Payback Is A Bitch

I’d been on the road (as a cage passenger, sadly) sans-electronics for a few days and when I came home my email inboxes were filled with the usual crap. I don’t know how people survive with cell phones and the inability to automatically screen callers, texters, and email. I flag practically everything as “spam” and I still ended up with more than 150 pieces of crap in my email accounts after 4 days and, at most, there were a half-dozen things to which I actually want or need to pay attention. And all that is after my spam filter has automatically trashed about 50% of everything sent to me. One of the things that caught my eye was from a local motorcycling (not biker) group. One of the members linked a few pages of the jury decision in the case of a truck driver who crossed into the oncoming lane and killed 7 bikers. WebBikeWorld has some additional information on the case here. where it is noted that “One of the motorcyclists had a BAC nearly double the state's 'too drunk to drive' limit.” The poster speculated that the jury found Volodymyr Zhukovskyy to be innocent because “the jury was filled with idiots. Or the prosecuting attorney was an idiot and didn't present any of this [drug use] information to the jury. Or maybe Westfield Transport is run by the mob and they threatened to harm the family members of the jury?”

Possible. But I have a different theory.

Since the trucking company has bankrupted due to civil payments to families and survivers, I think this case is pretty much done in civil court. It could be the state will bear some liability due to the driver's past history and the fact that he shouldn't have had any sort of commercial license. Somebody else’s problem.

However, I wonder if the real takeaway from this decision is that the jury, like most Americans, are fed up with motorcycles. The general impression of motorcycles and motorcyclists are taken from the unnecessary and arrogant noise, regular well-publicized bad behavior, and the general impression that most motorcyclists are dangerous, sub-human, psychopathic gangbangers. A more successful tactic for the prosecution might have been to spend a lot of time bringing in experts to establish that motorcyclists are sorta (at least closely related to) humans. Hardly has worked pretty hard to create the sub-human image. You'd think/hope there would be some downsides to promoting anarchy, violence, and chaos.

About 20 years ago, I was on the MN Governor's Motorcycle Safety Council. A friend and co-worker, who was also on the Governor's council and was an ABATE officer (most of the council was made up of ABATE gangbanger wannabes) were walking to lunch in downtown St. Paul and talking about motorcyclists' public image. Most of the kids I knew at the school thought motorcycling was for "old people and assholes," but my friend disagreed with that general image.

His disagreement held up until a couple of noisemakers went past us and pretty much everyone on the street said something along the lines of "crash and die assholes." Once exposed to the real world, his take on many of ABATE’s positions changed enough that he quit his club office and took a back row seat in most of ABATE’s key political positions.

So, back to my take on the jury decision: Since police are clearly terrified of bikers and their gangs, maybe the jury just decided legalizing motorcycle highway carnage is the only way to get the bangers off of the street?

For calibration purposes, we got back last night about 9PM after a long vacation return trip (long for us). Went to bed about 11pm and spent the night being noise bombed by nitwits on Hardlys (and other garbage fish) on our un-policed county road well past 2AM. Personally, I keep hoping Amazon will sell a hand-held holographic projector sometime soon. People living in those noise traffic zones could project deer, moose, bears, cops, baby carriages, etc on to the streets in front of the local idiots on blubber-mobiles and entertain themselves watching the goobers try to remember where their brake levers are. My street is decorated all summer long with morons and their unmuffled, 2 hp bikes, and 4 hp sound systems. "If wishes were fishes" there'd be a whole lot of Hardlys buried in half-rotted carp.

A couple of years ago, a friend and I were talking about the herd of anti-vaxing, science-denying goobers who were (and still are) decorating hospitals with their dying breath and crazy conspiracy theories. I’m not a big fan of humans and so my take was “That just seems like the usual price for stupidity.”

His response was, “Being stupid shouldn’t be a death sentence.”

“Dude, that is always the result of being stupid,” I said. In fact, that is exactly how evolution works, it’s the whole point of the Darwin Awards.

