CONFIDENTIAL

MINISTER OF TRANSPORT PRESS RELEASE BY KEITH BOSLER

Recently it was brought to my attention that there has been some difficulty for motorcyclists with their electronic toll passes. I can assure you, nothing annoys us in the Ministry more than people having problems paying us money. I immediately initiated a round table discussion, in between the degustation courses naturally, we aren’t heathens.

One suggestion was that, given motorcycles do less damage to the roads and environment as well as ease traffic and parking congestion, we should allow them an exemption from road tolls. Boy how we laughed!

Why I swear some lobster came out of my dining companion’s nose. Mining magnates can be like that.

Normally it’s unintentional.

So, with all the problems in attaching an e-tag to a motorcycle, we decided some sort of wearable thing would be the go. Finally it came to me – underpants! What better than a (saleable) pair of underpants with an in-built e-tag that also offers extra padding in the groin region? It does pay to advertise after all.

So, I had an independent arms-length third-party company, run by my uncle, make a large batch of e-tag undies. These will be mandatorily wearable by all riders.

Now don’t worry, they come in the standard briefs and frilly G-string variety, presumably for all you BMW riders out there. Unfortunately somebody left a sock in the pre-wash so they are all pink. Still, nothing like high visibility undies is there!

There is just one small problem. Testing has revealed that given that undies are typically worn under clothing (our current Prime Minister notwithstanding), plus their location on a bike obscuring their line of sight access by toll machines, they don’t actually work.

However, always being at the cutting edge of forward thinking revenue protection, we have decided that these undies can instead be sold as (mandatory) neck warmers.

This makes them both effective as an e-tag and avoids us having to make a road toll exemption (for anyone other than politicians that is).

So, e-tag problem solved plus a nice little revenue earner which could potentially be used for more lobster, er, I mean safer roads. Besides, when you get to your destination you’ll have a second pair of stylish pink undies just in case of an accident, like that time I laughed too hard…

Youngest rider, Rachel from Kiama who admits to being slightly more than 40.

company’. What more could you ask for! From a low of 24 entrants last year, things picked up with over 70 making the effort to attend this time.

As the rally is conducted by the BMW Club of the ACT, the German brand was in prominence, but there were plenty of others on hand. A standout was Steve Hunters carbon fi bre Harley. The F800 variants were there in large numbers as more people wake up to what a great machine these things are. The raffl e prizes included a very generous donation by BMW Australia of a Systems helmet, that and the consolation prizes were all well received by the mob. I even won a coffee mug!

The usual awards saw Largest Club Attendance go to the BMWTCNSW, Longest Distance was a bloke from SA, Youngest Rider was Rachel from Kiama who admits to being slightly over 40. Stan from the BMWTCNSW collected Oldest Combined Age at 108 yrs with his R75/5. Smithy from the Upper Central Coast collected Longest Distance Three Wheeler with 730 km’s.

This is a great rally at a wonderful location, it really should be included in your plan to go to the MotoGP at Phillip Island, which occurs the following weekend. And, bring your younger bike riding friends, Youngest Rider should not be collected by a 40 year old!

Steve Hunter from near Canberra with his carbon fibre Harley.