Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

by Steve Panten

Here we are, in December, with all the cold and snow just getting started but at least we are done with election commercials for a few months. At least until we get closer to April. As tough as it is to get through, the election season is important to motorcyclists. Who is going to be elected to represent the constituents and what are their feelings towards motorcycling and motorcyclists?

With this election being final in the State of Wisconsin, we know who we will be working with. Some legislators that been very supportive of us are still in office, and then there are some new faces that said they would support us if elected. Soon we will have to the opportunity to learn how serious they were.

No matter how you feel about the results of election, the important thing is that this is the group that we have to work with. How we communicate our message to them is as important as the message itself. Keeping in mind that we are not opposed to higher ethanol blends and driverless technology, but rather protecting the lower ethanol fuels and ensuring that the new technologies recognize us is our message.

This February, at Officers Training, we will have a mock lobby day meeting to help explain our position. We all understand how important it is to protect the only fuel that we can use in most of our motorcycles but how can we communicate that message without making us anti-ethanol. No matter what your feelings are towards it, it is here and most likely not going away until we are all driving electric vehicles.

Protecting the future of motorcycling is going to come down to us protecting ourselves and our brothers and sisters. Motorcycle fatalities are down over 30% over last year but we still need to do better. Eliminating rider error crashes would put us on much stronger ground. Roughly 50% of our fatalities are still single vehicle crashes. Riders running off the road, falling over or out running our headlights is making the anti-motorcycling groups job easier. Along with that, throw in impaired riding, and then fixing the problems with driverless technology software not recognizing motorcycles is easier to solve. Eliminate motorcycles from the roads. Reduce fatalities by 25% and fix the software problems by eliminating motorcycling seems like the easy button for some bureaucrats except that there are some dedicated motorcyclists looking to preserve our rights that will do whatever we can to protect our right to ride. Thank you for being an ABATE member.

In November I had the privilege to speak at the AMA District 16 annual meeting. We have partnered with the AMA on a few issues including them testifying against the Kwik Trip blended nozzle bill and us supporting their ice racing ban fight. It is a privilege to get to share with this group what we are working on. They have their own fights with losing access to trails and trying to find places to ride their off-road bikes, but we have a lot in common. I look forward to working with them on issues affecting both of us in the future.

Well, it was a long battle, but we finally got Congressman Fitzgerald to sign on to the motorcyclist profiling resolution in Congress. H. Res. 366 now has 7 of the 8 House of Representatives from the State of Wisconsin signed on to it. All we need is Congresswoman Moore from Milwaukee to sign on to it and we will continue to work on that. If she represents you, take a minute to call her office asking her to sign on (DC office 202-255-4572 or local office 414-297-1140) or better yet, stop in at a town hall meeting when she is in the district and ask her to sign on.

November and December are great times of year to spend with family and friends. I enjoy going to ABATE meetings in different areas, but it is especially enjoyable in December. It seems this is the month that many members realize how important it is to check up on each other and what better place than your local ABATE meeting. Enjoy your family, enjoy your friends but most important, let’s take care of each other. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!