Passes & Canyons Blog

I wrote an unfavorable piece about U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters that you may recall, about her efforts to divert money earmarked for rider training to promote helmet use and state laws requiring helmet use. Randy Bingner replied to that and I’d like to share our discussion.

Randy’s initial response was this:

I suggest step back from your focus on helmet laws and look at everything Mary Peters is doing for the motorcycling community. It is very difficult to be critical when you look at the big picture.

I was interested and wanted to know more. I sent Randy this reply:

I appreciate your comment on my Mary Peters post. I’ll be completely honest with you and say I don’t know much at all about what she has done or tried to do except what I read in American Motorcyclist. I would be really pleased if you would write a guest post addressing that topic. Something to balance out my frankly more superficial take on the matter. Are you interested?

Here is Randy’s answer:

I have been at the Sturgis rally the past week and just got home. You could Google and find no end to information. Basically, in my opinion, the most telling quote from Mary Peters, and I will paraphrase, is that when highways are designed, constructed, and maintained, the motorcycle should not be an afterthought. I am attaching a recent article I wrote for the back page of another newsletter. The fact that this initiative exists is due in large part to the fact that we have a rider at the head of the USDOT. I am an AMA member, but I do not agree with all positions it takes. Motorcyclists are a comparatively small group when you look at all users of the transportation system. The more we get divided, the easier it will be to lose rights and privileges. I am for freedom of choice. I chose to wear a helmet and leather.

So that’s a starting point. I intend to follow Randy’s suggestion and do some research to learn more about what Mary Peters has done, and I’ll pass that along to you. And I want to thank Randy for offering his take on the matter.

I do want to make one other point, however. I stand by my original argument that taking money from rider training to push for helmet requirements is inappropriate. Helmet usage becomes moot if accidents are avoided in the first place. I think rider training is the most important of the two.

Biker Quote for Today

Ride as if your life depended on it!!

If you’re interested in some terrific old motorcycle videos I strongly recommend you visit helmethairblog.com. Not all of this blog is videos but the author, Jesper Bram, of Denmark, is good at finding really fun and interesting stuff and posting it.

Here’s one of the recent videos he posted. See for yourself.

Biker Quote for Today

Life may begin at 30, but it doesn’t get real interesting until about 110.

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.

Of course you assume that people do some things differently in other countries but it can surprise you when you see just what it is they do differently, and how it’s different. We experienced that a number of times in our recent two-week trip to France, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

The one theme that seemed to run along with each of these realizations was the thought that “Gosh that makes a lot of sense. Too bad they would never allow that in the U.S.”

Take lane-splitting, for instance. Lane-splitting is where scooters and motorcycles slip past slow-moving or stopped cars, running down the dividers between the lanes of traffic. While it has been officially endorsed and declared legal in California, most other states forbid it or are silent on the subject.

But have you ever seen it in action? Our best chance to observe it was in Paris, where two-wheelers, primarily scooters, abound by the thousands. First the light would turn red and vehicles would begin to stop. Then a scooter would come up and pull right down the middle to the front. The longer the red the more scooters would line up between lanes, and at the turn of the green they would sprint forward leaving the cars behind and racing in a pack on down the street.

Of course there are several reasons why lane-splitting might not work as well in this country as it does in Europe. For one thing, it puts more of a burden on the drivers of all vehicles to pay attention and look out for other vehicles. It would also require a recognition by the drivers of the big behemoths that smaller vehicles have their right to a place on the road as well. Pretty unthinkable, both of those.

But it’s working in California and if it can work in that car-crazed state you would think it could work anywhere. All it would take is some open-mindedness in our legislatures. I mean, think of the benefits: Commuters on two wheels burn less gas, cause less pollution, cause less congestion, and get to work faster. The more these benefits grow, the more people will want to enjoy them, so the more will ride rather than drive. It becomes a virtuous circle, the opposite of a vicious circle.

With gas at $4 now and likely to keep going higher the time to try to change some laws is now. Write your legislator. Let’s get a movement started across the country!