Likewise, after 75 years of Hardly’s convincing every white male that looking like an unreconstructed off-on-bail convict on a last binge before a couple of decades behind bars is “manly,” we have a problem. Minnesota has a “road guard” law that allows a moron with a reflective vest and a paddle to stop traffic indiscriminately for any unreasonable amount of time to allow totally useless, law-breaking, and decadent bikers to parade through any street or road in the state. You don’t think that tactic creates animosity? I’d bet it generates enough hate for motorcyclists from at least 50% of the inconvenienced population that you wouldn’t want them on a jury if you wanted that jury to convict anyone of killing a motorcyclist with any kind of weapon. Sit through two of those clown parades and you’ll be running them down yourself.

Easy Fix, Never Happen

All Rights Reserved © 2011 Thomas W. Day

The news report read, "Hennepin County attorneys say that on the morning of Oct. 7, 2010, 20-year-old Amanda Elizabeth Manzanares was driving without insurance and under a restricted instructional permit when she drove her car across the centerline of Excelsior Boulevard in Minnetonka and struck a man riding a motorcycle. The man suffered severe injuries that have, to-date, required $500,000 in surgeries and other medical care. . .

"After retrieving Manzanares' cell phone at the scene, Minnetonka police investigators found a series of text message exchanges and calls on Manzanares' phone that were made and received in the minutes surrounding the collision.

"But, according to court documents, Manzanares denied using her phone at the time of the accident, telling Minnetonka police she had “blacked-out,” was tired, that she hadn't taken prescribed medication and that she was still getting comfortable as a driver."

This is what passes for "news" in modern America. Tainted, slanted "information" intended to inflame the unwashed, illiterate masses without providing any solutions, context, or depth. Back when he was funny, Dennis Miller defined television news as a series of unimportant but bad things we could all be glad didn't happen to us.

Don't get me wrong, Manzanares ought to prosecuted for nearly killing an innocent bystander with her miserable, incompetent (for whatever reason) driving. But by shining a bright light on this pitiful excuse for a human being, the law and the media are doing their damndest to distract the blame from the real criminals in this all-too-common sort of incident; cell phone providers. On one hand, television reminds us at every cop-show opportunity that any cell phone can be tracked if it is on. If it can be tracked, its trajectory and velocity can be determined. If all that is true, any communications attempted while the phone is in motion can be terminated. End of problem.

Driving while yapping on a cell phone use is clearly an example of driving while incapacitated. Every study that has examined the relationship between driving drunk and driving while asking "whut r u doin?" has found that cell phones are linked to driving mental retardation. One study (published in Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society) found in simulated driving conditions that drunks (at least those with a 0.08 percent blood-alcohol level) are better drivers than cell phone yappers. None of the drunks crashed in that study, while three cell phone morons did.

Why it took a study to identify this character of cell phone abuse says more about academia, society, and capitalism than it tells us about the actual problem. Any half-conscious motorcyclist knows that you stay as far from a cell phone user as the road permits. They are erratic, marginally conscious, and as dangerous as gangbangers. I'm no less worried about riding near a cell phone user than I am about trying to get by someone who is tossing out the occasional empty beer can or has an Easy Rider rifle rack loaded with automatic weapons.

If you're brand new to this planet and these United States, you might ask, "Why is this tolerated if the solution is so simple?" The reason, dear alien life-form, is money. The slim splinter that remains of our democracy is dedicated to the idea that the profits of a few override the security, health, safety, and quality of life of the nation and its not-rich citizens. Those trust-funded, grossly overpaid and under-skilled corporate executives who are the only real beneficiaries of the death and destruction their products cause (not the cigarette executives, this time) are more important than the lives of every other person on public roads. Why that argument doesn't hold true for alcohol-pushing corporate executives is a little inconsistent, but I'd bet it's because the cell phone execs are richer.

Of course, my electronic trigger isn't the solution I'd recommend in an ideal world; too passive and forgiving. Personally, I'd rather see cell phone manufacturers forced to install a spring-loaded 4" spike in every cell phone that would be triggered by cell phone use at any velocity exceeding 10mph. At worst, the cell phone user would have some part of his/her anatomy skewered for violating rational cell phone laws. At best, one more idiot would be spiked from the gene pool.

