Legislation Forum

LEGISLATION FORUM

"KINDERGARTEN BIT"

I am mad, boiling mad, at some of the letters in your magazine from cycle riders. And yet they have no backbone to stand up for their rights and speak their piece about these unfair laws. I can’t understand why they just want to sit back and watch lawmakers take the fun out of cycle riding and to watch the sport go down the drain. When they get done passing laws against us, we won’t be able to look at our bikes for fear of being arrested. And they get a kick out of it.

I got a ticket for having no helmet. This was on a Sunday. When I went to pay the ticket, I tried to explain to the judge that I had lost it, and was 20 miles from home, and, being Sunday, there was no place open to buy one. He told me I should have worn it, and not have carried it, and 1 wouldn’t have lost it. “You know the law,” he said. I paid a fine of $5 with resentment. So, fellows, let’s get with it. Let’s fight for our rights—if you want to ride your bikes the way you want, without the kindergarten bit.

DAVID PITTS Jonesville, Mich.

"MONOSYLLABIC RAGE"

I doubt that this will be printed any more than have the other letters I have written to you on similar topics. I seem to lack the touch necessary, the outraged howl of monosyllabic rage.

However, this time I intend to take a leaf from someone else’s printed letter (a reverse leaf, to be sure) and am sending carbon copies of this elsewhere. Elsewhere, in this case, includes the manufacturer of my favorite lemon (my bike) and my near neighbor, a friendly state senator who is looking for this year’s cause.

Even the most cursory analysis of the letters you print reveals an overwhelming bias in favor of the “you can’t make me do nothing I don’t want to” generation. Equally mixed with these seem to be letters from the “I always done it this way and no one’s going to make me” age group.

Gentlemen—and manufacturers— where are you going to be when the middle leaves the sport? What’s going to happen (and here I refer specifically to your reference to the “curse of Ralph Nader”) when the buyers and riders are left without the support of those of us, the bulk of us I suspect, who provide an element of stability to cycling through our relationship to various power structures?

I’m thinking of those of us (oldsters to the kids, young whippersnappers to the aged) who are middle-aged, ride, are continually forced to make excuses for the ill-mannered behavior of some of the noisy young, and are fed to the teeth with manufacturers who don’t answer letters, mechanical work paid for and never done, cycles sold to the tyro without a measure of training by the dealer, parts that fall off and troubles that can never seem to be diagnosed until just after the warranty has expired. All of these things have happened to me—and to others.

You did print a sensible letter from a reader who pointed out, at least to the degree that I was satisfied with his logic, that some of the things upheld by you are costing me money. I know they’ve cost me money in repair work not done by unlicensed and uncaring mechanics; until his letter I never thought of the insurance costs your “freedom now” boys are weighing me down with.

I think your reference to Nader as a curse demands an apology or, at least, must cause your readers to realize that, like many who have screamed loud and long against sensible legislation, the real name of the game has to be “protect the manufacturer.” Either this—or you’ve never read Nader. I think, and I’m sure there are others who will support this point of view (if you ever expose it to them), what motorcycling needs desperately is a Nader—someone who will fearlessly expose the manufacturers’ goofs (which are sometimes, I suspect, buried with the accident victims). It needs someone who will shout loud and long for safety and training and responsibility and work done when paid for and mechanics who have exhibited a minimum amount of skill on some objective scale of values.

Curse him? Gentlemen, if he didn’t exist, you ought to be the first to try to invent him.

I feel strongly enough about this, after years of just pounding out letters on this theme, that, if you’ll print this, I’ll volunteer for the role. Fellow cyclists, send me the horror stories. Tell me about the kinds of things that happened to you that I referred to earlier. I’ll promise you this (if you’ll send me names and dates and places and facts) they will be collected, analyzed, collated, tabulated-and I will report to you on what’s really happening to us and who is at fault. If it warrants legislation (licensing of mechanics, for example; minimum manufacturers’ standards, perhaps; attempting to make sellers make good), I'll do my best to make it come about.

