Moscow bikers take up activism

MOSCOW, July 11 (UPI) -- A Moscow protest by about 200 motorcyclists upset by the slow pace of a probe into a car-cycle crash may have kick-started biker activism, an organizer says.

Yury Nekrasov, who co-organized the rally last month outside police headquarters to protest the seeming lack of progress in an investigation of a sports car that collided with a 43-year-old biker who was seriously injured, said it marked the "first time when the wave of activism is clear and head-on" for the biker community, The Moscow Times reported Monday.

"We also just got fed up with the rising negativity toward bikers," Nekrasov said. "For some reason it's common practice to automatically blame the biker for accidents. We didn't want the driver to get away with what he had done."

Nekrasov said he hopes bikers continue to organize demonstrations for issues important to the community.