists do). After trying out the bars on a street we christened 'Beaver Strassa' due to it being something of a red light zone, we moved on to a nice little square. The square we christened 'Beer Strassa' due to the inordinate amount of bars running down one side of it. (It took us four hours to do them all).
Later we joined the rest of the Quavadis people for a meal at the hotel and I was very pleased to see that Douglas Campbell from the Disabled Drivers Association (DDA) had also been invited o the meeting. Douglas and myself had not met for a couple years and it was good to catch up on things.
After the meal we all retired to the hotel bar (which is often where the real work is done). The bar manager warned Wellies, BJ, and myself that the Belgian Lager was particularly potent and we should be careful how quickly we shifted it. In the true British Bulldog spirit we went on to prove him wrong. By the end of the evening he said we were his favourite customers.
While in the bar I had a long chat with Paul Gambrell from Motability about the campaign we had been running for the inclusion of bikes and trikes on the Motability scheme. Paul promised to look into it when he returned home, and as events have transpired he was as good as his word. 
Despite the heavy-duty socialising (or maybe because of it) we made some very useful allies in the bar that evening, as people were genuinely impressed by the work of the NABD.
The following morning we followed Douglas Campbell to the European Parliament building where the meeting was to take place. Of course we got lost again, but eventually we arrived and the meeting began. The early part of the meeting was to do with the background of Quavadis and the idea behind harmonising practices within Europe. Later on it got more interesting when we were given presentations on various types of adaption (some of which were very expensive high tech jobs).
We were then given a presentation by Rinus Kempeneers of the Dutch Driving Licence Authority.
Throughout this presentation I became more and more concerned with what we were being told about what a disabled person could and could not do. For example it was blandly stated that a motorcycle could only be ridden by a rider who had both hands on the handlebars, or if an amputee, would have to have a special prosthetic which would connect them to the bars. By the time it was my turn to take the stage I was somewhat dismayed that so much wrong information could be given by somebody who spoke from a position of authority in his country. Needless to say, I spoke of this in rather strong terms and pointed out many examples to disprove these conclusions. I'm not sure that I had been invited along for this purpose but I could not sit by and let things go in a direction where many successful disabled riders would soon see themselves being forced off motorcycles. As it was this generated quite a bit of discussion and much of it about the 'human aspect' of transport for disabled people (something which seemed to have been overlooked previously). 
Throughout most of the meeting people had been speaking in their native languages, and there were booths all along the sides of the room where translators worked very hard to translate and relay the information via the headsets. There were two women providing the English translation, one of whom seemed to be somewhat 'hyper', which caused a few grins around the room. During a more tedious part of the meeting BJ began to nod off so I whacked his headset up to full volume which woke him up nicely. (As he had done it twice to Wellies earlier I thought it only fair).
After the meeting (which had gone on until 6.00pm) we all adjourned outside to look at various adapted vehicles, including the two bikes we had brought over. Also there were two bikes which had come from Holland where there is a group called MMvG which is a disabled bikers group that formed about 3 years ago. One of the bikes was a BMW sidecar outfit adapted for its rider Astrid Rozeboom who is paraplegic. The other was adapted in several ways (as it is used as a demonstration machine for various disabilities) and was ridden by Erik Paskamp who lost an arm in an explosives accident whilst in the Dutch Special Forces. Erik's bike had been set up so that the adaptions on it could be easily re-aranged to suit the needs of various disabilities. I complemented him on the set-up and said we would undoubtedly borrow the idea.
Before leaving to return to the hotel I was approached by Rinus Kempeneers (the chap from the Dutch Licensing authority) and he said I had convinced him that they were not ready to legislate, and asked if I would be willing to get involved in a future project. Of course I said I would happily do so if only to protect the rights of disabled riders.
The rest of the story is, as you would imagine. We gave the hotel bar another good seeing too that evening, then we went to Zeebrugge four hours early and found a nice pub with blues music playing until it was time to get on the ferry for the return session.
It was good to prove that the NABD has the experience and the knowledge to take an active part in the European forum, and I expect we will be more involved in the future. But I can assure you that alongside the considerations of safety, and legality, we will always be mindful of the rights of disabled riders above all.