Passes & Canyons Blog

Does your town or city make a point to make dedicated motorcycle parking available? So many people talk about going “green” and riding a bike is certainly greener than driving a car, so shouldn’t cities be promoting motorcycle usage?

Before I get into this discussion I want to make it clear here what my purpose is. If your city does actively promote motorcycle commuting by mandating dedicated parking I want to hear from you. I’m looking for examples we can use to promote the same thing here.

This is an issue that a reader posted on my Examiner.com site, and which I have chosen to pursue. He suggested that we try to start a grassroots movement to have the city designate dedicated motorcycle parking on every block. I posted his remarks and called for reader response.

Another reader immediately took the initiative and contacted his state representative about getting a bill introduced in the legislature. In Colorado, however, legislators are restricted to introducing no more than five bills per session and everyone had already committed themselves for this year. Time to think about next year, but too late this year.

I also contacted the staff of a city councilwoman I have known for a long time asking how you would go about working for an ordinance to be enacted. I got a reply directing me to an agency set up by the mayor with the express purpose of working for green initiatives. I contacted those folks and got some good information about what the city is already considering, which includes designating the “end-cap” areas at the end of the block that are too small for cars as motorcycle parking. So there’s hope.

My point here is that the readership of my Examiner.com page is more local, while the readership of this blog is more widespread. If any of you have ideas or experience you can offer to give us a hand we would all very much appreciate it. We’re not experienced activists, we’re just some folks who think we have a good idea that we want to try to promote. Thanks in advance for anything you can offer.

Biker Quote for Today

Bikes don’t leak oil, they mark their territory.

What do you do if you’ve lost a leg but still want to pilot a motorcycle trike? In most states, to operate one of these vehicles you need a motorcycle validation on your driver’s license. That can be hard to get if you’re disabled in any of a number of ways.

Well, Colorado has answered that question. This one slipped by me but Terry Howard, State Coordinator of ABATE of Colorado, brought it to my attention when we spoke recently.

As of this summer, Section 1. 42-2-103, of the Colorado Revised Statutes, says, in part:

The department shall also require an applicant for a limited three-wheel motorcycle endorsement to demonstrate the applicant’s ability to exercise ordinary and reasonable care and control in the operation of a three-wheel motorcycle.

The act further states:

A person with only a limited three-wheel motorcycle endorsement may operate a three-wheel motorcycle but shall not operate a two-wheel motorcycle on a roadway.

This provision also applies to bikes with sidecars.
So there you go. You no longer have to have a full motorcycle license to ride a trike in Colorado. Credit for this goes primarily to ABATE of Colorado and the efforts it put behind getting this measure passed. By the way, ABATE of Colorado also offers rider training courses for three-wheelers and sidecars.

Biker Quote for Today

It is not what you ride, it is the fact that you ride.

There has been quite a discussion going on over on my Denver Motorcycle Examiner webpage in regard to a post I made there about a possible British motorcycle ban.

I picked up a news article from www.motorcyclenews.com, a British website, that said the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) in England told a committee of Parliament that “Motorcycles are seen in the UK to be, in the majority of instances, vehicles of choice rather than necessity and one might consider if our congested roads are any longer fit for purpose for these motorised toys.”

Well, that’s a show stopper. The article also spoke about an ACPO claim that many street bikes have too much power, and an ACPO request for chips in license plates to help identify bikes even if the police can’t catch them.

The post drew a number of comments from British bikers, such as f0ul who said:

The police in the UK have been as totalitarian as they can get away with over the past few years.

They managed to get at least 7 national shows banned over 2008 – they have been pushing for the national parks to have a motorcycle ban for a few years although I don’t think they will be able to do it because almost all proper laws in the UK are worked out in the EU by today.

With a number of bike manufacturers still in Europe (BMW etc.) this sort of law will be seen as a detriment of trade and there is no way the Germans will allow that!

However, there was another post “on behalf of the Association of Chief Police Officers” that said:

ACPO does not advocate the prohibition of motorcycle use on public roads. It is nonsense to suggest that ACPO is seeking a ban on motorcycles, given that most police forces in the UK actively deploy and consider motorcycles to be a key part of their transport infrastructure.

So the following day I published this reply as a follow-up post, expressing some reservations but concluding that without actually reporting the document in question I had no way of knowing whose version was closer to the truth.

