Passes & Canyons Blog

Rider training has been an issue between ABATE and the COC.

Continuing what I was saying earlier, Terry Howard, ABATE of Colorado‘s State Coordinator, was telling us on Sunday about how there is a move to bury the axe between ABATE and the Colorado Confederation of Clubs (COC). The bad blood has existed for some time, and Terry said there have been previous unsuccessful attempts to put it to rest, but maybe this time.

The possible rapprochement got started when representatives of both groups were attending the Motorcycle Riders Foundation‘s Meeting of the Minds. According to Terry, a couple of the COC folks came up to her, saying, “We need to talk.” So they did.

Terry’s speculation is that some of the COC folks had an eye-opener when they looked at the list of training organizations that were in violation of MOST regulations and found that ABATE was not on that list. In discussion, she said, it came out that ABATE has an issue with one person in the COC and the COC has an issue with one person in ABATE. Fine, let’s leave them out of this.

The COC wanted to talk about how the two groups can work together for the common cause. Specifically, they were interested in three things.

• They want to ensure that if the MOST program continues that it is not cut back to simply forcing motorcyclists to pay extra for safety programs that other motorists don’t pay extra for.
• They are also looking for riders to work with them in an effort involving blow-test devices that are used on the vehicles of people convicted of DUIs. Colorado currently allows this but has no provision for doing so on motorcycles. The result is that a rider automatically loses the privilege of riding their bike. Other states allow this, and Colorado’s legislation does not disallow it, but there are issues that need to be worked out. The COC wants as many riders as possible to ride with the devices on their bikes to do testing so these issues can be addressed.
• The COC also wants help in addressing the issue of police profiling of motorcyclists. If you’re speeding, you’re speeding, no issue. But if you get stopped apparently just because you’re on a bike, they want to know about it and get the details. The idea is to build up a base of information about such incidents to see if there is a pattern or whether there really is even a problem.

So maybe the past can become history and, moving forward, these two motorcycle rights groups can work together for the common good. Keep your fingers crossed.

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