Passes & Canyons Blog

We were coming down from the Black Hills and had been in Nebraska for about an hour when we stopped at a table along the road. There was another guy there, in a car, and we struck up a conversation with him. Along the way he mentioned, “This is a bucket state, by the way.”

Oh really? We hadn’t known that and we had been riding without helmets on. Oops. We had done the same thing a year or two earlier when we rode into Nevada for the first time. Somehow we got all the way to Las Vegas before we learned they required helmets.

Of course that was a long time ago, before the Internet, and we could be excused our ignorance. Back then it wasn’t easy to know what different state laws are. And if a state does require helmets, why the heck don’t they put up a sign at the border that says so?

There’s no excuse anymore for being ignorant of the laws in a state you’ll be riding to. The Internet does exist now, and one excellent place to check up on all states is a handy page on the American Motorcyclist Association’s website. You go there and there’s a map of the U.S. Click on the state you want to know about and it takes you to a listing of what they require and forbid.

The very first item on the list, presumably because this is the most common question, is the helmet requirements, if any. Other information includes the following:

• Safety Helmet
• State Funded Rider Ed
• Eye Protection
• Daytime Use of Headlight
• Passenger Seat
• Passenger Footrest
• Passenger Age Restriction
• Helmet Speakers
• Periodic Safety Inspection
• Mirror Left(L) Right(R)
• Radar Detector
• Turn Signals
• Muffler
• Maximum Sound Level
• State Insurance Requirements
• Handlebar Height
• Rider-Education
• Accept Motorcycle Endorsement From Other States
• Accept RiderEd Completion Card From Other States
• Motorcycles operating two abreast in same lane
• Lane Splitting
• Lemon Law Coverage

I’ll bet you didn’t even know that some states have requirements or prohibitions in some of these areas. Heck, you might even learn something about your own state laws.

Any by the way, the page also has separate legal requirements for off-road bikes. All in all it’s a lot of good information.

Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
Fly and be groped or ride and have fun: Your choice

Biker Quote for Today

Remember when sex was safe and motorcycles were dangerous?

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.