NCOM BIKER NEWSBYTES
Compiled & Edited by Bill Bish,
In a last-ditch effort by Democratic strategists and the Hollywood elite to derail President-Elect Donald J. Trump’s ascension to the presidency, U.S. Electoral College delegates have been swamped with requests to ignore their pledge and “vote your conscience,” but longtime bikers’ rights advocate Jim Rhoades of ABATE of Michigan, one of that state’s 16 electors, says they’re cries are falling on deaf ears because he’s obligated to speak for the voters of his state.
Appearing on FOX News network’s “Your World” wearing his ABATE shirt, Rhoades revealed that he’s gotten over sixty thousand emails, phone calls and basketfuls of form letters calling on him to vote against Trump, as well as some threats, but believes fellow electors also feel steadfast about their duty and will support the will of their states’ voters when they cast their ballots on Monday, December 19th.
Calling the pressure tactics a “waste of time,” Rhoades told FOX News host Neil Cavuto in the nationally televised interview on December 15 that “I’m not intimidated by any of this stuff,” and added “I’ve been riding Harleys since the sixties, so I’ve been around a long time, I’m a grass roots political animal… and I love what Trump says, and he’s got me fired up looking for great things and looking to make America great again.”
In the aftermath of a norm-busting 2016 Presidential campaign, Trump won 306 Electoral College votes to Hillary Clinton’s 232, but if 36 “faithless electors” changed their ballots it would send the election to the U.S. House of Representatives to be determined, where Republicans hold a majority. In the past, some electors turned “faithless” in nine out of the last 17 elections, and a total of 179 times throughout American history, but no electors have ever changed the outcome of an election by voting against their party’s designated candidate.
ANALYSTS ADVISE INVESTORS TO BET ON MOTORCYCLES AND PIZZA
Every U.S. presidential transition brings a change in priorities, forcing market gurus to bet on which sectors of the economy might benefit from the new administration, but with corporate analysts admittedly baffled by Donald Trump, prognosticators are doing some intellectual gymnastics.
Joseph Spak, a Royal Bank of Canada analyst, thinks Donald Trump’s $1 trillion plan to rebuild American infrastructure will ultimately provide construction workers with extra cash. And what do construction workers like to spend money on? Motorcycles, of course.
“If the economy is stimulated and construction jobs increase,” Spak recently predicted that Harley-Davidson Inc. “could see some better demand.”
FEDS SEEK TO REQUIRE NEW VEHICLES TO TALK TO EACH OTHER
U.S. auto-safety regulators have proposed new rules requiring automakers to adopt crash-avoidance technology that allows all new vehicles to communicate with each other, a move that could help accelerate the development of self-driving cars.
The requirement of so-called vehicle-to-vehicle connectivity (“V2V”) on all consumer vehicles within the next five years is viewed as central to the development of a new age of cars that can avoid accidents by wirelessly monitoring each other. V2V technology uses short-range radio communication to allow vehicles to identify each other’s speed, location, direction and acceleration or braking, within a radius of about 300 meters.
The move marks a concrete step by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration toward its goal of eliminating roadway deaths within 30 years, and agency officials told USA Today that vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure technology could eliminate or greatly reduce the seriousness of up to 80% of crashes that don’t involve driver impairment.
NHTSA pledges that the new technology would not divulge any personal information regarding drivers.
EUROPEANS TO TEST AUTONOMOUS CARS WITH MOTORCYCLES
Vehicle authorities will cooperate with European motorcyclists’ organizations to conduct their own test program with different brands of semi-autonomous cars. “The Dutch are authorizing further testing to see if these ‘semi-autonomous’ cars can operate safely with motorcycles on the road,” says Oregon A.I.M. (Aid to Injured Motorcyclists) and COC (Confederation of Clubs) Attorney Sam Hochberg, who alerted the National Coalition of Motorcyclists (NCOM) about this important issue here and abroad. “This is going to be a real issue here in the USA in the not-too-distant future.”
In response to a letter motorcyclists’ organizations FEMA (Federation of European Motorcyclists Associations), MAG NL (Motorcycle Action Group – Netherlands) and KNMV (Dutch Motorcycle Association) sent to RDW, with regard to the European type approval of the Tesla by RDW, a meeting took place recently where the motorcyclists’ worries were addressed. RDW is the Netherlands Vehicle Authority that issued the European type approval for Tesla.
A driver of a Tesla – and other advanced cars – can leave key actions to the vehicle itself, while in the opinion of the motorcyclists’ organizations this equipment is not, or not sufficiently, tested with motorcycles. In the discussion about the concerns that motorcyclists have with admitting (semi-) autonomous vehicles on the roads, it soon became clear that many of the concerns of the motorcyclists’ community are shared by RDW.
RDW proposes – in cooperation with the motorcyclists’ organizations – to conduct their own test program with different brands of cars with Advanced Driver Assistance Systems. RDW also believes – as do the riders – that testing with motorcycles should be part of the test protocol for European type approval.
Dolf Willigers, General Secretary of FEMA: “We are very pleased with the outcome of this first meeting with the experts of RDW. We are going to act together and we will see in the field tests to which extent the technique takes motorcyclists into account.”
