Passes & Canyons Blog

I heard at the recent ABATE District 10 meeting that the Motorcycle Safety Foundation (MSF) was awarded the contract to administer Colorado’s Motorcycle Operator Safety Training (MOST) program, but the other bidder, Lee Parks’ Total Control is protesting that award.

Let’s recap.

The MOST program is paid for out of extra fees each of us pay each year when we renew our motorcycle registration. The program has passed most of that money along to motorcycle rider training programs to keep their prices for their training programs as low as possible, with the intent that this would encourage more riders to get trained.

With little oversight, however, it developed that some of this money was not being used as intended and so the state decided to hire a contractor to oversee the program. Bidders on the contract were Total Control and the MSF, both of which are curriculum providers. And therefore, in some people’s minds, awarding the contract to either would be a conflict of interest.

That much is pretty straightforward. From there it gets really twisted. My associate, Matt Wessels, had intended to present a comprehensive discussion of the numerous claims and counterclaims regarding the MSF and MOST but after I ran a post quoting some of what Matt had told me, I received an email from Robert Gladden at the MSF claiming that much of what Matt said is untrue.

“Based on the words I see here I can guess who is likely sources are and they have long history of making similar false claims about the MSF,'” said Gladden.

I replied to that email making the point that I had asked the MSF for comment and had not heard back from them, but that Matt and I would welcome the opportunity to speak with them. The reply to me was “Our media department received your inquiry and are working on a response, we are waiting for a few more pieces of the puzzle to come together.” That was May 15 and the last I’ve heard.

However, more recently I checked in with Matt on this and he told me, “Concerning the MOST issue, taking to heart that last email that was sent to me, I saw I needed to keep digging, and have been doing just that to unearth this incredibly convoluted history. Gotta set the records straight and finding the people with an accurate account of what happened a decade and a half ago is very difficult, however, should have something soon.”

So now you’re up to date.

Biker Quote for Today

Motorcycling is not, of itself, inherently dangerous. It is, however, extremely unforgiving of inattention, ignorance, incompetence, or stupidity.

Given a reprieve last year following years of poor oversight, the Colorado MOST program’s new rules have been agreed upon and should go into force in mid-March.

MOST, or Motorcycle Operator Safety Training, provides funding to reduce the cost of motorcycle safety training for riders. That funding comes from an extra fee motorcyclists pay each year when they renew their plates, and when they renew their drivers’ licenses.

After surviving the legislative inquest regarding the poor oversight, the program was once again threatened when legislators on the relevant committee concluded they wanted to keep the fees but eliminate the trainee benefit, using the fees only to pay for other motorcycle safety efforts. That would have totally negated the purpose of the MOST program and left motorcyclists paying extra for programs that people in cars and trucks pay nothing extra for. Talk about unfair!

That challenge was faced and overcome, and now the final rules have been laid out and, according to ABATE of Colorado State Coordinator Terry Howard, they are acceptable. Howard told members at yesterday’s ABATE District 10 meeting that now it is time for members to let their legislators know they support the rules.

The process now was spelled out in an email from Emiliano Barela, of the Colorado Department of Transportation:

This email is to let you know that the rules were adopted by the Executive Director with no changes on January 14th. We have submitted them for review to the attorney general’s office today. That office has 20 days to review them, so must send us an opinion prior to Feb. 3rd. Once they send us the opinion, we file them with the Secretary of State: http://www.sos.state.co.us/CCR/RegisterHome.do and they are published in the Colorado Register. We believe they will be published on Feb. 10th, and they become effective 5 weeks later, so by mid-March. Attached are the same rules you reviewed for the public rule making hearing (red-line and final draft). There are no changes (except maybe numbering corrections) since that draft. The clean version will be the official rules when they are published.

Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
Only a biker knows . . .: Motorcycle wit and wisdom, #25

Biker Quote for Today

Practice makes perfect and is just an empty parking lot away.

The Motorcycle Operator Safety Training (MOST) program is in danger once again. And this time the Colorado Confederation of Clubs (COC) and ABATE are on the same side of the argument.