Honestly, I don't expect either idea to take hold in my lifetime or before the next comet blasts an idiot wind across the planet and restarts the evolutionary cycle. The rapid degeneration of our species depends on the right of the dumbest and most corrupt evil spawn's access to every damn toy their idiot heart desires. So, my favorite solution is dead in its tracks. Second, the attention deficit disordered have grown to depend on knowing what their friends and family are doing at this very second and they are perfectly happy to kill anyone in their path to have that knowledge. What's the worst thing that can happen, being prosecuted for "felony texting and driving?" That sounds slightly more serious than unpaid parking tickets.

Why They Hate Us

All Rights Reserved © 2010 Thomas W. Day

A while back, I taught an MSF Experienced Rider Class (ERC) with a guy who, apparently, doesn’t get out a lot. During a discussion about scanning for hazards, he intro’d the subject by saying, “Maybe you haven’t noticed, but a lot of people don’t like motorcycles. I don’t know why, but it’s true.”

At first, I thought he was kidding, but he wasn’t. He was truly clueless as to why much of the public has a grudge against motorcycles. He’s not alone. Several of the experienced riders in that class were equally stumped, even though a good number of them were obviously part of the problem. I often hear sportbikers complain that people cut them off, intentionally, in traffic. I’ve heard half-ton, black leather incrusted, biker gangsters wearing satanic and Nazi patches and decorated by more scars and tattoos than a retired pirate ask why other citizens shy away from them. Apparently, in our eyes we’re all a bunch of harmless innocents who are being unfairly singled out for discrimination. An informative Cycle Attorney article in Motorcycle Consumer News recently discussed the likely anti-motorcyclist bias of the typical jury in liability claims. Apparently, it's hard to find 12 of our "peers" who would decide in our favor in almost any circumstances. A nation of victims and we’re the most abused of the lot.

Actually, my family could provide a bit of insight regarding how the rest of the world regards motorcycles. My oldest daughter, who grew up amidst a small forest of moderately silenced 2-stroke dirt bikes, lived in Daytona for a year and came away solidly disgusted with motorcycles and motorcyclists; mostly thanks to “Bike Week.” My youngest daughter lived in Vegas and developed the same allergy to noisy and ill-mannered 2-wheel transportation. My son-in-law considers motorcycles to be pointless, dangerous, environmentally and socially irresponsible and suspects all motorcyclists are hooligans. He knows me pretty well. The rest of his family barely bothers to separate me from their generally low opinion of motorcyclists. My own father hasn’t removed Marlon Brando’s disrespectful biker from his mind and I’m solidly linked to that goofy bunch and have been for more than forty years. Of his four sons, I'm still a "dumb kid" and I'm the oldest. I can carry this list on for miles or days. About one-eighth of my immediate family rides motorcycles, the other seven-eighths dislike bikes and fear bikers. Practically every Minnesotan I know, who isn’t a motorcyclist or a wannabe, dislikes motorcycles somewhere between a little and infinitely. In this regard, there is nothing unusual about Minnesotans or my family.

Here are some of the reasons people dislike motorcycles, for those of you who have limited peripheral vision and no personal awareness:

The top of the list is noise. Mad TV’s Michael McDonald does a great imitation of the loud pipe mentality with his “look what I can do” spoiled brat. Loud pipes don’t save lives, but they do attract attention and piss people off enough to make them consider taking a motorcyclist's life or two. A while back, my editor, Victor, received a fair number of hate letters when he made critical comments about loud pipes. At least one of the writers made the claim that no one had ever complained about her loud pipes. Anyone who really cared to learn what people think of loud pipes should spend a few hours in downtown pedestrian traffic. Every time a loud bike potato-potatoes its way past the peds, the comments directed toward the rider always include “f****n’ a**hole” and “there ought to be a law. . .” and “where are the cops when you really need them?”

