THE TIME FOR ACTION IS NOW

by Kirk “Hardtail” Willard

In my nearly 40 years of being involved in motorcyclists’ rights I can’t think of a time more important than now to make sure we are educating motorcyclists and encouraging everyone to get involved and take-action.

Consider the “End of Life Directives” that our friends from the Federation of European Motorcyclist Associations (FEMA) are dealing with in Europe. Bureaucrats across the pond are suggesting at some predetermined time old vehicles be surrendered for destruction. FEMA has successfully held this off when it has been raised in the past but for me personally, and a good number of my friends, a majority of our motorcycle collections and parts and pieces would be at risk. History would say if something continues to come up in Government often enough eventually it makes its way into policy or law. Seem far-fetched? Not too long ago we had an old vehicle trade in program that used up all the Federal monies allocated to it called “Cash for Clunkers” where people were incentivized to trade in old vehicles for new ones. So, you see even in America we have already been socialized to the idea.

How about the words motorcyclists or motorcycles NOT originally showing up in major pieces of federal and state legislation, or in Autonomous Vehicle and Smart Highway technology discussions? When questioned, those responsible replied “we overlooked your category” or “you’re not a large enough population to worry about”. That ought to send chills up the spine of every motorcyclist and make us proclaim loudly that we do need to be solidly in the mix.

And the movement underway that could get us sooner than the two aforementioned ones is the ideal to significantly reduce or even eliminate our dependency on fossil fuel, otherwise known as GAS in the very near future.

It is not difficult to find dozens of initiatives in various world countries, in North America, the United States as a whole, and several states that have goals very near in to reduce fossil fuel use. During our recent Presidential campaigns reducing our dependency on fossil fuel was openly referenced. We have a province in Canada suggesting it be banned altogether and within two decades. Even if we are successful carving out preservation of gas for motorcycles, it would likely be prohibitively expensive if banned or reduced by more than 50% or altogether for anything other than recreational vehicles and landscape implements. I understand eventually technology will eventually render us to hobby status, but we should not go down without a fight to preserve what we have as long as we can and make certain whether it be through fossil fuel reduction or autonomous and other smart technologies that we affordably and practically carve out a place to exist.

It wouldn’t hurt to speak to your local car clubs, snowmobilers, UTV’ers, dirt bikers etc. to make sure they aren’t asleep at the wheel and join this cause.

As one of the founders in our movement used to often say, “it’s not about the pins, patches, and parties; it’s about our freedom and preserving our lifestyle. So, unless you want the only place your grandchildren can see a motorcycle is in a museum now is the time to ACT to protect our heritage, our freedom, and our lifestyle.

Hardtail