Legislation Forum

LEGISLATION FORUM

"FAVORS LICENSING"

I’m 21 years old, so I figure I’m an adult. I’ve been riding bikes since I was 16 years old, and have never had an accident.

Here in Viet Nam, I’m unable to keep up with the Legislature and what it is trying to do. I agree there should be some form of protective measures taken, one being keeping your headlight on at all times. With lights on, I have found that people notice you more easily and pay more attention to you, and that they are not as inclined to pull out in front of you. I also think a person who rides a motorcycle without some kind of eye protection is very foolish, indeed. You never know when dust or other objects might blow in your eyes, thereby causing an accident.

But, as far as mandatory helmets and other mandatory equipment go, I can see no way that these would lower accidents. True, it would lessen serious injuries if an accident should occur, but most riders are defensive drivers, because they realize that car drivers have a grudge against us. Also, I am in favor of a motorcycle license, but not one so rigid that it will be impossible for even a good rider to get one.

SGT. VICTOR R. COLEMIRE APO San Francisco, Calif.

"LOSING GROUND"

Enclosed is a clipping from a recent copy of the Wenatchee Daily World, published in Wenatchee, Wash. It indicates that the helmet law is losing ground. I own a helmet and firmly believe that helmets should be worn while driving on the highway. However I do not wear it when I have only a block or two to go.

A 1967 state law requiring motorcycle riders to wear crash helmets was declared unconstitutional by Police Court Judge James C. Lynch.

The Judge held the state has no right to tell an individual what he has to do to protect himself, and the law fails to set up specifications under which an officer can determine whether a helmet meets requirements.

The crash helmet law was passed by the last legislature and upheld earlier in the month by Seattle Justice Court Judge Bill Lewis. The American Civil Liberties Union appealed the Seattle case to Superior Court.

Judge Lynch dismissed the case here against Ralph Spencer, Malaga orchardist, after ruling the state law invalid. John Carlson, city attorney, gave no indication he might appeal.

Spencer was arrested by Wenatchee police in October while riding a motorcycle and wearing a leather helmet.

RALPH J. GALPIN Wilson Creek, Wash.

"SWEATBAND HATER"

To be frank, I don’t believe USA motorcyclists will be riding around much longer

without motorcycle licenses and helmets.

Up here in British Columbia we’ve been suffering for nearly three years with the above, and I hate wearing a heavy “sweatband,” especially since it’s a forced law.

Unfortunately, this was forced on us so fast that we never had a word to say about it. It happened so quickly that the government got the compulsory wearing of helmets for all motorcyclists and passengers so mixed up that neither law officers nor riders know what is or what isn’t a helmet, so it’s a farce.

I suggest that USA riders accept the fact of motorcycle licenses and the compulsory wearing of helmets, but make good and sure the standards set forth for safety helmets are proper. From here on, fight together, properly, and with sense to eliminate these crazy crashbars, safetybelts, stabilizer wheels and other things that will simply eliminate motorcycling.

R. E. SMITH B. C., Canada

"LAST HOPE"

I’ve read over and over again, “Stand up and be counted!” Then you go leave us standing alone.

In 1847, a man by the name of Thoreau said, “Unjust laws exist: Shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?” I think this is a good question to put to your readers.

For myself, I’m ready to stand up and be counted, for my love for the art of motorcycling is surpassed only by that for my girl. What can I do as a voter and taxpayer? I’m from Illinois and can’t seem to find out where to write or what I can do. The reason I’m finding it so hard is that at the present I’m stationed with the U.S. Armed Forces in the Republic of Vietnam. That makes you my last hope.

BURT A. WAGNER JR.

APO San Francisco, Calif.

You must be counted by your state legislators. Your state undoubtedly publishes a “blue book,” a directory of senators and assemblymen, bureau and department heads, and like information. Write to your state information office, in your state capitol. The letter will get there. Request a blue book, or price of a blue book. When you get all those addresses start the flood of letters. — Ed.

"CAN LAWS HELP?"

What is the U.S. Government trying to prove? Now I wear a helmet, and have a fairing on my TR6-R. I have been riding a motorcycle for about 11 years, and I never have had an accident—though several times I almost have been hit by cars! I wear international orange, which even a color-blind person can see for long distances. But people just do not see us. Why?? A TR6-R isn’t a small bike, and with lights on, plus a good horn, how can anyone miss me?

One of the biggest reasons for accidents is that people don’t pay attention to what they (the drivers) are doing. If you get a chance, stop on a busy street and watch the way different people drive. The ones in the big American cars seem to be asleep; the people in the small cars from other countries seem to be more alert. Our cars have gotten too easy to drive. Also, people don’t want to admit that an accident can happen. You see, if you ignore it, it’ll go away. What about this kid in Florida who had an accident, with all his companions killed, and tried to stop someone to help. He was out there seven hours before the police came. When the American people have deteriorated to such a state, how can anyone expect laws to do any good?