When an unmuffled twin-cylinder farm implement blasts through my neighborhood, I’m not much less negatively inclined toward motorcycles than my neighbors. Loud pipes are, obviously, a legal violation and the assumption is that either the criminal making the noise is well connected or the local cops are lazy, corrupt, and doing everything but “protecting and serving” the public. People have the same reaction when they see a pollution-spewing rat-truck fogging up the neighborhood. Pollution is pollution; air, water, noise, or otherwise.

That strongly negative response comes from low rpm, low frequency noise exposure. At road speeds, the response is more dynamic. When a bone-rattling, window-shaking, ear-damaging exhaust rolls up next to your cage at 70mph, the natural response is either to get the hell away from the noise pollution or squash it. Another way to quiet the noise is to ban it. Due to the limited technical capabilities of most police departments, many communities will find it easier to ban motorcycles than to limit their noise output. In the meantime, we’re going to be disliked by millions of folks for this reason alone.

That’s not good enough for some bikers. They want to be universally hated and feared and won’t stand for anything less.

On the road, we are the poster boys and girls for bad behavior. The sportbiker model for uncivil road manners is to play the wannabe-road-racer, constant-lane-swapping, tailgating game, which practically makes the motorcycle appear to be an irritating vanishing mirage to the typical cager. To be as irritating as possible, this crowd buzzes from lane-to-lane, running up on to the bumper of every vehicle “in the way,” making a whole new collection of enemies for the rest of us.

The cruiser parade really goes a long way toward making sure that nobody can recall motorcycling’s positive qualities. This isn’t completely limited to cruisers, because touring groups, sportbike groups, and even dual-purpose groups like to create their own special variation on traffic congestion. In Minnesota and Wisconsin, however, cruisers are the predominant parade masters.

A friend who lives in Hudson, WI, considered running for city council solely on the platform of ridding the city of loud motorcycles and motorcycle parades. He has contested the city’s practice of allowing parade “sergeants” to direct local traffic for the benefit of parade participants. He’s devised some clever experiments to force the city to admit that they don’t have an enforceable noise ordinance, which might eventually result in some changes being made. In the meantime, you are within your rights to invite a rock ‘n roll band to perform in your backyard, because even Iron Maiden makes less noise than a herd of big twins.

If you hang out with a group of motorcyclists, you can document your own list of reasons the rest of the population, including other motorcyclists, hate bikers. Here are a few that I’ve heard or read recently:

• “Some dumbass tailgates me, I toss a handful of marbles (ball bearings, paintball pellets, etc.) back at ‘em.”
• “What I like to do is, I see one of them yuppies with a brand new Harley hanging out in one of ‘our’ bars, I show him my colors and I let him know we don’t appreciate boys like him in our places. One of those Jap rice-burners parks next to our bikes, I kick it over. That let’s them know what’s what.”
• “Every time I see another biker on the road, I salute him with a straight-up wheelie. I really like doing that in heavy rush hour traffic. It scares the crap out of all the cagers.”
  “When I get through tuning, I test my bike by blasting up and down my neighborhood. Nobody ever says anything, even when it’s two in the morning.”
• “I can’t ever seem to hit a light change before I get off of the phone. People are so rude, they honk at me until I have to hang up and ride through the light. Do they think I can ride my motorcycle and talk on the phone at the same time? Usually, it’s yellow before I get through it, so those ill-tempered people are stuck waiting for the next green light.”
• “I say ‘screw the damn tree-huggers.’ I pay taxes, too, and if I want to shred a state park, I ought to be able to ride anywhere I want to ride.”
• “I put on my leathers, the do-rag, and my wraparounds and go out ridin’ and give ever’body I see a hard look; kids, ole’ ladies, yuppies, the crotch rocket boys, everybody. I make ‘em all afraid of me. Makes me feel good about bein’ a biker.”

And on we go, making enemies, restricting our own access to public roads and parks. We're on our way toward segmenting ourselves so much that even motorcyclists don’t like other motorcyclists. Sooner or later, we’re either going to grow up and treat riding as transportation or keep regressing until only rich guys can play biker on private property.

Why Not?

