Passes & Canyons Blog

What Mary Peters started, others seek to continue. I’ve given considerable coverage to the proposal by U.S. Sec. of Transportation Mary Peters that funds earmarked for motorcycle rider training be diverted to lobby for mandatory helmet laws.

Pretty much all major motorcycling organizations have opposed that, and I reported in a report from the Meeting of the Minds that Peters has backed off on that proposal. Motorcycle Riders Foundation (MRF) President Kirk “Hardtail” Willard cautioned me that despite her statements in that regard, he was still waiting to see her send the letters to that effect to the states.

Well, now the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) reports in the latest issue of American Motorcyclist that a group called the Governors Highway Safety Association has now taken up the issue. American Motorcyclist says:

Christopher Murphy, chairman of the Governors Highway Safety Association, which represents state highway safety agencies, made the request in testimony to the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s Subcommittee on Highways and Transit this summer.

The opposition to this misuse of funds stems from the conviction that the key to lowering fatality rates is not in having safer crashes, it is in avoiding more of those crashes in the first place. As Doc Ski noted at the Meeting of the Minds, you will die if you get in a bad enough accident, regardless of whether you’re wearing a helmet.

So Mary Peters may have heeded the outcry and reversed her stance, but now that the genie has been let out of the bottle it may not be that easy to put it back in. This is why we need to support organizations like the AMA and the MRF.

Biker Quote for Today

Thin leather looks good in the bar, but it won’t save your butt from road rash if you go down.

Some things just take you by surprise. As you may be aware, I write for Examiner.com as their Denver Motorcycle Examiner. I post on this blog three times a week and I post on Examiner three times a week.

Well, yesterday I wrote a piece entitled “Share the road, not my lane.” It was about how a car pulled across the center line–directly into my path–as he was passing a bicycle. I won’t go into more specifics; if you ride you know it all already.

Imagine my surprise when I checked this morning and found that more than 2,000 people had read that post so far and there were six comments. And more surprisingly, three of the six were hostile toward motorcycles and motorcyclists. Two were favorable and the sixth was more neutral.

One of the hostile comments was the sort of thing you just blow off and ignore:

You should cry more.

The woman who was neutral had this to say:

True, but you have to keep in mind how often those of us in cars see motorcyclists zip between us, riding the line on the highway. Maybe they guy just thought, “Well, they do it all the time, why can’t I?” I’m not defending his actions as they were very reckless.

Then, there were these:

Sure thing douchebag, but make sure you don’t share my lane the next time there’s a red light and a line of traffic that you really want to sidle past, m’kay?

And what are you going to do about it when someone does? And another thing, with the engine cooling excuse ready at hand when you pass huge traffic jams, you cannot expect to be taken seriously when you claim that your personal space corresponds with traffic conditions, because basically, that is what you are saying. When guys like you behave normally in traffic jams, normal people will begin to show you some respect, or at least, stop hating your guts.

It would be easy to dismiss these people as jerks but I don’t think we would be wise in doing so. Considering that these are the people who are out on the road with us, and we’re the ones who always lose in a collision, we need to consider any validity there might be in their statements.

The one argument they all make is that bikers share their lanes at times. Now, if you’re in California and you’re lane-splitting, that is absolutely legal. And I can see how that diminishes the argument that motorcycles have a right to the entire lane, just as cars do. We can’t have it both ways. At the same time, that in no way excuses the reckless, dangerous stunt I described. If I hadn’t swerved that driver would have had to choose between a head-on with me or running the bicycle off the road into the rocky hillside.

Elsewhere, lane-splitting is not legal, although here in Colorado I don’t ever see people lane-splitting anyway. I do, however, see bikers passing on yellow lines (because we know that we can do it safely) and ignoring other laws that were designed with cars in mind, not bikes. It might be worth our while to think about how the people in cars see these things. Obviously some of them, rightly or wrongly, see them as unfair, improper, and justification to act improperly toward us.

Food for thought.

Biker Quote for Today

Remember all the others on the road are crazy & out to kill you.

“Welcome to Colorado Interstate W-470, brought to you courtesy of the Northwest Parkway Authority.”