(Continued on page 32)

Continued from page 28

BERT COWLAN Herman W. Land Associates 15 W. 44th St. New York, NY 10036

"HOIST THEM"

I find the “holier-than-thou” attitude prevalent in your editorial policy and clearly shared by a substantial portion of your readers a pain. You spend a lot of time quoting statistics and yammering about public relations and denying any association with the unwashed “minority riff-raff.” Let’s do all we can to tell an uncomprehending world about goody-goody us, you say.

Be honest with yourselves. Part of the fun of owning a bike is (was?) setting yourself off from the herd. Rightly or wrongly, when I owned a bike, I liked the hairy, noisy, dangerous image it helped to create. I got a charge out of blowing everything else off the road and frightening people. Of course I touted my bike’s sensible virtures, and pointed out that motorcycles are very common in Europe, cheap, etc., etc. But, deep down, it was the throbbing power, the danger, the feeling of being special, that gave the basic appeal. I don’t say that this was a particularly intelligent or mature attitude. At least it’s the truth. And one look at CW’s ads (“lean, angry model...really flies—world’s fastest...outperforms everything!”) shows that that’s what a lot of people want. The statement that the majority of motorcyclists are “nicest people” on little bikes (a 250-cc, 100-mph bike is little?) does not really tell the truth. Most such bikes that I am in awe of, and would like to own, are big bikes. Face it— motorcyclists are a sporting crowd.

Now that that’s off my chest, I do believe that motorcyclists are discriminated against, but I believe we could get a lot farther with a change of tactics. For example, I don’t think that mandatory helmet laws are unreasonable (individuals who want to increase the risks they run can take up Russian Roulette or the highly challenging Suicide With Bow and Arrow), but they should apply with equal force to people who ride in cars, buses, trains, and aircraft. The use of harness belts should be required at all times.

The point? The world is not a rational place. Just because the jerks have picked on you is no reason to demand the right to be as crazy as they are. Hoist them by their own petard, and insist that they wear helmets and fasten seatbelts every time they move the family crate across the street.

RICHARD BALLANTINE New York, N.Y.

"LEVEL HEAD"

In regard to R. Schneider’s letter (Legislation Forum, CW, Dec. ’68): The typical American thought is to worry about the crash, not the avoidance of it. I can only ask that a gentleman such as R. Schneider stay at home or on a private domain to learn the necessities of not “unloading” a bike at a sharp turn. Had he had the requisite skill, his fortune would have been better.

R. Schneider also complained of people not clothed properly raising his insurance rates; his incompetence could have done the same. There is no substitute for experience ■ and a level head, which R. Schneider seems to lack.

In my 14 years of riding everything from a Suzuki 50 to an H-D 74, I have never unloaded and never lost respect for the machines. Incidentally, I also never hold up traffic.

WOLFGANG WOLKE Chicago, 111.

"ANY IDIOT"

A little over a year ago, Maryland began requiring cyclists to obtain special motorcycle operator’s licenses. Prior to this, only the regular automobile operator’s license was necessary. At first glance this seemed a good idea, because under the old law anyone with an operator’s license could drive off on a bike, whether or not he knew how. The new law should prevent that.

At any rate, like the dutiful, law abiding citizen that I am, before a trip home to Baltimore from the University of Kentucky, I went to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get a license. After filling out a form stating that I was an experienced operator, taking a ridiculously simple written test, and paying $6, I became a legal operator of motorcycles. Simple, wasn’t it! Any idiot can get a license in Maryland by claiming prior experience.

I am very much in favor of special licensing for motorcycle operators, but it would appear that Maryland’s licensing procedures serve no constructive purpose other than to provide additional revenue for the state. Is this also true of other states?

Here in Kentucky, licenses also are required by a recently passed law, but the requirements and tests are somewhat more realistic than Maryland’s. There is still one serious problem—a driving test is required, but the applicant cannot drive his bike to the testing area. So far, the local police have been kind enough to turn their heads when an unlicensed rider drives in for his test. This flaw in the law has caused some degree of embarrassment to the state legislature, so it should be corrected soon.

FRANCIS E. OLD Lexington, Ky.