The Legislative Session is Upon Us.  When they are done in Tallahassee this year,
will you still be able to afford to ride your motorcycle?  Will you even be able to keep it?

For all of you FREELOADERS who continue to sit on your can and let members of ABATE OF FLORIDA protect your interests, listen up.  This would include those of you who think that the only thing we care about is helmets, you listen up too.

The Florida Legislative Session begins on the 1st Tuesday in March and convenes for sixty consecutive days.  The legislature is not even is regular session yet and we already have the HB265 bill in the Florida House and companion SB984 in the Florida Senate.  These bills conveniently do not include the word ‘motorcycle’ or ‘cycle’ but if these bills are passed into law in their current form, the face of motorcycling in Florida will severely change.  The result will mean only the wealthy will be able to legally ride.  A few short on money but big on cojones will choose not to meet the requirements of the new law.  Unfortunately that will mean they are criminals and subject to fine, prosecution and incarceration. 

Why do we already know this?  Why are we already working on this when search engines do not discover any threat to motorcycling in this bill?  ABATE OF FLORIDA members join together and involve themselves in fundraising to provide for a lobbyist.  This same lobbyist called this to our attention just about the time the ink was drying on the bill.

This onerous bill deletes a portion of statute that defines motor vehicles.  This same portion being deleted happens to exclude motorcycles from carrying PIP.  Forget about the cost of carrying PIP on a motorcycle (and that you cannot buy it), but imagine how much it will cost to insure yourself against being run over by someone.  No fault situations do not work or provide affordable solutions for someone riding a motorcycle.  The reason insurance companies want helmets on motorcyclists boils down to the simple fact that when someone they insure runs over one of us, it costs them big money.  As a motorcyclist, you know that a helmet is not going to save you from injury and/or death when Joe Impala runs over you so you understand why insurance companies are going to make you pony up big time when a new law makes you responsible for paying for your injuries when someone runs over you.  HB265/SB984 will relieve the at-fault Joe Impala’s insurance company of the financial responsibility of running you over. 

You will pay insurance premiums to take care of yourself in the event Joe Impala runs you over.  That is why many people will be legislated off the road by this legislation.  If you own your own bike and you are not independently wealthy, you will not be able to afford the insurance.  You will be able to choose to park it or become a criminal.  If your bank owns your bike, you are in worse trouble because they require you to have insurance.  You will have some additional lovely choices to make.  Perhaps you bank will allow you to sign an affidavit that you won’t ride it since you don’t have insurance? (because you cannot afford it).  Perhaps you will turn it back into the bank because you are not so sure you want to make payments on something you cannot ride?  Perhaps the bank won’t take the risk of you riding the bike without insurance and will call their note due.  If they call their note due (and they can, check your loan documents), you will either pay it off or they will repossess it.  When they repossess your bike, then they will sue you to pay for it anyway.  Hopefully, you are getting the picture here and understand that it is not pretty.  Do you also understand we could really use your help???

We anticipate a busy legislative session protecting the interests of motorcyclists in Florida.  Perhaps this is the time for you to get off your can and kick in on the efforts.  At the very least get of your wallet and support the organization that protects and preserves what you pretend to care about.

Florida has been high on the NHTSA radar for at least 18 months.  Know that we are number one on their hit list and they have rolled out another major pair of documents in the last six months that includes their helmet initiative propaganda.  For those who do not think that is important, understand that when we do not stand together, we are vulnerable.  Know that there are ways for them to try and take us down that will cause you more than a mere inconvenience.  Know that ABATE OF FLORIDA includes members who choose to wear helmets.  Know that this propaganda has resulted in helmet legislation appearing in several legislatures already.

In the Florida legislature alone, we have a very full plate in the upcoming legislative session.  We will be looking for ways to tighten our stiffer penalties legislation in regard to Joe Impala running over us.  We are looking to see what kind of legislation we can introduce in regard to restricting cell phone use.  We will be looking for additional funding for motorcycle safety and public awareness campaigns.  We will be working toward making sure driver education returns to all public high schools.  We will continue to work on passing our Discrimination bill.  We previously succeeding delaying mandatory rider training bill delayed until July 2008.  If we are unable to make changes necessary, we will have to kill or repeal the legislation.  Our biggest concerns with it as it stands include lack of sufficient ‘grandfather’ clause, deficiencies in lack of course cost cap and concerns with access in regard to the limited number of training sites.  There are already waits to take the course and it is not mandatory.

Being a member of ABATE means you get information in regard to contacting your officials to help pass or kill legislation regarding motorcycles.  You can get information about what is going on and how you can help.  Contact a Chapter near you to join.  Members and non-members alike will be needed to attend our annual Freedom Rights Rally in April.  We need you to get on that motorcycle and ride into Tallahassee with us and up Appalachee Parkway into the Capitol.  This session was already important in that we have a lot of newly elected legislators.  They need to know we vote, we give a damn and we will be on the scene to make sure they are representing us and our interests in the Capitol.  When we go see our legislators in April this year, we need to ride en masse.

Ride safe out there and if you want to keep riding, get yourself signed up as a member and pay attention.  Those who have been carrying your load and pulling your weight all of these years may come up short without your help, so get off your can and take yourself off the welfare biker role…….JEB