Let me make it clear before I go any further that this is not a news report. If it was I would need to do a lot of research and pull together information that I frankly am not inclined to devote the time to. So what I’m passing along here is simply what Terry Howard, ABATE’s State Coordinator, told us at yesterday’s ABATE District 10 meeting.

I knew there was a meeting scheduled for Oct. 18 on the changes to be made to the MOST program, and while I considered going, I didn’t get around to it. In retrospect, I wish I had gone. What Terry told us about the meeting was totally unexpected.

It appears that the legislative committee working on the issue came to the conclusion that the extra amount motorcyclists pay when they renew their licenses should be reduced from $4 to $2. Now just to refresh your memory, the extra charge is to pay for MOST, which was created as a way to lower the cost to riders when they take approved motorcycle training courses. The idea is that better-trained riders will be safer riders and suffer fewer fatalities and other crashes.

Along with the fee reduction, the committee was proposing this: The subsidy for rider training would be eliminated, and the remaining $2 would be used solely to fund rider safety programs along the lines of the general motoring programs to discourage drunk driving, get people to wear their seat belts, and such.

Whoa nelly! That would essentially eliminate MOST and have us paying extra for the same sorts of programs that car drivers pay nothing extra for.

“You’re gonna have a fight on your hands if you pursue this,” is what Terry said she told the committee members. In short, ABATE would rather see MOST eliminated entirely than have the training subsidy ended while we continue to pay extra.

Not surprisingly, the COC feels the same way. That group worked against continuation of the MOST program back in February and you can bet they feel this sort of change would make a bad situation much worse. Terry said ABATE representatives and COC representatives have met to discuss this and other issues and it appears there may be a thawing in the chilly relations between the two. I’ll have more on that later.

So we’ll see what happens next. This will be interesting.

Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
Book review: How to Ride Off-Road Motorcycles

Biker Quote for Today

What are you doing to protect your right to ride?

Senate Bill 89, which would have eliminated Colorado’s Motorcycle Operator Safety Training (MOST) program, died in committee Tuesday. But the senators who wish to give reform efforts a chance to succeed made it clear they will vote differently in the future if the program is not fixed.

The idea that the program has problems was not contested by anyone. The only discussion was on whether to kill the program outright or first let those involved with MOST do what they can to fix it. On a party line vote, the majority Democrats on the committee voted for the latter while the minority Republicans voted to kill the program.

In arguing for killing MOST, Sen. Scott Renfroe, the bill’s sponsor, challenged the need for such a program and said it was an area in which the government need not get involved. Sen. Renfroe made it clear he supports rider training, pointing out that he himself rides motorcycles, but that he feels the program has outlived its usefulness.

Opponents of the bill expressed concerns that killing MOST could result in the loss of an annual $100,000 grant for motorcycle safety efforts from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration. They also said that in talks with the Colorado Department of Revenue (DoR), DoR had made it clear that if MOST was killed, the department would no longer accept Beginning Rider Course certification in lieu of the department’s own testing of riders seeking to get licensed. Sen. Renfroe said he questioned whether DoR would in fact do that.

If DoR did do that, opponents pointed out, it would mean that the expense of testing, which is currently borne by the riders taking the courses, would fall on DoR, driving up government expenses.

Sen. Renfroe pointed to results of a survey conducted among riders who had taken the courses, saying that the riders themselves stated overwhelmingly that an increase in the price of the class would not have deterred them from taking them. Speaking for the Colorado Department of Transportation, which supported allowing time for the program to be fixed, Herman Stockinger pointed out that in fact, the survey showed that nearly 50 percent had said a $70 increase would indeed have caused them to reconsider. Seventy dollars per student is the amount that rider training is subsidized through MOST.

“That’s perhaps 4,000 plus people (per year) who wouldn’t have taken the training,” said Stockinger.

So MOST has a reprieve but it is not out of the woods. It is now up to those involved with MOST to put into effect the recommendations of a legislative audit report. And if those recommendations are not enacted, the next time this issue comes up the outcome could be very different.

Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
Colorado motorcycle training program gets reprieve

Biker Quote for Today

It’s our job. Burnin’ gasoline, killin’ bugs, and wearing out tires! — StevenE Fristoe