NEW YEAR, RENEWED EFFORTS IN D.C.
With the 114th Congress set to adjourn, and a new congressional session beginning in January, some federal bills that motorcyclists have been advocating will expire and need to be reintroduced.
House Resolution 831 was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on July 13, 2016 to “Promote awareness of motorcycle profiling and encourage collaboration and communication with the motorcycle community and law enforcement officials to prevent instances of profiling.”
The National Coalition of Motorcyclists (NCOM) is working with other state and national motorcycle organizations to address profiling legislatively, and with Washington State enacting the first anti-profiling law in 2011, followed by Maryland this year, a national motorcycle anti-profiling measure would advance the efforts in every state to prevent discriminatory enforcement.
HR 4715 & S 2659, the RPM Act (Recognizing the Protection of Motorsports Act of 2016), would ensure that the American tradition of modifying vehicles into dedicated racetrack competitors is not only continued for today, but will be protected for future generations of race fans as well.
Although the federal EPA bowed to political pressure and public outcry this past April by removing provisions from proposed regulations that would have prohibited street-legal vehicles, including motorcycles, from being modified for racing, members of both chambers of Congress have introduced bipartisan legislation to protect the sport of racing by blocking the EPA from over-regulating the industry and ensuring that it remains legal to convert street legal motor vehicles for racing purposes.
Responding to the controversy over the proliferation of E15 fuel, which is not approved for use by any motorcycle manufacturer and can invalidate warranties, Congress is considering HR 5108 (the “Food and Fuel Consumer Protection Act of 2016) “to alleviate the ethanol blend wall under the renewable fuel program.” Specifically, the bipartisan bill would cap the ethanol content of fuel at 9.7%, and would also effect the EPA’s Renewable Volume Obligations under the Renewable Fuel Standard.
In addition, in January Congress banned the use of federal funds for controversial Motorcycle-Only Checkpoints as part of a $305 billion highway bill called the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act, as well as allocating more than $4 million towards motorcycle safety programs, and going forward into the next Congress and an all new Administration bikers must work to protect those advancements we’ve already made.
ANTI-MASK LAWS USED AGAINST BANDANAS
During the Confederation of Clubs (COC) meeting at the NCOM Region I Seminar in Irvine, California in November, as an example of discriminatory profiling, attendees were notified of motorcyclists in Louisiana who have allegedly been arrested for wearing bandanas over their faces while riding because police claim that covering your face in public violates the state’s anti-mask law against concealing your identity.
According to Louisiana statute (LSA-R.S. 14:313) – “No person shall use or wear in any public place of any character whatsoever, or in any open place in view thereof, a hood or mask, or anything in the nature of either, or any facial disguise of any kind or description, calculated to conceal or hide the identity of the person or to prevent his being readily recognized…Whoever violates this Section shall be imprisoned for not less than six months nor more than three years.”
It was further noted that many states have similar anti-mask laws on the books, so be aware.
“THE TWIN PEAKS AMBUSH”
On the fateful day of May 17, 2015, hundreds of motorcyclists and rights activists met in Waco, Texas to discuss current events and motorcyclist rights issues at a meeting of the Texas Confederation of Clubs and Independents (COC&I), and many subsequently had their lives changed forever. Nine people died, another 17 were injured that day after police opened fire on the gathering. Before the dust settled, 192 people were arrested, and charged with cookie cutter charges of participation in organized crime and held on $1 million bail each. Ultimately 106 were indicted on felony charges of “engaging in organized criminal activity.”
A recent post from Easyriders Scuttlebutt announces that Donald Charles Davis, who runs the popular Aging Rebel biker news site “has penned this interesting book (titled “The Twin Peaks Ambush: A True Story About The Press, The Police And The Last American Outlaws”) including far reaching interviews with people who were there on the scene, and attempts to make sense of it all, a tall order. He has done a good service, and we recommend the book to anyone who has an open mind and a heart. Bikers lives do matter.”
WEIRD NEWS: WITCHDOCTOR SUMMONS BEES TO STOP MOTORCYCLE THIEF
Local news reports from Mbooni, Makueni in Kenya claim that a motorcyclist has managed to recover his bike from a thief after asking the local witchdoctor for help.
The witchdoctor allegedly contacted a large swarm of bees that had already begun to invade a local market, and sent them to track down the stolen motorcycle instead.
According to motofire.com, the spell worked, and the thief is said to have run off ‘for dear life’ as the bees began settling onto the yoke and tank of the bike, as depicted in photographs of the scene. The reports then go on to suggest that the bees “also protected the bike from any further interruption for over half an hour until the owner could arrive, who then took his motorcycle home.”
Some say the swarm was merely an act of nature and nothing supernatural at all, and Assistant Chief Patrick Mwanzia said that the swarm simply arrived after the queen of the hive got stuck within the bike’s handlebars. And, in fact, “a similar incident had happened just days before when another bike was covered in a swarm for over two hours”… but how does that explain how the queen bee just happened to get stuck in that particular stolen bike?
QUOTABLE QUOTE: “MERRY CHRISTMAS!”
