HAPPY NEW YEAR!

by Steve Panten

I hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable Christmas and New Year. I like to think of the new year as new opportunities so, Happy New Opportunities!

The start of a new year is kind of a reset and refocus on what is important. Maybe it’s because from Thanksgiving through the end of the year, the weeks are pretty crazy with gatherings, and mixed-up schedules, but once Jan 2nd (or 3rd depending upon how hard I hit it on New Year’s Eve) comes around, it’s time to start being productive. I like to start my New Opportunities time by drinking coffee and taking a shower, THEN I am ready to go!

In the start of every new year, motorcyclists have a chance to reset and refocus as well. This starts with our Officer’s Training event where we get to feed off of the knowledge and experiences of everyone in the organization to recharge. This year during Officer’s Training we are going to focus on what we did right last year, but also what we need to do for a successful 2022. I am definitely looking forward to listening to better ways of doing things, but I am also excited to be able to lead the Legislative Committee with information that we are bringing to Lobby Day.

When the conversations about autonomous and connected vehicles first started showing up roughly 10 years ago, it was our past Executive Director, Ric Mellon, who kept saying that we need to get ahead of this. He saw what was happening and tried to get us to open our eyes and get on board with challenging the technology due to its questionable consistency and accuracy. Suddenly, the thought of electric cars and cars having the ability to drive themselves became more popular and we started to better understand what he was saying. I think what really hit home for me was when I saw the show “The Last Motorcycle on Earth” and I saw what our future could be.

I know that I have been talking about this, and writing about this for a few years now, but I am not sure that everyone is fully on board with where motorcycling is headed. 2022 is our chance to regroup and take a closer look at it. Let’s make sure that everyone truly understands what the phrase “The Future of Motorcycling in Wisconsin” is really about. At Officer’s Training we are going to let attendees watch the Last Motorcycle on Earth and then hopefully, we can all understand what we are facing.

Lobby Day 2022 is going to be about getting the Legislators to understand how important motorcycling is to us, and to the State of Wisconsin. How does motorcycling affect the economy, tourism, manufacturing, charity work, and of course the gas tax collected from our combustion engine vehicles? Wisconsin is the leader in motorcycling, and preserving that tradition is important to those of us that have dedicated a large portion of our life enjoying it. Preserving motorcycling as we know it is the focus of Lobby Day 2022 on February 17th. We are going to have busses running again and we are hoping that we will run out of room on them. The best way to reach the legislators and to get them to understand what we do is to SHOW UP. They represent you and it is important to be there so they can see that this issue is important to their constituents. Like always, we will have excellent people setting up meetings and presenting the information, but their success in reaching them is dependent on letting the Legislators know that this is important to more than just one or two dedicated people. Filling a room with constituents that think this is important enough to take a day off of work is what can make a larger impact.

Our next focus is on getting the general motorcycling public to understand what the future is going to look like. As you know, last year we held a couple of Summits for motorcycle clubs, riding groups, and riding clubs, in an effort to get them and their group, to get on board with what we see happening to motorcycling, and it was successful. These Summits have led to being invited to speak in front of other groups with great response from them. We have been limiting the Summits to certain groups because of the costs involved in renting a larger space. So, we have been limited on who we can get the information to. Because these Summits have proven to be successful, the Board of Directors approved money to hold a larger Summit, open to motorcyclists from all around the state in 2022. We are working on the details, but in order to be successful we are going to have to get the message out to ALL motorcyclists that this event is going to be a MUST ATTEND. We are hoping to have The Future of Motorcycling in Wisconsin Summit in late April and are still trying to finalize a venue that is large enough but will not hurt our organization financially. If we are committed to making Wisconsin a motorcycle friendly state again, we need an event like this and we need people to be there.

If you recall, the reason that we started this was because a few years ago the Wisconsin Department of Transportation held a Future of Transportation in Wisconsin event at the Harley Museum in Milwaukee. They NEVER mentioned how motorcycles fit into the future until we asked that question at the end. Even then, their response in front of the group was that they would have to get back to us. I guess being there and hearing that, woke us up to the fact that they are not considering us. It seems that their goal is to develop a policy first and then see if motorcycling fits into it. What happens if we don’t? What happens if autonomous vehicle technology never gets to the point where it can recognize motorcycles and make them the same priority as other road users? Remember when we talked about the “Trolley Affect”? The out-of-control trolley will need to pick a path of travel based on the priority of the damage. If a motorcyclist is a lower priority than the operator of the vehicle, or pedestrians, guess which one of us going to get runover? Lobby Day 2022 on February 17th is where we start to make motorcyclists a priority when drafting new policies for Wisconsin roads.

Join us for Lobby Day. The bus schedules are elsewhere in this newsletter or drive yourself. Bring your friends and family members. I hope to fill the Capitol with people who support our agenda.

That’s it –

Steve