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People have built a womb around themselves too long. They can’t see anything else but their own little world. Denver is like most of the USA. Either you conform to all the cattle, or you don’t have many friends. You gotta impress ’em or nothing. Hit the road, Jack.

THOMAS S. BERNARD Denver, Colo.

"SECURITY IS A SKIDLID"

I have read and enjoyed CYCLE WORLD for some time, and have been an avid “Thumper Lover” for just as long. However, I am writing not as a motorcyclist, but as a motorist. I have had to give up reading Forum of late, since certain letters send me into a blind, staggering rage. I refer, of course, to the people who say, “Yeah, I t’ink all riders should oughtta wear skidlids, but I don’ want de guvermint tellin’ me I gotta.”

I have a few questions for those of you who subscribe to this attitude. First, do you mean to tell me you really want to make a moderately dangerous sport absolutely lethal by refusing to take responsible precautions? Second, if you already wear a helmet, what in hell do you care if it’s required by law or not? Third, I have noticed that the majority of protestors fall into the “idiot fringe” of motorcycling. You habitually speed, ride the white line between cars traveling in opposite directions, pass on the right, and other little tricks. Do you expect me to like it when you splatter your unprotected and defective brains all over my fresh wax job? Do you expect me to enjoy the legal battle wherein I have to convince your mother that it was your own fault you got killed?

We have had a few feeble protests against British Columbia’s helmet law, but most riders have found, as I did, that helmets aren’t bad at all. They are not uncomfortable when the habit is acquired, they do not limit visibility when properly fitted, and the feeling of security they impart is well worth the minor inconveniences of learning to wear them. I think it would be jolly if all you bareheaded chaps were allowed to carry out your death wish, but use a brick wall, or a tree, not my car.

BILL LEPARD North Surrey, B.C., Canada

"THE LIGHT OF DAY"

Enclosed is a clipping from the Wisconsin State Journal describing Wisconsin’s new motorcycle-control law which was passed while motorcyclists sat numbed by sub-zero temperatures.

I thought your readers might be interested in reading about the law, since this state is a beautiful vacation land after the spring thaw, and out-of-state motorcyclists might get into trouble.

Frankly, I have never been able to decide just how I feel about compulsory helmet laws et al, but if there was ever anything which can be justifiably legislated, I think it is this lights-on-in-the-daytime idea. I have kept my lights on high beam in the daytime on my

BMW Twin for some time, and I am convinced from the before-and-after reaction of motorists that daytime lights make motorcycles much safer. The difference between lit and unlit motorcycles is most dramatic on two-way highways.

But this is above and beyond the so-called “moral” questions about helmet, etc., laws ...a subject I feel incompetent to discuss at the moment. I would like to know if this new Wisconsin law, which includes lights, helmets, foot pegs, side-saddle riding, goggles and special licenses, is the most restrictive law in the country. Perhaps I’ve forgotten, but I can’t remember hearing about required daytime lights in any other state.

I guess the only way to feel more persecuted than a motorcyclist is to be a motorcyclist and hunter. I’ll have to give up guns before I get a complex.

MOTORCYCLISTS: TURN HEADLAMPS ON IN DAYTIME

Motorcycle operators in Wisconsin must have headlamps turned on in daylight as well as during hours of darkness beginning Jan. 11, 1968, as part of the new motorcycle safety code.

Any person found guilty of violating the new regulation may be fined not less than $20 nor more than $200, or imprisoned not more than 30 days, or both.

The new rules prohibit riding a motorcycle in a side-saddle position, and forbid a passenger from riding in front of the operator or riding without his feet resting on foot rests or pegs.

Effective no later than July 1, the new law also provides that motorcyclists must wear protective headgear and a protective face shield, glasses, or goggles. However, if the vehicle is equipped with a windshield rising a minimum of 15 in. above the handlebar, the use of other eye protective devices is not mandatory.

The Division of Motor Vehicles is expected to announce rules governing special licensing of motorcycle operators later this month.

JEFF DEAN Madison, Wis.

"MR. PRESIDENT"

(The letter that follows recently was sent to the President of the United States. It points up the convictions of members of the Metropolitan Cycle Association of New York City, New York-and perhaps the feelings of many others of the motorcycling fraternity. -Ed.y Dear Mr. President:

“Why do some individuals and groups reject the peaceful political and institutional processes of change in favor of violent means?” In your June 10 address to the new Commission on Violence you asked this question.

Violent action may be the natural outgrowth of frustration caused by not being able to get anything accomplished any other way. AU too often the peaceful political processes just don’t work.

processes

Perhaps the struggle of one minority group in New York City to get a simple change in parking regulations wiU shed some Ught on the causes of frustration which lead to violence. For we can weU understand why some individuals and groups, driven to despair by the broken promises, staUs, delays, and interminable non-action of those political institutions designed to help them, eventually pick up a brick and heave it through a window. Sadly, it seems to be the only way to get through to those who should listen.

