Deputy Director Report

by John Reblin

The past, present and future.

The summer is rolling along with something going on everywhere. I hope you are getting out on the bike and enjoying that favorite time of the year. One thing I do want to talk about before we get into the meat of the article is the upcoming Motorcycle Peer exchange taking place August 21st at the Grand Geneva Resort in Lake Geneva. This is held from 3pm until 5 pm and is open to the public to discuss issues facing riders. Register at /www.eventbrite.com/e/pre-conference-44rd-governors-conference-on-highway-safety-tickets-46084825955 answering a couple of questions and you will be good to go. Any questions you can give me a call or email me at depdir@abatewis.org. The MoSAC meeting will be held shortly after if you are inclined to join in that also.

Living in the southeast corner of the state is in my opinion, great. Vibrant Cities close by with festivals, music and other great things to do. A few miles by bike or car takes you from the lakefront through a downtown area with great old buildings, travel a few miles and you are going through the hills and curves of the Kettle Moraine.

A few months ago, when visiting Milwaukee to see a concert, I was concerned with what was going on the city streets. It was hard to get around with all the road construction. I then remembered Milwaukee was installing the rails for the trolley that will be running in the city. The mayor got a federal grant along with some innovative tax increases decided to make the city less dependent on personal transportation and offering another solution.  A few weeks later I was working downtown and saw the wires being installed overhead for the trolleys to get electric power the trolley along the new city rail system. It was a scene that if you squint and look around you can almost imagine a time of prohibition, the era of depression, and the end of WW1. Picturing this trolley, running a closed loop right now, mingled in with traffic along with pedestrians. Looking like it may cause some issues, I can picture now motorcycles and bicycles trying to square up to the exposed tracks trying to cross them. I can see congestion as the trolley stops at the platforms that are up tight to the roadway, and I can also see the loss of much needed parking for people to visit our fine city. I also see maintenance issues in the winter with snow on the tracks and power wires. Time will tell on the acceptance of this mode and where it goes from here.

Now on the state level we are rushing into the future. About a year ago I wrote about how Wisconsin was joining the Jetsons and was working towards that self-driving vehicle. I was told and personally thought that eh, it’s going to take a while to get here. Recently our legislature passed a bill that will allow the possible testing of platooned trucks.

What are these platooned trucks? To put it simply picture a quantity of say 4 semi -trucks with trailers parked end to end 4-6 feet apart. There is a driver in the lead tractor, his vehicle is “connected” to the remaining units by computers and Wi-Fi and the driver leads this train of vehicles down the road. There are no drivers in the other 3, or whatever the quantity allowed, vehicles. This is opening up so many questions such as how are they going to get to much less merge onto the freeway? And let’s be honest here we have been behind some semi’s that with the loads carried need additional time and space to get to that safe freeway speed. And how are they going to navigate safely from lane to lane, an object 300-400 feet long. And is just a mere couple of feet between units enough space for the vehicles to stop safely? We have not even gotten into how other road users are going to be able to maneuver around these “road trains”.

It is worrisome that a city is looking to the early 1900’s for correcting an issue and the state is looking towards the future. But no one is looking at the present to see if the technology is available or at the many other issues, questions and concerns that will arise to solve reducing congestion and crashes. Some people in high places feel we need this technology here.  Reading a book about the Apollo 8 mission I found a portion that fits here. Pilots think of aircraft as dumb machine with a brilliant person operating it. Engineers sees flight as their responsibility, and people and equipment being just two parts of many that they need to get working together properly to succeed. So, as we look at these vehicles and the possibility of testing, is there any oversight? The testing done in other states has some, but it really is vague. Can we as other road users feel safe, not sure.   ABATE of Wisconsin is lucky to have Ric Mellon sitting on the advisory committee for this technology, helping us to understand this technology, and we as an organization will be looking at the future of these autonomous and platooned vehicles on Wisconsin roads and where we fit in.

Last month we lost Jim Schwamer in a right of way crash, along with his wife Dawn suffering severe injuries. They were both very active in Region 2E and the motorcycle community, always willing to help out behind the scenes. Keep Dawn and the family in your thoughts as they heal from injuries and the loss of Jim.