All Rights Reserved © 2008 Thomas W. Day

"I have attention deficit disorder. Can I ride a motorcycle?"

Sure, why not.

"Will I be safe in freeway traffic?"

Probably not. I expect you'll get killed or maimed in your first week in traffic.

"That's not fair"

You have attention deficit disorder. Motorcycling is a high concentration activity. Get used to it. Life is like that. In fact, nature intended life to be only for the fit.

"I have dyslexia, can I ride a motorcycle?"

"I weigh 400 pounds and can barely lift a coffee cup with out experiencing chest pains, can I ride a motorcycle?"

"I am blind in one eye and can't see out of the other, can I ride a motorcycle?"

"My little (22 year old) boy is dumb as a post, irresponsible, and couldn't find his own nose with a 1x12, should I buy him a motorcycle?"

Sure, why not? All of you should take out a second mortgage and buy the biggest, ugliest hippobike you can find. Slap some loud pipes on it, for safety's sake, and slip that big monster into heavy traffic. Do your bit to solve overpopulation. Why not?

We live in a victim-based, entitlement-sheltered, litigious culture where everyone is not only "created equal" but where many believe the legal system can overrule the laws of physics and common sense. My home state once attempted to legislate pi to 3.00 (actually, 3 without decimal places to keep the concept simple), for convenience and orderly-ness sake. Pi, however, remained its unruly self and the universe remained inconveniently hostile to simple minds. The universe is a really big place and, in the overall scheme of it, we're insignificant as a planet, of no notable consequence as a species, and totally non-existent as motorcyclists. We can make all the dumbass laws we want without making the slightest dent in the effects of gravity, velocity, mass, acceleration and deceleration, centripetal forces, entropy, or mortality.

Outside of being a tiny part of a really big picture, the problem with a motorcycle is that, regardless of our distaste for the inconvenience, a motorcycle will remain a two-wheeled vehicle with minimal safety features and a high skill requirement. You can be dyslexic, ADD-afflicted, uncoordinated, physically incapacitated, and a total moron and public transportation can, probably, still help you to your intended destination. At the least, a cage will surround you in a shock-absorbent, crash enclosure that will probably shield you from your inabilities and indiscretions. A motorcycle will spit you off, fling you into fast moving traffic, and--if you time it carefully--add insult to injury by landing on top of you after other obstacles have had their way with your mangled body.

Even if you are in the prime of life, at the peak of human capacity and a nuclear-physicist-brain-surgery-performing-rocket-scientist, a motorcycle, Murphy, and Mother Nature can still find a way to maim or annihilate you. If astronaut John Glenn can practically kill himself stepping out of a shower, zipping down the highway on two wheels at 100 feet-per-second has to be pushing the limits of reasonable activities. Of course, that also applies to flying an airplane, hang gliding, sky and scuba diving, bicycling, playing most sports, running, climbing or descending stairs, jumping rope, and talking about religion, love, or politics in public.

Many high risk activities have restrictive entry requirements. To rent or fill scuba tanks, for example, you have to successfully complete accredited scuba diving training. Before you're allowed to jump out of an airplane, you have to suffer through hours of closely monitored instruction. Motorcycling is less carefully controlled. Like getting a driver's license, the state's licensing program is designed to hand out certifications in Cracker Jack boxes. If you can't meet the current requirements for getting a motorcycle license, you might not be safe outside of a padded room.

Regardless of the state's low standards of acceptance, we humans ought to exercise a little uncommon sense. If your legs are broken, don't run marathons. If you're blind, don't waste your money on computer aided design college classes. If you can't sing, don't expect Simon Whatshisface to say nice things about your voice. If you aren't physically and mentally able to deal with the demands of managing a motorcycle in heavy traffic, if you can't control your panic reactions, if you don't have the self-discipline to constantly work on your riding skills, stay away from motorcycles. Yes, you can "ride" all of the motorcycle video games you like, but don't touch real iron. You'll create even more enemies for an otherwise perfectly useful mode of transportation. You'll add to our already miserable statistics. You'll get killed. We'll end up with more moronic laws, more employment for useless lawyers, and you'll still be dead.