What’s that? Aren’t interstate highways owned and operated by the federal government? Well, that’s the way it used to be, but in this age of trying to reduce spending and cut budgets, more and more of the public infrastructure is being handed over on long-term leases to private, for-profit entities. The Northwest Parkway Authority is not one of these; it is in fact a creation of several local jurisdictions, but this is a variation of the same theme.

The issue is whether these private operators will have to ability to impose different restrictions than those for federally operated highways. This was one of the concerns voiced last weekend at the Motorcycle Riders Foundation‘s Meeting of the Minds here in Denver.

What might happen? Well, in Chicago, for instance, several years ago the city council passed an ordinance banning motorcycles from Lakeshore Drive after a certain hour of the night. The issue was excessive noise from bikes disturbing the folks living nearby. The problem was that that stretch of Lakeshore Drive is a U.S. highway, and federal law prohibits the kind of restriction Chicago wanted to impose. The ordinance was overturned.

But what if Lakeshore Drive were operated by a for-profit “Lakeshore Drive Agency”? Would they have gotten away with it?

There really isn’t a clear answer but that’s what the MRF is concerned about. They want to make sure that there is a clear answer enacted into law, and that that clear answer holds that federal policies DO apply and cannot be ignored. It takes relationship building with legislators and congressmen, lobbying, and a lot of behind-the-scenes hard work.

Just figured you needed to know.

Biker Quote for Today

The battle for bikers’ rights is not about patches, parties, or poker runs. We fight to protect the freedom and promote the interests of American motorcyclists … to defend our right to choose our own modes of transportation, attire, and lifestyle … to deter and defy discrimination against us … and to vanquish those who violate our rights or right-of-way. — Bruce Arnold

A big part of the Motorcycle Riders Foundation’s Meeting of the Minds, which took place here in Denver last weekend, is looking ahead to the issues we as motorcyclists are likely to face in the near future. Rather than simply react, the MRF wants to be proactive. Rather than scramble in a disorganized fashion for responses when new legislation is proposed, the MRF wants to have its position and its talking points already determined and disseminated to its membership.

So just what are the issues that appear to be on the horizon? Here are the ones I gleaned from my discussion with MRF President Kirk “Hardtail” Willard, from the various speakers, and from the audience during open discussion.

• Rider and motorist training
  The MRF and the state motorcyclist rights organizations (SMRO) that are its constituent groups strongly advocate for rider and motorist training. However, they are concerned about a move to make such training mandatory, because they fear that the capacity does not exist to offer that training to that many people. This looks like it could be a balancing act.
• Health insurance
  Not so much on the horizon as current, this issue has to do with efforts to pass the HIPAA Recreational Injury Technical Correction Act, and end the legal ability of insurance companies to refuse to provide benefits when someone is injured while engaged in legal but so-called “risky” activities. I’ve written about this before.
• Protecting 2010 funds
  The so-called 2010 funds are the dollars earmarked by government for rider training programs. You’ll recall that I’ve written about U.S. Dept. of Transportation Sec. Mary Peters’ efforts to divert some of this money to promote mandatory helmet legislation. There are other threats to this money as well. When states run into budget difficulties these funds are attractive to politicians as a way to balance the budget, regardless of the fact that they are often paid solely by motorcyclists for motorcycle-related purposes.
• The Transportation Equity Act
  This pending bill will have major influence on highway spending in coming years. The MRF wants to ensure that motorcyclists are included in the planning and not just an afterthought.
• Graduated licensing
  From what I understand, graduated licensing is very common in Europe. This means that you start out on a small bike, learn to ride, and as you demonstrate competency you earn the right to ride bigger and bigger bikes. Frankly, I’m not clear on the issues here, or the concerns the MRF has about this. I’ll try to find out more and address this issue again.
• Right to repair
  This issue was raised during a panel discussion on Saturday, with two Harley-Davidson representatives on the panel being addressed. Speakers from the floor expressed their unhappiness with computer chips that shut down the bike when non-H-D mechanics work on them. The reps replied that the computer chips do allow some modification, whereas some governmental agencies are pressing for simply welding carburetors and exhaust pipes on permanently.

