The $20, All-Or-Nothing Gamble

The $20, all-or-nothing gamble

ROUNDUP

CAMRON E. BUSSARD

THERE ARE 7,860,000 REASONS NOT TO JOIN THE AMERICAN Motorcyclist Association. There must be. Because out of a nation-wide motorcyclist population of approximately eight million active riders, only 140,000 of us are members of the AMA.

What’s your reason?

Is it that the annual $20 membership is too costly? That you're not interested in the AM Magazine subscription, the insurance, the trip-routing service and the product discounts that are included with AMA membership?

Or is it that you don't need the motorcycle insurance discounts that are available to AMA members?

Could it be that you don’t belong to one of the 1200 AMA-affiliated riding clubs around the country, and so you’re not interested in taking part in the 1000 or so road-riding events that annually receive AMA sanctioning?

Maybe you're not a roadrace, motocross, dirt-track, enduro, hillclimb or trials competitor, and hence are not interested in the thousands of events, both amateur and Pro, that the AMA puts its name behind each year.

Or is it that you just can’t get behind the AMA’s Ride Straight program, which attempts to educate motorcyclists to the dangers of drunk riding? Or that you don't think you’ll ever need to use the Help’N Hands program, a listing of good-samaritan AMA members who’ll come to your aid if you run into problems on the road?

Maybe the AMA’s Heritage Foundation, which is attempting to set up America’s first real motorcycle museum, doesn’t appeal to you.

Perhaps you can’t remember back to 1972, when the AMA organized response to President Nixon’s Executive Order 1 1644, which tried to prohibit motorized recreation on public lands. And it probably slipped your mind that the AMA raised its voice against a similar order put forth by the Carter administration in 1976.

And then there was the Highway Safety Act of 1976, which, until the AMA got involved, would have allowed the federal government to withold highway safety money from those states without mandatory helmet laws. But that was 12 years ago and easy enough to forget, right?

If you use your motorcycle for commuting, perhaps you don’t think it important that in 1982 the AMA was instrumental in having language added to the Highway Reauthorization Bill, thereby permitting motorcycle access to most high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes.

And maybe you don't think it’s a significant mark of the AMA's legislative maturity that earlier this year it was able to organize quick opposition to Senator Danforth's Motorcycle Safety Act, a piece of proposed legislation that could forever alter the shape of motorcycling in this country.

It probably won’t even make any difference to you that the AMA has a toll-free number for membership information: 1-800-AMA-JOIN.

Certainly, you can come up with plenty more reasons for not joining the AMA. But at a time when the sport of motorcycling—your sport—needs all the help it can get to fend off serious attacks from all sides, not joining the American Motorcyclist Association may end up being the most expensive $20 you never spent. —David Edwards