Biker Quote for Today

There are two types of people in this world, people who ride motorcycles and people who wish they could ride motorcycles.

Redlegs went down on his bike recently and came out in pretty good shape, with only a separated shoulder. He attributes it to ATGATT. That stands for All The Gear, All The Time.

I’ll back up just a moment to explain that Redlegs is a fellow motorcycle blogger who I have never met but have communicated with a number of times via email and comments we have posted on each others’ blogs. We may actually have literally rubbed shoulders recently at the Top Gun event but didn’t know it until we saw that we had each been there and written about it.

So in another overlap, we both went up to Frisco to the Concours Owners Group rally recently, though I went on Monday and he went on Friday. My trip was fine. For Redlegs, however, things were not so fine. Approaching the Eisenhower Tunnel, he hit some black ice and went down, at high speed. Ouch.

Redlegs says he always does the ATGATT thing, and right now he’s pretty darn happy about that. I have to admit, I don’t. Certainly I understand that if you go down you’re going to be extremely happy to have been wearing every bit of protective gear you own. And referring to another voice, Mark Tuttle Jr., editor of Rider magazine, says in his July 2008 column, “Take it from someone who has left his share of skin on the pavement–you don’t want to.”

I understand this. I believe these guys. So why don’t I do it? And obviously I’m not alone in not doing it. Why do so many of us ignore what we know is good advice?

I’ll be honest. A part of me has never gotten beyond my youthful conviction that I’m immortal and really bad things just won’t happen to me. For another thing, I’ve been riding for about 19 years now and the only time I ever went down on one of my bikes was going down a gravel road at about 5 miles per hour when a big dog walked out from between two parked cars, right into my path. In a slow motion split second I nailed my front brakes, realized they weren’t going to be enough, and touched the rears. Down instantly. But other than a bruised shoulder I was unhurt and my passenger was also unhurt. And we were not wearing helmets, but that was OK because our heads didn’t hit the ground.

The fact is, I like riding without a helmet. First of all, it’s extremely pleasant, and is a large part of what I find so enjoyable about riding. Secondly, when I do wear the helmet it gets very uncomfortable, even painful, when I wear it for a long time. Now, regarding this latter point, it may be that I just need a different helmet. But I’ve had a number of helmets over the years and the same has been true for all of them. They hurt my head. That said, I always wear a helmet in winter, I usually wear one when I’m riding on the interstate, and at other times it just depends on the weather and how I feel.

As for other gear, like leather jacket and chaps and gloves, I wear them depending on the ride and the weather. I wear the jacket and gloves the most, quite a lot of the time. The chaps I primarily wear in winter, when I judge that the possibility for a spill is greater and when the extra warmth they provide is welcome. I have a good pair of boots and I wear them on long rides but if I’m just hopping on the bike to go to the gym I don’t bother.

I’m pretty sure there are a lot of guys like me. ATGATT is a great concept but we just don’t see it as realistic. So I’ve worked out my compromise. In bad weather I wear it all. The odds are just more heavily weighted toward a mishap in bad weather. When I’m just trying to get somewhere and make time, I wear most of it, particularly the helmet and jacket. At times like that, the enjoyment is not the primary focus of the trip so I just hunker down and go. When it’s cold I wear all of it. That’s simple; it keeps me warm. The fact that it would protect me in a spill is secondary, though not unimportant.

But when it’s a beautiful summer day and we’re out on a lonely two-lane road just taking it easy and enjoying the ride, I’m sorry, I don’t want to wear a helmet. I judge that the danger is slight and it’s just worth it to me to take that small chance. And remember: Last year about 42 percent of motorcyclists killed in accidents were not wearing helmets. That means that 58 percent were wearing helmets and they were killed anyway. Sometimes you just play the odds. Yes, sometimes you lose. But I think this Biker Quote for Today sums it up for me pretty nicely.

Biker Quote for Today

Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in one pretty and well preserved piece, but to skid across the line broadside, thoroughly used up, worn out, leaking oil, shouting HOLY CRAP!

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.