The Battle For Freedom: Must Reads

As each of us goes through our daily lives, today and every day, while rights and freedoms are being removed by our government and put into law, unless you join the fight to stop them.

In early November 2007, Dave Christy, Bikers' Rights Advocate, Colorado, began a narrative on the current (and alarming) state of affairs with regards to Biker's rights, and the escalating loss of freedoms directed at us, as bikers, in a way that is clearly discriminatory. It is published on LDRLongdistancerider.com and I've posted links below.

For example, in Florida legislature, now on the table:

Did you receive the notice not long ago from your vehicle insurance company about PIP? Do you know what that means to you as a rider? HB265 and companion SB984 relieves an at-fault auto driver's insurance company from the responsibility of paying for your injuries if that driver runs you over. You will not be able to purchase PIP on your motorcycle (the bill excludes motorcycles from the term motor vehicles), which means you personally can be sued for the medical bills of someone you hit. You will be required to purchase catastrophic personal medical insurance in order to ride your motorcycle and be covered. Uninsured motorists coverage will not apply to motorcyclists. Your only recourse will be to sue the driver who ran you over, at great cost to you, and that's assuming the driver has anything of value. And, of course, if you can still walk, talk, still have a place to live, and are independently wealthy.

And Federally, now on the table:

Unless the HIPAA law loophole is amended, your medical insurance underwriter can continue to refuse to cover you when you ride, or drop it if you have it.

Without PIP and affordable personal medical coverage when you ride your motorcycle, you you are not covered on all angles. If you own your bike outright, are you prepared to ride with no medical coverage whatsoever? And if your lien holder requires it, can you afford it?

And if you are run over? Well, your life will be, in a word, over. Even if you survive.

It's not just about helmets, handlebars, or after market pipes. There are bills in the works (Florida State and Federal) THIS YEAR that will take away your freedom to ride.

Want to know the real reason mandatory helmet laws are being shoved down our throats? Insurance companies. They believe if we all wear helmets we won't be injured or die. Ludicrous? Yes, we, as bikers, know that's pretty far-fetched. But insurance companies know that when one of their insured runs us over, they pay BIG. They want out of that responsibility. And they have the money to lobby for this. We just have our little letter-writing fingers.

And for all of you reading this who don't live in Florida? If this Florida bill goes through, how fast do you think YOUR state will follow suit?

So, if you ride, and you have thus far chosen not to involve yourself in the fight to ride free, these installments written by Dave Christy are a must read. Beware all - you are about to learn of very real and present dangers of losing your right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in owning and riding a motorcycle.

If you don't ride, whether you have opinions about motorcyclists and the laws that govern them or not, PLEASE show that you are not narrow-minded and ignorant of the facts, and read these installments. They are fact based, and portray the real situation. Even though you don't ride, they do involve you in a very real way.

I will be posting the link to each installment as they become available, and I have taken the liberty of adding quotes from each installment, as a "hook".

Remember, opinions, to be taken seriously, should be based on fact.

BATTLE ESCALATES AGAINST RIDERS' FREEDOM OF CHOICE

Part 1 (click the link to open the installment)

"We're all in the traffic mix and rely, with an x-factor of trust, on each other to do the proper things. In spite of that reliance, vehicle operators commit 'fouls' on other roadway users, and/or themselves, to the tune of millions of collisions, crashes, and "accidents" every year in the U.S.A., resulting in 40,000-plus fatalities every year, to include an escalating percentage of motorcyclists in that figure. It's a sad fact. What must be understood is that 95% of all accidents are due to human causation factors!"

"The motorcycling community is relentlessly pounded upon by NHTSA, and more so in the last few years due to the increase of motorcyclist fatalities as a percentage of the yearly highway total. The news media are fed the stats, latch on and stoke the flames through inference among the general public, who view us riders as a careless liability, damn-near miscreants who ride "donor-cycles" and deserve what we get because motorcycles are 'dangerous.' And you have to wear a helmet. If you don't wear a helmet you brought it on yourself."

"Without helmets, we all pay" says NHTSA, as they create polarity in the public realm and influence opinion, deliberately against motorcyclists--attempting to establish motorcyclists as a disproportionate drain of injury and medical dollar consumption. This is called the Public, or Social Burden theory."

Part 2 (click the link to open the installment)

"By inference, the message is "You motorcycle riders - when you don't wear a helmet and you get hurt - are costing the public money. And when you get killed, it's because you weren't wearing a helmet!"

"Using my home state as an example, our Colorado government estimates (probably conservatively) we have almost 800,000 medically uninsured, or about 17% of the population. This figure would probably include some people who ride motorcycles. At any given time, any of these folks are dependent on publicly-funded medical care, for any reason under the sun. Shall we paint all these folks with the brush of 'Social Burden?' Using the logic, after all, what's the difference between "us" and "them?"

"It is also a known fact that over 100,000 people die annually due to "medical mistakes," more than 20 times the number of annual motorcycling fatalities. That's about 280 average everyday, folks."

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"The battle for bikers' rights is not about patches, parties or poker runs. We fight to protect the freedom and promote the interests of American motorcyclists ... to defend our right to choose our own modes of transportation, attire and lifestyle ... to deter and defy discrimination against us ... and to vanquish those who violate our rights or right-of-way."--Bruce Arnold