I've changed my mind. No, you can't ride a motorcycle.

Chasing New Technology

A friend sent me a link to this picture as a comment on something I'd said a while back. If you look closely, you'll see that the carbon fibre front wheel disintegrated and the tire stuffed itself between the front fender and the forks and what was left of the wheel. I have no idea where this happened and under what conditions, but it's a pretty interesting look at what pushing the edges of available technology can produce.

A lot of racers have sacrificed their bodies to provide giant steps in technology over the years. Sometimes, the failure of one technology produces a completely different modification in the state-of-the-art, as when Roger DeCoster's Suzuki semi-experimental forks let loose during a 1975 Trans-AMA motocross and DeCoster suffered serious injury from the resulting face-plant. When he came back from reconstruction surgery, he was wearing a full face helmet and started a revolution in personal protection for motocrossers.

One of the good reasons some riders are so hung up on vintage bikes is that the technology is "proven." A bad reason for the same decision is that the proven technology is so far behind the state of the art that the proven stuff is dangerous; drum brakes, for example. Ignition points might be another example of deeply flawed historic technology, based on modern ignition systems and their reliability.

This last week, my wife drug me to the state championship high school rodeo at the Minnesota State Fair. Having grown up on rodeos, I was surprised to see all of the protective gear some kids were wearing. I like the change, but it's a long way from the "traditional" cowboy look. Helmets, armor, high tech shoes, and ropes that hold a loop even when they are dangling from the saddle horn, all stuff my older rodeo-riding cousins would probably spit on.

Everything changes. Some changes are painful. Some are easy. Some make sense, some ideas that look spectacular on blueprints turn out to be freakin' idiotic in application. As for motorcycle wheels, I still like aluminum wheels with spokes. Ideally, the wheels would support tubeless tires, but I can live with tubes. Someday, I suppose, I'll end up on a bike with plastic wheels and I'll like it.

A New Traffic Violation

On our trip north, my grandson had a lot of time to observe traffic and he came up with a new traffic offence category; DWBAD. Like DWI and DUI and the crazy list of drunk driving acronym's, we decided that DWBAD should have some serious consequences. Wolf is a beginning filmmaker and is always thinking scripts when he describes anything. Here was the first scenario we worked out together:

Cop
Sir, I need your license and insurance information, please.

Driver
What's the problem, officer?

Cop
License and insurance, please.

Driver
[Digs into his pants for his billfold and roots around in the glovebox for the insurance info, while complaining]
I don't know why you stopped me. I wasn't speeding. What else could I do on the freeway that would make you pull me out of the crowd?

Cop
[Looks at the license and paperwork]
Would you step out of the car, please?

Driver
[Now looking very worried, but getting out of his car.]
What's going on?

Cop
Step away from the vehicle, sir.

[As the driver moves away from his car, he notices another cop climbing out of the cop car, lugging a huge weapon. It looks, in fact, like a cannon of the sort you see in science fiction movies.]

Driver
What the . . . ?

[The second cop aims the cannon at the driver's car and, in an instant, vaporizes it on the spot.]

Driver
What the holy hell are you assholes doing? You freakin' destroyed my car? What did you do that for?

Cop
DWBAD, sir. I have you on camera, clearly DWBAD and I have authorization to prevent you from continuing to risk the safety of other drivers. Have a nice day, sir.
[The cop turns to leave. The second cop loads his cannon back into the car and climbs into the passenger's seat.]

Driver
What the f**k? What the hell is DWBD?

Cop
DWBAD, sir. Driving while being a douchebag. Two miles back, you cut off a motorcycle when you changed lanes for no good reason. A half-mile later, you were tailgating a station wagon full of kids so closely that they could count your nose hairs. In the last half-mile, you were so involved in your cell phone conversation that you took up three lanes and that still didn't give other drivers a safe margin. DWBAD, sir.

Driver
Where are you going with my license and insurance stuff? How the hell am I supposed to get home?