There’s more, but this gives you a bit of an idea about what’s going on. It is inevitable that you’ll be hearing more about these issues.

Biker Quote for Today

The biggest problem facing motorcyclists today is that we live in a nanny state, and if people think you can “save just one life” by banning motorcycles, they’d do it. — Jay Leno

Let’s start with two statements that I think we can all agree on:

1. Helmets would not be an issue if motorcycles did not get in crashes.

2. It is crashes, not the failure to wear a helmet, that kills motorcyclists.

Speaking Friday at the Motorcycle Riders Foundation‘s Meeting of the Minds here in Denver, “Doc Ski” Wasileski, Ph.D., addressed the issue of rider safety in a talk titled “A Failed Safety Paradigm.” And the point Doc Ski made can be summed up as such: “If you get in a bad enough crash, you’re gonna die. Crashes kill bikers. Crash prevention saves lives.”

Doc Ski argued that ever since the Hurt Report, “Motorcycle Accident Cause Factors and Identification of Countermeasures,” the government agencies involved in transportation safety have followed the approach of working for crash mitigation. That is, safer crashes. In cars that means seat belts and air bags and other clearly effective means. When it comes to motorcycles, however, the idea of safer crashes does not work as well. As Doc Ski said, you will die if you get in a bad enough accident, regardless of whether you’re wearing a helmet.

Thus the failed paradigm. Doc Ski, who serves as the MRF’s resident statistician, quoted his own studies that show no statistical difference in fatality rates between states with mandatory helmet laws and states with no helmet laws. And he echoed the MRF’s position that rider training, motorist share-the-road training, and impaired riding programs are what lower fatality rates, not stricter protective requirements and vehicle design modifications.

Nevertheless, as many speakers stated repeatedly over the course of the conference, stricter regulation is coming. The form that that regulation takes will be determined at least in part by how effectively the motorcycling community’s voice is heard. One purpose of the Meeting of the Minds is to ensure that that voice is heard, and effectively.

Issues the MRF is expecting to address in the near future include mandatory rider education, graduated licensing, and restricted access for motorcycles on some roadways.

Be grateful that someone is out there fighting for your rights. Consider joining them in the effort. You’ve got nothing to lose but your rights.

Biker Quote for Today

We want to be free to ride our machines without being hassled by the man. — Peter Fonda, The Wild Angels, 1966

Live to ride. Ride to live.

That’s a slogan we all know and appreciate. And clearly the first half of it is especially important. In Colorado last year there were 90 riders and passengers killed in motorcycle crashes, the highest ever recorded. You’ve got to live or you’re not going to ride.

It seems appropriate then that when the State of Colorado set up a motorcycle rider training program they named it the Live to Ride Program. Here’s a look at what the state put together.

The Live to Ride program is based around what is called “MOST,” which stands for Motorcycle Operator Safety Training. The MOST mission is “to provide high-quality, low-cost motorcycle training to residents and active-duty military personnel.” The fees we pay for motorcycle endorsements on our driver’s licenses and motorcycle vehicle registration fees fund MOST. The law that set all this up specifies certain minimum requirements for trainers who wish to participate in the program. MOST training classes are based on the Motorcycle Safety Foundation (MSF) model.

A list of certified MOST trainers is listed on the site. Currently there are 12 organizations on the list, including, not surprisingly, ABATE, and a bunch of others that I have frankly never heard of. That sort of raises my interest. Maybe I’ll have more to tell you about some of them later.

So anyway, Colorado is putting our money where our mouths are by setting up this program. Now it’s up to us. I know I took an Advanced Rider course through the MSF some years ago, as well doing a training day at a racetrack that was set up through the Concours Owners Group. It’s probably time for a refresher.

If we don’t want the state imposing safety measures we don’t want, such as helmet laws, we have to make it our duty to bring down these accident statistics. Helmets are great if you go down but it’s more important to not go down in the first place. Fewer accidents, not safer accidents, should be the primary goal.

Biker Quote for Today

Ride To Eat! Eat To Ride!