Passes & Canyons Blog

I’ve been at the Motorcycle Riders Foundation Meeting of the Minds, which is currently in progress here in Denver, and I’ll have a lot to report over the next several posts. I figure I’ll start with U.S. Dept. of Transportation Sec. Mary Peters considering that I’ve written about her here on several previous occasions.

The word is cautiously good. As I’ve stated before, Peters is a biker herself but, having had a bad spill and escaping more serious injury due to her helmet, she had become somewhat of a helmet zealot. More specifically, she was urging that funds designated for rider training be diverted to efforts to pass helmet laws in all states. I won’t go into all the issues that raises, I did that earlier. Go read that post to get the details.

Her proposal was met with solid opposition from the various biker organizations, including the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA), the MRF, and numerous ABATE groups, to name several. Speaking today with Kirk “Hardtail” Willard, the MRF’s president, I asked about the status of this dispute.

As Hardtail tells me, Peters first backed off saying that the rider training money should not be spent to promote mandatory helmet laws but rather to promote voluntary helmet usage. That was an improvement but still evoked some of the same issues as her original proposal.

After further discussion, Hardtail said, she backed off further, apologizing for the whole misguided proposal and promising to send letters to all state governors explicitly nullifying her proposal.

The reason the word is cautiously good is that those letters have not been sent yet. “We want to see those letters,” said Hardtail. He added that Sec. Peters is planning a press conference today or tomorrow and the MRF is interested to see what she plans to discuss.

As for rider safety, the MRF president reiterated the organization’s position that the goal of lowering motorcycle fatality rates will be accomplished more successfully by working to reduce accidents through rider training, share the road programs for motorists, and impaired riding programs, rather than increasing helmet use. Fewer accidents, not safer accidents, will save riders’ lives.

Biker Quote for Today

Well-trained reflexes are quicker than luck.

We all know that bad legislation that would unfairly affect motorcyclists gets introduced and sometimes passed in legislative bodies at all levels. Who should we thank when these proposals are defeated or revoked? I’ve mentioned the American Motorcyclist Association on numerous occasions, and they do a lot of work in this area. Another organization fighting for our rights is the Motorcycle Riders Foundation.

Here’s what the MRF says about itself on its website home page:

The Motorcycle Riders Foundation (MRF), incorporated in 1987, is a membership-based national motorcyclists’ rights organization headquartered in Washington, D.C. The MRF monitors and when necessary, sways federal legislation and regulatory action that pertains to street riders. The MRF concerns itself with what is going on in the arena of motorcycling safety education, training, licensing, and public awareness. The MRF provides members and state motorcyclists’ rights organizations with direction and information to protect motorcyclists’ rights and motorcycling. The MRF sponsors annual regional and national educational seminars for motorcyclists’ rights activists and publishes a bi-monthly newsletter, The MRF Reports.

Well, the MRF is coming to Denver. Every year the organization holds two regional and one national conference. The Meeting of the Minds, MRF’s national conference, will be held in Denver this year Sept. 25-28. This is the kind of conference you will want to attend if you care passionately about protecting our rights. Registration before Aug. 18 is $60 for members, $70 for non-members.

The agenda includes topics such as “The Motorcycling Community – Working Together,” an international transport forum on motorcycle safety, impaired riding, state legislative updates, and more, as well as some fun activities and — or course! — a ride.

I’ll be bringing you more information about this as it draws near, and with any luck I’ll manage to attend at least part of it. If you want to attend, here’s the link for registration.

Biker Quote for Today

Training, the best safety and performance “equipment” you can get!