Cop
Sorry, sir. You can have the insurance card back. My mistake.
[The cop returns the insurance card.]
The license has been cancelled. You can apply for a new one in 2015.
As for getting home, I'd suggest you start walking. You're going to be doing a lot of that for the next six years.

And that's the story. My father used to have a saying, "fire a couple of warning shots to the head," when he described what cops ought to do to stupid drivers. The "driving while being a douchebag" concept is just an extension of that fairly radical suggestion from an incredibly non-radical man.

Look for the animated video of this on YouTube, any day now.

Fat Bikers and the Law

While looking for a picture to link to in a different column, I stumbled upon this website, Biker Law Blog, and this topic: Does Being Overweight Affect Your Rights in a Motorcycle Accident Case? Check it out. The picture the lawyer chose to emphasis his point is amazing.

The important part of the biker lawyer's conclusion was, "I do not see why a person who is overweight cannot safely operate a motorcycle. As a matter of fact, I personally know people who I would consider to be obese, and yet are outstanding motorcycle riders."

Holy crap! I know that the law is supposed to be blind, but I'm a little discouraged with how stupid lawyers and judges can be. How can anyone call motorcycle a "sport" on one hand and, then, claim that having the maneuverability of an overweight walrus and the shape to match would have no affect on a rider's capability?

My reasoned, calm, dispassionate response on his blog was "Well, that would explain why there are so many successful fat professional racers."

At some point, outside of the irrational territory of a court of law, common sense ought to prevail. Yeah, I know, "motorcycling is different than racing." It is: it's way more dangerous and demanding. Those giant bellies you often see perched on top of a lounge chair cruiser wouldn't fit on the seat of a motorcycle that has 21st century brakes, suspension, or handling characteristics. I've often considered most of what Hardly sells to be "motorcycles for the physically challenged" or "'rolling wheelchairs." If you are limited to a particular style of motorcycle because of your physical condition, it's obvious that you are equally limited in your capabilities. You might be able to compensate for those limits with experience, judgment, and by limiting your exposure to complicated riding situations (such as only riding in your backyard), but you're still less capable than someone not so encumbered.

While it's obvious that your "rights" will not be reduced because of obesity, it is equally obvious that a jury's sympathy for a lard-ass on a Harley will be dramatically different than it would be for a healthy adult riding a less stereotyped motorcycle.

In Motorcycle Consumer News, a while back, a much more reasonable lawyer spent some time explaining how successful trial lawyers would be well advised to avoid jury trials at all costs when they are representing a motorcyclist. Our public image sucks. Most people don't like us and we appear to be doing our best to further that opinion.

Regardless, imagine you're a juror in a trial where someone turned in front of a motorcyclist and the biker was unable to stop his bike and smashed into the cage. The biker is claiming, "There was nothing I could do."

The cager's lawyer shows you a picture of the biker on his bike, pre-crash. He's 350 pounds of sedentary flab and he's helmetless, armed in a wife-beater and sunglasses, and riding the bike of choice for the over-aged, Angel-wannabe (sort of like the bike Mr. Lawyer is pictured beside in his blog photo at right). Imagine the biker's lawyer is the guy in that picture.

You're a reasonably intelligent person. You can do a quick p=mv calculation in your head and-- adding the 900 pounds of the biker's rolling wheelchair to his 350 pounds of inert flab--you decide that anything changing directions faster than a glacier would catch this dude unaware and unable to avoid a crash. The cager goes free and un-fined and bikers all over the country cry "foul!"

The unfairness of the jury's decision causes even more flab-layered bikers to buy worthless loud pipes, eat more barbecue, and get even wilder tattoos. That alienates even more cagers and the next biker in court finds himself part of a routine on Jon Stewart's program.

Unlike Mr. Lawyer, I don't know a single obese "outstanding motorcycle rider." Not one. I know some once-outstanding riders who are still pretty good in their lard suits. I know a lot of guys, like me, who were once pretty good and are now on the edge of cycle-disabled because of their lack of flexibility, poor motorcycle posture, disproportionate weight-to-strength ratio, and limited choices of vehicles. If that really is a picture of the Law Blog lawyer, I suspect his definition of "outstanding motorcycle rider" and mine are radically different. He should look up the word "outstanding." I don't think it means what he thinks it means.

