 Legislative Report
By Dave Dwyer
Madison: We
attended a meeting June 8th with Rep. Pridemore about the problems
we are seeing with enforcement and compliance with the ROW penalty provisions of
Act 466. There seems to be several problems with the enforcement and penalty
provisions of the bill. Enforcement officers are, in the opinion of some, not
able to write the tickets to require offenders to appear in front of a judge.
Judges are saying they can not send ROW violators to Share the Road class
because of the way the bill was written and the lack of a “DOT approved class”
or a class sponsored by a Sheriff’s Department.
Currently there is not a
process that we are aware of to get our Share the Road class approved by DOT
for ROW violators. The letter we have from Ron Thompson informing Driver
Education Instructors that our course is available and can be presented by our
instructors does not seem to be sufficient. Also, reinstatement of a license
suspended under Act 466 does not seem to be dependant on completing a
Motorcycle Awareness class. We all agree that a legislative fix is needed to
straighten this out. We will be meeting in early September to get drafting
started on new bill.
With our State Legislature
out of session until next year we will not be able to have any fixes acted on
anymore this year. This issue will be at the forefront of our Lobby Day for
2011.
Washington D. C. : Congress
continues to plug along working on many things not related to transportation
even though the Highway Spending bill has lapsed and is running on extensions.
It seems that the current majority leadership in both houses of Congress wants
to wait until after the fall election to take up finding a way to raise the
needed money for roads and bridges. With the poor state of the economy and
people driving less and more vehicles getting better mileage, the gas tax is
not bringing in enough money to fully fund the needs of road and bridge
construction and repair, along with all the other programs that are funded by
the gas tax.
In my opinion this may be in
part due to the possibility that there may be a power shift after the election
and the current party in power can claim that the other party is then
responsible for raising taxes to fund transit, while neglecting to talk about
their own failure to pass a new highway spending bill when they were in power.
If all this sounds like putting the good of the political parties ahead of what
is good for the country, I think you just might be right.
If you have a favorite
candidate running for office, federal, state or local, get out there and give
them some help. Those that win this fall’s elections will be glad for all the
help they get and will not forget the people that helped. As motorcyclists we
can use all the friends we can get in government.
Around the Country - I have been told that bikers in California are now
being ticketed if their motorcycle frame is too close to the ground. Folks are
checking to see if there is some new section in California vehicle code, or if
this is something that just has not been enforced in the past.
In Utah if you get a speeding
ticket on your bike and are wearing a helmet your fine is less than if you are
not. They are having the same problem we are with their Share the Road program,
not enough instructors.
In Oregon the fine for riding
without a motorcycle endorsement on your license and getting caught is $720,
and the police are working hard to enforce this. 40% of their motorcycle
fatalities are not licensed to ride a motorcycle. They will have mandatory
rider training to get a motorcycle endorsement for everyone starting in 2011.
Arizona passed a ROW bill that includes a 90 day license
suspension for causing an injury and a 120 day license suspension for causing a
death.
Washington bikers had 500+ people at their “Black Thursday”
lobby day this year. Their Safety and Education programs survived attempted
budget cuts and a $124 fine for hand held cell phone use while driving was
passed.
Albuquerque New Mexico now
has city wide “quiet zones” where you can get a ticket for making “excessive
noise” even though excessive noise is not defined.
These are just some of the
issues facing motorcyclists around the western states. The motorcyclists in the
few western states that do have a universal helmet law are eager to get them
modified to adult choice, but their governments are just not cooperating.
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