Then I got comments on that post. John Procter had this to say:

Perhaps you need to look at the rather lengthy report that contained the ACPO statement. It may not be as draconian as initial snapshot reporting suggested, but there could still be some concern. The truth of the matter might be that some police chiefs are VERY anti bike, e.g., North Wales’ infamous police boss. However, a major problem we have here in the UK is very poor policing of our roads with a high dependency on speed cameras. Lack of traffic police has led to poorer driving with consequent effects on vulnerable motorcyclists, leading to worrying casualties.

I thanked John for helping clarify some of the issues here. I didn’t promise to read the report. Then the latest comment was a copy of an updated news report from the (I believe London) Telegraph. The reporter, Kevin Ash, wrote:

In a press release responding to concerns about the ACPO submission, David Griffin, Deputy Chief Constable of Humberside, stated: “It is nonsense to suggest that ACPO is seeking a ban on motorcycles,” even though it is clear in the report that ACPO suggests prohibiting motorcycles from some roads. The press release also said that ACPO does not have a position on imposing specific power limits on motorcycles, yet they appear to have a position in the submission to the Transport Committee.

Another strange claim by ACPO to the committee is that motorcycling presents a problem of “Vehicle Excise Duty evasion on a massive scale.” This appears to be based on a DVLA report published at the beginning of this year suggesting that almost 40 per cent of motorcycles are untaxed, even though an apology was later issued by the Commons public accounts committee when it was discovered the figures were wrong, and the true number was only slightly greater for motorcycles than cars, at about six per cent. In its submission, ACPO used the 40 per cent figure to suggest that motorcycles should be fitted with electronic chips to allow automatic vehicle identification. ACPO did not respond to The Daily Telegraph’s query about this.

A further inaccuracy presented to the committee by ACPO is that, “Production machines are readily available for use on our roads with top speeds in excess of 200 miles per hour.” In fact there are no production bikes capable of more than 200mph, even without the motorcycle industry’s voluntary 186mph speed limitation.

So, he said, no I didn’t, yes you did. It’s looking pretty messy over there. What does that have to do with us in the U.S., or more specifically in Colorado? Nothing directly, but you know that if laws like that get passed over on that side of the pond, someone over here will surely make similar proposals. I know I say this a lot, and I don’t mean to beat a dead horse, but this is exactly why I belong to the American Motorcyclist Association and why you should too, or else to the Motorcycle Riders Foundation or to your local ABATE. These are the guys fighting to protect our rights.

Biker Quote for Today

The great thing about riding through strange new places is that it invariably shows me just how wrong I am about them until I actually go there. Actual experience beats half-assed assumptions and prejudice.

This is great. I got the answers I was looking for on the issue of tiered licensing, which was raised several times at the Meeting of the Minds awhile back.

The person providing the information is Don Creamer, who is the state Legislative Affairs Specialist for ABATE of Colorado. Rather than paraphrase Don, I’ll just present his info directly.

First Don gave a better synopsis than I have of what tiered licensing can look like. Here’s what he said:

Tiered licensing consists of restricting riders to certain size engines on their bikes based upon their age. As an example, a 16 year old may only be able to ride a bike with 50cc’s or less, and this would be noted in some way on their operator’s license. In Europe the “unlimited” class (i.e., any engine larger than 650 cc) is limited to those 24 or older. For that reason many riders wait until they are 24 before they consider getting a bike.

This type of licensing relies upon the flawed assumption that age equals maturity and ability to handle a larger/more powerful machine.

When I asked Don what the issues were, as far as ABATE is concerned, this was his reply:

Fairness is also the driving issue (sorry for the pun) when it comes to tiered licensing. When you look at the numbers of fatalities involving automobiles as opposed to motorcycles, the “need” for tiered licenses for only motorcycles is not supported. It is surprisingly rare for a young person to be killed on a bike that has a large engine – kids can’t afford them! However, kids are regularly killed (usually in bunches of two or more) in cars that have large displacements when compared to bikes. So, who do the lawmakers go after? The motorcyclists of course. We are an easy, visible target. Down here in the Pikes Peak region, the kids who can afford to buy the hot crotch rockets (Ninjas, etc.) are the military troops who want additional excitement after spending 15 months in Iraq or Afghanistan getting shot at. Those 19 and 20 year olds can afford it because of their regular paychecks, sign-on bonuses, etc. College and high school students can’t.

