Passes & Canyons Blog

Can you tell these folks aren't in Nebraska?

If you live in Colorado there’s a good chance you occasionally ride in Utah and Nebraska, east and west of us. This current legislative session they’ve both had some potentially good bills introduced that have to do with motorcycles, but it doesn’t look like anything will make it into law.

In Utah they have a bill that would allow lane-splitting. Lane-splitting is when bikes go down the road between cars when the cars are stopped or slowed way down in traffic jams. California is the only U.S. state that currently allows this, and it works fine there. More than that, the rest of the world does it and it works fine all over the world. Go to Paris or Rome or just about any place of your choosing and see how well it works. Why do we have to be the dummies who think there’s something wrong with this?

Well, Utah is going to stay a dummy. According to a story in the Deseret News, “Several members of the House Transportation Committee said they had safety concerns about HB281, and they voted 7-1 to table the measure until more study is done.” Can you say “dead”? Why this euphemism about “tabled”? Well the guy who introduced it–a Republican I will note–said he’ll reintroduce it next session. Till then . . .

Over in Nebraska they’ve been kicking around the idea of repealing their helmet law. I don’t care how stupid you might think anyone is to ride without a helmet, I simply believe it should be the rider’s choice. I always wear a helmet these days (not true in my younger days) and so this law would have no effect on me, but I just don’t think it’s the government’s place to forcing us to be “safe.” Why don’t they outlaw using cell phones when you’re driving? They’d save more lives that way, if that was truly what they cared about. Of course they’d save even more lives if they just outlawed motor vehicles. You know what they say: If it saves even just one life . . . !

So will you be able to ride lidless in Nebraska soon? Not likely. As in, fat chance.

They do apparently have the votes to make it happen, if it could just come to a vote. But guess what? The opponents are filibustering it. Who cares what the majority wants, if we can keep it from coming to a vote the minority rules! I couldn’t have been more pleased when the U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid changed the filibuster rules there. The Republicans screamed bloody murder but you better believe they’ll be overjoyed for what Harry has done the next time they’re in the majority.

But hey, it’s just like baseball: There’s always next year.

Biker Quote for Today

“The motorcycle, being poorly designed for both flight and marine operation, sustained significant external and internal damage,” police noted.

ABATE District 10's first meeting in new quarters.

Sunday was the January meeting of my ABATE District 10, for the first time in our new meeting space–and definitely a step up!

For as long as I’ve been a member we have met at the Frontier Club out on East Colfax, which is kind of a dive bar. It wasn’t bad but apparently some people objected to the idea of a biker organization that promotes riding safety to be meeting in a bar. So we moved to Noonan’s over at the Heather Ridge country club, in a private meeting room. Some members opposed the move and unfortunately, they were noticeable at this meeting in their absence.

So if anyone ever wonders about how motorcycle events come to be held–poker runs, rides–this meeting was a demonstration of the answer. Almost the entire meeting was taken up with two areas of focus. One was the safeguarding of riders’ liberties and the other was planning events.

On the safeguarding liberties front, a guy who goes by Stump was there. He is the ABATE of Colorado legislative liaison and he was there talking about a lot of bills or potential bills in this new session of the Colorado legislature.

One was a proposed bill to prohibit anyone under the age of 8 from being a passenger on a motorcycle. This had the appearance of a solution looking for a problem. The representative behind this thing is Joann Ginal, a Democrat from Fort Collins. According to Stump–and I do acknowledge that Stump could be biased–this thing got started with Ginal was approached by a couple constituents who didn’t think this was safe, and that the legislature should do something to protect kids. Apparently, however, no one–not the Colorado State Patrol, CDOT, or anyone else–thought there was any need for such legislation. Also, it seems one of the people who approached Ginal was the wife in a divorcing couple, and her to-be-ex likes to take their kids for rides–which she does not like. Let’s get the government involved!

Lacking no good statistics on the number of accidents with motorcycles involving kids, it appears the bill will go nowhere. But that’s the kind of thing ABATE tries to look out for. And by the way, ABATE has a new logo, that includes the wording, “Dedicated to Freedom of the Road.”

The events planning portion was total nuts and bolts. Although each event has its own committee, some of the details get hammered out at the district meeting. For instance, we talked about the upcoming (July 12) Iron Azz ride, a 500-miles in 12 hours ride. Would there be T-shirts? Would they be included in the $25 registration fee or do we sell them?

Or the Blessing of the Bikes, in May. Do we continue to sell the little pigs that are the trinket of the event (they cost 97 cents and sell for one dollar) or does everyone just get one? The suggestion was raised that not all traditions are worth continuing, but the response was that the riders always want something as a token of the event. So the decision was to keep the pigs, give them at no extra charge to all participants, but revamp the registration so instead of $10 per rider and $5 for the passenger, everyone just pays $10.

Yeah, it’s pretty mundane, but you can bet these sorts of discussions go on for every event you attend. They don’t just spring into the universe fully formed.

Biker Quote for Today

Adventure begins when your plan falls apart.