Coast To Coast NCOM Legislative News For August

NCOM COAST TO COAST BIKER NEWS

Compiled & Edited by Bill Bish,

National Coalition of Motorcyclists (NCOM)

“However inconceivable it may seem, ethanol has managed to earn itself another enemy. To service-station owners, refiners, vintage-car collectors, economists and car manufacturers themselves, add motorcycle riders,” reported the New York Times in announcing a new EPA mandate that requires consumers to purchase a minimum of 4 gallons of E-15 gasoline.

At issue is E15, a gasoline blend consisting of 15% ethanol, rather than the typical 10% formulation E10. The federal Environmental Protection Agency has approved E15 for all cars from the 2001 model year and newer, but the E.P.A. has not approved its use for any motorcycles or all-terrain vehicles and its use could void manufacturers’ warranties.

To help keep E15 out of these and other unapproved nonroad engines, service stations offering E15 and E10 from the same pump station must agree to sell a minimum of 4 gallons of fuel per purchase in order to protect the engine of the next customer’s vehicle, as the fueling hose retains roughly a third of a gallon from the previous customer’s fill-up. But not all motorcycle fill-ups reach four gallons, as some motorcycles don’t have tanks with that volume, or their owners may want to merely top them off.

Exactly how a service station with pay-at-the-pump equipment could enforce the rule remains unclear, and the new EPA requirement announced in a response to an AMA inquiry is already generating ire on Capitol Hill where Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) told the Times; “The E.P.A. has no business mandating how much gasoline Americans have to buy when filling up at the pump. What if a rider doesn’t have a motorcycle with a four gallon tank,” he challenged. “Or if someone wants to fill a canister for their lawnmower or outboard boat engine, but it only holds two or three gallons? Or what if an American, struggling in this economy, just can’t afford four gallons of gas?”

Good news for eco-minded aficionados of two-wheeled transport, as the Senate Finance Committee has approved a tax credit for purchasers of on-road electric motorcycles amounting to 10% of the purchase price up to $2,500.

Electric-powered two wheelers have been without a federal purchase incentive since the beginning of 2012, when the original tax break expired that was part of the $800 billion stimulus package passed in 2009.

The committee approved a bipartisan package of tax credits on August 2, including the amendment by Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) to extend the tax credit for buying EV bikes designed for street use.  With “thousands of red white and blue jobs on the line” in America’s cutting edge E-bike industry, Wyden says the tax break is necessary and will cost $15 million over two years. Now the measure will be considered by the full Senate.

An effort by ABATE of Wisconsin to place signs that build awareness of motorcyclists among other motorists continues to gain momentum, and the group hopes to take the project statewide.

When Mike Halvorson, representing a local chapter of ABATE, approached the Silver Lake Village Board about accepting the donation of two of the motorcycle awareness signs and placing them on appropriate village roads, the board accepted the donation of the signs.

The blue, reflective signs say “Look Twice, Save a Life” and have a graphic of a motorcyclist. “Our feeling is if they are looking out for us they are looking out for the bikes and pedestrians too,” Halvorson said.

The ABATE group has now reached agreement to place signs in several other area cities, and placing the signs on county highways has also been endorsed by the Kenosha County Highway Department director.

Transponds: California requires a transponder when travelling on toll roads, mounted on your vehicle in a visible location. This is a real problem for motorcycles. Where do you mount the things to be in plain sight? This has been corrected by AB1890, introduced by Assemblyman Jose Solorio. The bill was signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown and allows motorcyclists to store their transponders out of sight in a pouch or saddlebags when on toll roads. This reduces the probability of theft from being mounted in a visible location on a motorcycle.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Gunny Hutcheson is retiring after serving nearly 20 years as the AIM Chief of Staff in Oregon for AIM Attorney Sam Hochberg, and everyone at Aid to Injured Motorcyclists (AIM) and the National Coalition of Motorcyclists (NCOM) THANK him for his years of dedication to bikers’ rights & safety and we wish him All the Best!

Chicago fans among the state’s 350,000 motorcyclists now can pay homage to their favorite pro sports teams thanks to a new law signed by Governor Pat Quinn on August 9.

Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White, a former minor league baseball player in the Cubs organization, will make the new specialty license plates available for North Side fans as well as White Sox fans on the South Side. Bulls, Bears and Blackhawks plates also will be offered when pre-orders begin Aug. 24 at www.cyberdriveillinois.com. Money from the sales is earmarked to support schools.

More than 18,000 sports team license plates have been sold to people driving cars, vans, pick-ups and other small trucks in less than two years, bringing in almost $800,000 for schools.

“I am proud to make these license plates available to motorcycle enthusiasts as a means of showing team spirit and further supporting education across the state,” White told the Chicago Tribune in announcing his expansion of the sports-plate program to include motorcycles.

The latest data regarding motorcycle shopping and research trends has been released from NADAguides, an online new and used powersports pricing and information resource. And though the economy has yet to recover from the slump, consumer interest and motorcycle sales are gradually increasing. The Motorcycle Industry Council says overall worldwide year-on-year motorcycle sales are up 3.6%, and NADAguides research shows that consumer interest and research has grown 15% in the second quarter of 2012 over the second quarter of 2011.

