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Bikers Rights & An Open Letter To CurvesAhead.Net |
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Thursday, 03 April 2008 |
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 EDITORS NOTE: This is a letter I recently received from Sam. As you can see, she is passionate about motorcycle riding and even more passionate about protecting our rights. After receiving this email, I called Sam and spent nearly an hour on the phone with her sharing stories and experiences. I was so impressed by her drive, writing style and insight, that I asked her to be a guest columnist for CurvesAhead.net and she accepted!! Look for more articles from Sam coming to CurvesAhead.net in the near future. She is strategically located in Tallahassee and promises to bring us much more about issues relating to protecting our rights as motorcycle riders. You can find out more about Sam by visiting her blog at http://rider-sam.blogspot.com/
Hi Maria,
I checked out your website. Nice coverage on rallies and such.
How about writing about those of us who fight for the freedom to ride in those rallies? Every day, some legislator somewhere comes up with a discriminatory bill to restrict our freedoms as bikers. I've ridden for 30+ years and it never ends. People speak of discrimination against race, religion, and gender, but most are totally unaware of the very real discrimination against motorcyclists.
When people go out and fire up the bike for a ride, and in Florida, leave the helmet at home if they so choose, they have no clue of the blood, sweat, and tears it took to get that freedom for them. And when you go out and change those pipes to aftermarket, sweet sounding V&H pipes on your Harley, they don't know that "we've" fought battle after battle against local
authorities to retain the right to put after market pipes on your bike. We've recently defeated a bill that would restrict you from deciding if you can have your child on the back of your bike. Businesses restrict the wearing of leather into their establishments. Mayors even try to restrict motorcycles completely from parts of their cities. The list never ends. And
it is an exhausting battle, done by the few who care about the freedoms that our forefathers wrote for us.
Many fight in secret because of their jobs. But they fight. But most sit at home in apathy and complacency, unaware or in denial of the fight that goes on under their noses. It is because of us that they can ride to Daytona in freedom to assemble. It is because of us they have or afford medical insurance to cover them. And it is because of us that the roads are kept safer for them when they ride. Yet, it seems to be taboo to even think of voicing their opinion about the politics of helmet laws, or after market pipes, or even how high your handlebars can be. I can't tell you how many times I have been told by a legislator of how much they appreciated my opinion of what they were about to pass as law. Most legislators don't ride, so they don't understand what it means to us, or what their bill might mean to our freedoms.
We have freedom fighters on Sport Bikes, Harleys, and all other types of two-wheeled vehicles. It matters not what you ride. The freedoms we have to ride are for all of us. It's not about the rallies, the bike nights, or the charities, because underlying all of those, the freedom to ride is fought by the few who care about those freedoms.
Society at large would like to eliminate motorcycles completely, and without those of us who fight for our rights, that is exactly what would happen. Most non-riders would choose NO motorcycles on the roads rather than watch out for them, and they would choose to talk or text on their cell phone rather than pay attention to driving and not running one of us down because of it. Ask any of your non-riding friends how they feel about cell phones being completely banned while driving? Yet scientific studies show that merely listening to a conversation on a cell phone is equivalent to being intoxicated. Our government is intent on making all riders wear a helmet, touting that it will save our lives, yet every biker knows that when a 4000 lb vehicle pulls out in front of you at the last second, you're probably going to die whether you have a helmet on or not. Every day there are newspaper reports of a motorcyclist killed by a right-of-way violator, and the motorcyclist is blamed
The majority of riders have medical insurance that pays for injuries, yet society at large is convinced that THEY pay our medical bills nearly 100% of the time, and thus they also believe that helmets should be mandatory for us. Helmets don't save lives, preventing crashes does. Oh, I agree that if you ride recklessly, and you take a spill independent of another vehicle, a helmet will save your head, maybe, depending on how you fall. But in the argument with a vehicle 10 times bigger in weight? You never win. You may be alive, but without your legs, or arms, or both. And all the hundreds of
thousands of dollars in medical bills, and lost wages for the remainder of your life, are all yours too, while the distracted driver gets a $45 ticket for failing to yield the right-of-way.
Freedom isn't free, in anything.
Best Regards,
Sam
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