Report from MotM: Update on Sec. Mary Peters

Meeting of the MindsI’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.

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