NADAguides says the largest segments receiving growth and interest are trikes and touring scooters with a step-through chassis. Industry sales of touring scooters are up 5.6% year-to-date and have recorded a year over year traffic increase on NADAguides.com of 24% over the past year. Touring scooters provide a good starting point for consumers who are new to motorcycling because they have more stability and are easy to mount and dismount, and top brands searched on NADAguides.com include models from Suzuki, Honda, Yamaha and Vespa, making up 96% of the traffic in the segment.

NADAguides analysts note that trikes or three-wheel motorcycles are also gaining in popularity, registering a year over year increase of traffic on the site up 27%. Appealing primarily to the baby boomer generation, three-wheel motorcycles offer more stability, more comfort for long trips and can be customized and outfitted with a variety of comfort and convenience packages, such as independent suspension, disc brakes, upgraded audio, large lockable storage and more. Top trike or three-wheel motorcycle brands searched on NADAguides.com include models from Can-Am, Harley-Davidson, Boss Hoss and Lehman Trikes, making up 93% of the traffic in the segment.

Being sleepy behind the wheel is almost as dangerous as drinking and driving, according to a study from France, with drivers who were either drunk or sleepy at least twice as likely to cause a vehicle accident as their sober or well-rested counterparts.

For the study, researchers under the direction of Nicholas Moore at the Centre Hospitalo-Universitaire de Bordeaux analyzed information from 679 drivers admitted to a hospital in southwestern France for more than 24 hours because of a serious accident between 2007 and 2009. “Sleepiness carried almost as much risk as alcohol ingestion,” wrote Moore and his colleagues in a letter in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Researchers used information from driver questionnaires and police reports to determine what may have contributed to the accidents. Drivers reported what medications they were on, their alcohol use and how sleepy they had been before the crash, while patient files provided information on blood alcohol levels.

The majority of the injured drivers were under 55 years old and men. Over half were on a motorcycle, about one-third in a car and 10% on a bicycle at the time of the accident. The police determined that 355 of the drivers were responsible for their crash. From that, Moore and his colleagues found that being between the ages of 18 and 29 years old, driving a car, drinking alcohol and being sleepy were all tied to an increased risk of causing an accident.

“We know from experimental studies that just four hours of sleep loss will produce as much impairment as a six pack (of beer),” said Christopher Drake, an associate scientist at the Henry Ford Hospital Sleep Disorders and Research Center in Detroit, who was not involved in the study. “If you have a whole night of sleep loss, that’s equivalent to having a blood alcohol content of 0.19,” Drake told Reuters news service. A blood alcohol level of 0.08 percent is considered legally drunk in most U.S. states.

Long-serving National Coalition of Motorcyclists board member Glen Fengstad of ABATE of Montana (Co-Director, NCOM Region III) submitted the following news item from www.rt.com along with the observation that “I think it targets all of us to a tee”:

Are you suspicious of federal authority? How about really into individual liberty? Well according to a new study funded by the US Department of Homeland Security, you very well might be a terrorist. A report published earlier this year by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) at the University of Maryland has surfaced, and in their DHS-funded findings, Americans “reverent of individual liberty” and others adamant about protecting their personal freedoms are categorized as extreme right-wing terrorists.

In the paper, “Hot Spots of Terrorism and Other Crimes in the United States, 1970-2008”, researchers characterize what traits should be considered when describing right-wing terrorists, and identifies “groups that believe that one’s personal and/or national ‘way of life’ is under attack,” and those that are “suspicious of centralized federal authority” and “believe in conspiracy theories that involve grave threat to personal liberty,” the report adds.

START was founded with the aid of a $12 million DHS grant, and their most recent report is described by its authors as the latest part in a series of studies sponsored by the Human Factors/Behavioral Sciences Division, Science and Technology Directorate and the US Department of Homeland Security in support of the Counter-IED Prevent/Deter program: “The goal of this program is to sponsor research that will aid the intelligence and law enforcement communities in identifying potential terrorist threats,” write the authors, which is done “using state-of-the-art theories, methods and data from the social and behavioral sciences to improve understanding of the origins, dynamics and social and psychological impacts of terrorism.”

Apparently, loving America is precisely one of those factors found out through the latest space-age understanding of the human mind.

Speaking of the human mind, and conspiracy theories, perhaps the latest interrogation device — a mind-reading helmet — will help authorities identify us freedom-loving “terrorist” bikers.  Veritas Scientific is working on an EEG helmet that carries a slideshow of images that could reliably identify an enemy. The device is shaped like a motorcycle-helmet with metal brush sensors that will read brain activity as images flash quickly across the inside of the visor.

Electroencephalography (EEG) is the science of measuring brainwave patterns produced by the brain in response to internal or external stimuli. Familiar images prompt spikes of electrical brain activity that indicate recognition, say scientists.

The company places its EEG helmet work in the realm of “interrogation technology,” and sees its device of use to the U.S. military to help them pick friend from enemy…sure, that’s just what they want you to believe!  The technology is also suggested as useful for law enforcement.

QUOTABLE QUOTE: “If a man seeks a righteous life, his first act of abstinence should be from telling others how to think and live.”

~ Tolstoy (1828-1910), Russian novelist