Now this is a pretty funny story:
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Judge Rules on Boston's EPA Stamp Act "restraining order

Justice Riders who filed suit against the City of Boston's "EPA Stamp Tax"Ordinance received word late Tuesday afternoon the Superior Court denied theirrequest for a temporary restraining order for enforcement of the $300 findOrdinance.

Yet the riders cheered the Court's decision that places the City 'on notice'that it may be held responsible for reimbursing motorcyclists for any finesimposed, and their costs associated with defending the $300 citations, if theirComplaint to strike down the Ordinance is successful.

In her well reasoned five-page decision, Suffolk Superior Court JusticeGeraldine S. Hines, found the five Plaintiffs, Paul W. Cote, William E. Gannon,II, Michael D. Longtin, Vincent A. Silvia, and Lawrence Cahill, although notBoston residents, had "standing" to bring the action that would void theOrdinance. However, the plaintiffs did not meet the standing that "irreparableharm" would be caused to riders if enforcement took place, as none had beencited and fined yet.

Judge Hines, in her ruling, opened the door that the City of Boston, and it'staxpayers, may be responsible to reimburse cited riders for fines imposed and"costs" associated with defending those imposed fines, should the Court laterfind the Ordinance be struck down.

"This is still a partial victory for riders," claimed Plaintiff Cote ofAmesbury. "While we hoped the Judge would temporarily restrain the misguided EPA stampenforcement, this is better than what we hoped for."

The Justice Riders will co-host a EPA (Either Pay or Act) Citizen-Biker RallyMonday night from 7:00 until 9:00 p.m. at the Hard Rock Cafe in Boston tocelebrate their Court Victory, give further legal direction for riders, andraise legal offense funds for the lawsuit by selling stickers reading "Don'tTread on Me - I refuse to be ruled by Boston City Councilors" for $2 each.

"I am glad the Judge gave us legal standing we hoped for in this case," saidPlaintiff Mike Longtin of Easton. "Today is a good day for New England area riders."

"If the City issues 100 repugnant citations that conflict with State Statutesand Regulations, those 100 riders may appeal spending at least $1,000 each inlegal fees contesting those $30,000 worth of citations. Then, should the Courtstrike down Boston's Ordinance, the City and its taxpayers lose that $30,000 andwill have to reimburse the contesting riders $100,000.00 in legal fees."

Plaintiff Vince Silvia of Haverhill was more blunt saying, "The City wants to cite me, I'll contest. I've had my bike sound tested 5 times, I will appeal and they can pay me whatever I spend when they lose."

Plaintiff Bill Gannon explained, "Generally, when you contest a citation, youbear the appeal fees and costs of proving yourself right and not wrong."

Gannon continued, "Judge Hines told the City of Boston in her decision that theyare exposed. If the five Plaintiffs successfully prove that that this Ordinanceis repugnant and in conflict with Federal Codes and State Statutes andRegulations, Boston must reimburse the harm (costs) riders incur."

On July 20, 2009, sets of Interrogatories (questions), admissions of fact, andrequest for documents were served on the 13 City of Councilors and Mayor Meninoto be answered under oath. Copies of those discovery requests can be viewed on www.BostonBiker.com and www.JusticeRider.com.

Stay Tuned to www.massmotorcycle.org for updates and action plans!

Justice Riders encourage riders with EPA stamps on their bike attend Mondaynight's Citizen Biker Rally at the Hard Rock Cafe to get updated information anddirection for further action.

"This matter is not about noise," claimed Cote`, "It is about the City of Boston wrongfully imposing this standard that is improper."
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Cote's statement reminds me of all the southerners who claim that the civil war was fought over states' rights, not slavery. Of course, the only "right" the southern states were protecting was the right to own slaves. The only "standard" these characters are concerned with is their right to subject the general population to their unnecessary and excessive noise.