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Our problem, while not life and death as are those that Negroes face, for instance, has been sufficiently exasperating to make us feel violent, too.

For two years as individuals and subsequently as an organization-an organization formed because the individuals had no chance at all to be heard-we have tried, unsuccessfully, to achieve a change in a New York City parking regulation to allow motorcycles to park at an angle to the curb rather than parallel to it.

As the rule stands, requiring parallel parking, motorcyclists have no sure way of complying with it and are constantly harassed by parking tickets and expensive damage to their lightweight machines when motorists move the bikes to make room to park their cars.

The sole opposition to changing the rule has come from one man, Traffic Commissioner Henry Barnes. His emotionally based reasons for blocking the change (he has been quoted in the press as saying he is “antimotorcycle”) are pure guesswork—he “thinks angle parking might be hazardous.” Although no study has supplied support for this attitude and all the facts point the other way, he clings to it like a belief in witchcraft.

We wrote letters to the Traffic Department, to the Mayor, to our city councilmen, to our congressmen. We made telephone calls. We quietly and peacefully demonstrated the logic of our position—(1) that angle parked bikes do not obstruct moving traffic; (2) that angle parking allows many more cycles to occupy the same space thus releasing precious parking space to cars; (3) that angle parked motorcycles are subject to far less damage from cars than parallel parked machines; and (4) that no one will lose and everyone will gain from angle parking for motorcycles-in the first “park-in” held on Park Avenue in New York City in June 1966. Fifty-two thousand persons signed our petition requesting the change. Their signatures were scoffed at as “meaningless” by the Traffic Department.

We have demonstrated, sent telegrams to Mayor Lindsay and have maintained a nightly vigil at his residence. Our demonstrations have remained orderly but have grown increasingly intense. Two of our members have been arrested for the cause.

During the two-year period we have had several meetings with the Traffic Department and with representatives of the Mayor’s office. No action. We have been surveyed, observed, questionnaired and studied to death. No negative answers. No action. At the specific request of Mayor Lindsay, through his aide David Love, we cancelled the third of a series of planned demonstrations last October on the promise that action would follow within a month. We were told that the Mayor agreed with us on angle parking and would have the rule changed. Eight months later Commissioner Barnes has announced that he will continue to stall until September and perhaps indefinitely.

What makes us unique as a minority group is that we are not poverty-stricken parents seeking welfare funds or other government aid, not college students fighting against a world we haven’t had to face yet. Our membership is composed of middle-class, adult men and women with good incomes. A large proportion are Ph.Ds. As such, we have not been accustomed to the indignities normally inflicted on minorities and our experience in having prejudice directed at us has been a real eye-opener.

It is important to note that changing this parking rule will hurt no one. No businesses will have to be relocated; no one will have to leave his home or lose his job; no one will have to suffer so that we may benefit.

What good is a commission to study a problem from the top when the lowest level of bureaucrat is able to impede progress to satisfy his own blind prejudice? Why waste the taxpayers’ money to “discover” that an increasing number of citizens are disillusioned with peaceful negotiation which nets nothing but broken promises? Peaceful negotiation can be and is effectively used to forestall improvement for the citizen indefinitely; and it is when patience and hope are finally exhausted that the man in the street resorts to violence.

In New York City a demagogue like Commissioner Barnes behaves like a medieval prince whose subjects can take what he dishes out and like it. With no opportunity to vote on his performance we have no way to deal with him. And our mayor accepts the continuing insult of total disregard of his orders and either is equally powerless to stop him or enjoys the role of lackey.

What can we do? We could shrug our shoulders and say, “You can’t fight City Hall.” We could sell our motorcycles and retreat to the misery of the subways or buy cars and add to the nightmare proportions of New York City traffic problems. We could move to Boston where the rule has been changed or to San Francisco where angle parking has long been in effect. But none of these is in keeping with the American spirit.

The reasons for the increasing militancy in the United States may well be the American spirit which abhors knuckling under to a dictator, big or small, individual or committee. If change is needed, Americans will always try to effect that change. If, however, the normal channels simply do not work and no other means can be found, frustration will eventually lead to violence.

The answer may well he in assessing the needs of the people accurately, in paying attention to their requests when voiced peacefully and quietly and in doing something about them-before they reach epic proportions and we face full-scale rebellion.

New York City’s surrender to one petty bureaucrat has pushed a sizable segment of its healthy, educated middle class to the brink of violence through anger undreamed of by most of them in their pre-cycle days. The quiet peaceful efforts to achieve a just and logical change have all been tried. The next steps must be increasingly militant. Your commission can gain valuable insight by studying this simple issue which has grown out of proportion for want of attention by those who could solve it. When public officials show total disregard of the needs and wishes of the people then it is no mystery that the people lose respect for law and order.

METROPOLITAN CYCLE ASSOCIATION New York, N.Y. ■