Look at student parking lots at schools, and you won’t find many motorcycles. Most of these kids drive cars to schools and to their jobs. They can’t afford a bike for nice weather and a car for when it snows or rains. Their parents would explode if the legislature required those kids to drive small cars which provide less protection (but can still go pretty fast.)

If the legislature wants to get serious about doing something for kids they will require the wearing of helmets by children when they are riding in a car! The traumatic brain injury per capita rate is 14 times higher there than from motorcycle accidents. Now THAT requirement would cause some yelling!

I hope that this helps.

So that’s the scoop. Thanks Don, I really appreciate your help here.

Biker Quote for Today

It’s simple—Just Ride!

Are you aware that your insurance company may be excluding you from coverage on accidents where you are on a motorcycle? It’s a crock of bull but it’s a reality. Some insurance companies refuse to cover injuries incurred while doing totally legal things, like riding motorcycles, even if you are in no way at fault.

How would you feel if you were sitting stopped on your bike at a stop light and some drunk who has already lost his license for driving drunk hits you. You were completely legal and he was completely illegal, and yet your injuries are not covered while his, if he has any, are. It can happen!

This is an issue raised more than 10 years ago by the American Motorcyclist Association, and it was presumably resolved by legislation passed by Congress in 1996. But a funny thing happened on the way to implementation: the federal agency charged with formulating the rules around the legislation wrote rules that directly contradicted the intent, making it absolutely legal for insurance companies to do this.

Well, Congress is trying again. The HIPAA Recreational Injury Technical Correction Act, Senate Bill 616, is now under consideration, and we all need to let our Congressional representatives know we want them to pass it.

The AMA makes it easy for you to tell your senator what you want. This page on their website lets you click to bring up a form letter addressed to your senators. We all need to press to make sure this legislation gets passed. Do it now! This is really important.

Did you know this? I didn’t. Heck, if you’d asked me I’d have had to admit I couldn’t even name the U.S. Secretary of Transportation. But I know it now. That’s her in the photo.

So Mary Peters has been making some news lately, and raising some hackles. In her efforts to promote motorcycle safety she is accused of ignoring the law that prohibits federal bureaucrats from lobbying for or against specific state laws. In the June 2008 issue of American Motorcyclist, the publication of the American Motorcyclist Association, they have this to say:

But that doesn’t appear to be stopping Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, who told U.S. senators and representatives she wanted to lobby states to divert federal money away from motorcycle safety training and awareness programs and instead push for mandated helmet use.

Here’s my take on this. She crashed on her Harley and escaped serious injury thanks in part to her helmet. Now she’s a helmet evangelist. I’ve seen this before. About 15 years ago there was a young woman who suffered a head injury when the guy she was riding with hit the median on Orchard Road while going about 70 miles an hour. This was the first time she had ever been on a motorcycle but she told reporters from her hospital bed that she intended to devote her life to making helmet usage mandatory for all motorcyclists all the time. The difference between that young woman and Mary Peters is that Mary Peters is in a position to do something about her convictions.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with advocating helmet usage. There is something wrong, however, with becoming focused so totally on helmets that you dismiss other, equally important safety factors. “Divert federal money away from motorcycle safety training and awareness programs”? I’ve made the point before that wearing a helmet is not a be-all and end-all in motorcycle safety. In the report I was discussing it said that “About 42 percent of riders killed were not wearing helmets.” And I responded that what that means then is that 58 percent were wearing helmets — and they were killed anyway.

That’s why I believe that diverting funds from motorcycle safety training to mandating helmets is wrong-headed. We all need to wear helmets at times; some of us wear them all the time. We should all also take an occasional refresher training course. The Motorcycle Safety Foundation and ABATE have expanded their offerings lately due to demand. What we don’t need is some bureaucrat, even one who rides, cutting training funds.

Oh, and by the way, if the law says bureaucrats can’t legally lobby for or against specific state laws, I suggest the Secretary of Transportation ought to obey the law.

Update
I’ve written three follow-up posts on this subject:
Revisiting Mary Peters, Biker and DOT Secretary
Follow-up on Mary Peters, Secretary of US DOT
DOT Sec. Mary Peters Good for Bikers, Wrong on One Priority

Biker Quote for Today

Everyone crashes. Some get back on. Some don’t. Some can’t.