Even Worse than Cagers

When I taught Minnesota’s MSF classes, I would often caution my students that “cagers aren’t out to get you, they aren’t that competent.” The wannabe bikers who took those classes, from the Beginning Rider Course (BRC) to the Advance Course, would always claim that cagers “are out to get you” and I enjoyed ridiculing that delusion. I did regularly remind my classes that, “It takes them 4-wheels to balance, how competent can they be?” and that always got a laugh. My argument to this day is that if cagers were trying to kill us they’d be way easier to predict than if they are nothing more than random-motion-generators with entirely unpredictable and irrational results.

My last six years stuck to bicycling has not improved my opinion of car drivers. However, living in a Mississippi River town that pretends to be a tourist destination has done nothing positive for my opinion of motorcycles, in particular “bikers.” 

All summer, I’m forced to watch these goobers wallow through stop lights, because they are incapable of stopping without falling over, in a parade of noisy morons is a weekly exhibition of incompetence. Their regular demonstration of white-boy-entitlement (occasionally white bimbos, to be fair) flaunting traffic laws and disturbing the peace with no part of their smog machines meeting EPA/DOT emissions standards proves that we are a lawless failing empire. Never mind the rot at the top demonstrated by half of the country that is willing to elect a felon with a history of rape, fraud, tax evasion, and treason, we get loud and proud demonstrations of the capriciousness of our “law enforcement” every time a biker fires up his blubbering junkmobile. 

Toward the end of my southern California stint, in 1991, I started to see a lot of illegal motorcycles on the road. Like today’s hippomobile riders, the California smog machines were mostly ridden by fat, patched and badged, and tattooed white bozos either being gangbangers or doing their best to look and act like gangbangers. Like every other state in the country, the California cops suddenly started looking the other way when those undisguised criminals blubbered past. The 80s were known as the “greed is good” decade, but they were really about the beginning of lawlessness and top-down criminal behavior.

So, now my opinion has shifted slightly. The only thing I despise more than incompetent cagers are incompetent bikers. The cagers, at least, often have the good sense to try to hide their incompetence with modern driving-assisted vehicles. And, let’s be honest, it doesn’t take much of a computer to be smarter than the dumber-50% of humanity. Bikers are going the other way. Since they feel compelled to compound their noise-making by traveling in herds, they con weak “lawmakers” into passing foolish legislation like Minnesota’s “road guard” idiocy. Three hours of remedial training (pushing the intellectual limits of biker gangbangers) and $30 and a total numskull “authorizes motorcycle road guard certificate holders to stop and control traffic for motorcycle group riders. Drivers of vehicles stopped by a flagger may only proceed if instructed by a flagger or police officer.” Yep, people actually making a useful contribution to society can be held up by a pack of useless numskulls out to violate noise and air pollution laws and get drunk at every tavern on the way.

This year’s lame legislators caved to the gangbanger crowd with about the dumbest “lane-splitting” law yet considered in our rapidly decaying empire. The law slithered into the 2023-2024 Budget Bill, HF 5247, believe it or not. I have no problem with lane-splitting and, in fact used that ability almost non-stop for 10 years living in Southern California. I do have a problem with Minnesota’s penalizing incompetent motorcyclists with, “An operator of a motor vehicle must not intentionally impede or attempt to prevent the operation of a motorcycle when the motorcycle is operated under the conditions specified in section 169.974,”

Now, here is the badshit crazy part of this new rule:

(g) A person may operate a motorcycle and overtake and pass another vehicle in the same direction of travel and within the same traffic lane if the motorcycle is operated:
(1) at not more than 25 miles per hour; and
(2) no more than 15 miles per hour over the speed of traffic in the relevant traffic lanes.
(h) Motor vehicles including motorcycles are entitled to the full use of a traffic lane and no motor vehicle may be driven or operated in a manner so as to deprive a motorcycle of the full use of a traffic lane.

So, motorcycles can occupy another vehicle’s lane at will but other vehicles have to give motorcycles “full use of a traffic lane.” How the fuck can you rationally follow that law if you are in a car? The moment a motorcycle enters your lane, you are in violation of part (h) of the same law. And the law provides a traffic violation for that moment! If the state wanted to find a way for the 99.999,,,% of road users to begin the process of banning motorcycles from public roads, I think they may have hit the jackpot.

Maybe you’re under some delusion that Minnesota motorcycles are particularly competent? [Pardon me while I laugh so hard my guts hurt.] Maybe you think that, even though they dress like Outlaws and Hells’ Angels and flaunt federal and state emissions and noise laws as if they don’t exist, they are really nice people (probably dentists and grade school teachers) who will make every effort to obey that “no more than 15 miles per hour over the speed of traffic” up to “25 miles per hour?” Maybe you believe in the Easter Bunny and Superman, too?

Buy some popcorn and find a safe place to sit back and watch the trainwreck next July. It’s gonna be . . . exciting, as long as you aren’t on the road when it happens.

Socially Responsible Motorcycling? When?

About one third of Minnesotans had been obeying the state’s social distancing rules by the time the rules started going away. Even fewer bother with masks, especially outside of the Twin Cities, and that two-thirds who aren’t taking any more precautions than they did back in January. Of course, they  are constantly whining that the “the rules aren’t working.” Rules, of course, only work when people obey them. Which brings us to motorcyclists.

Thanks to some slimy legislation promoted by Minnesota ABATE in 1982, the minimal contribution Minnesota motorcyclists make to the state’s highway funds comes through gas taxes. Fees collected for motorcycle endorsements pay for motorcycle safety training exclusively, which is mostly wasted money. Minnesota uses the MSF program which has steadfastly refused to subject its training program’s outcome to any sort of evaluation. In fact, MSF instructors are cautioned not to tell “students’ that there is any relationship to the MSF’s training and becoming a safer motorcyclist. Based on my own 18-year experience as an MSF instructor, I believe the training we provided was as close to the absolute minimum possible to hand-hold the least capable riders through the endorsement test. In other words, we put a lot of butts on seats, which is what the MIC/MSF are all about. So, our every-4-year endorsement money pays for a barely-used bureaucracy and the few hundred miles a year the typical Minnesota motorcyclist rides generates a few bucks in gas taxes to pay for the roads we ride’ and crash on, to great taxpayer expense. In 2018,  the estimated economic cost to Minnesota for motorcycle crashes was $1,875,540,500. The numbers aren’t in for 2019’s even higher number of crashes and fatalities, but they will be soon. As of early June, we’re on our way to setting a new state motorcycle fatality record in 2020.

Back in 2013, I compiled a database of miles traveled by collecting odometer readings from Craig’s List ads across the country. One of my readers transferred that to Google Docs format and readers/riders from across the country entered data. Eventually some asshole decided to crash the spreadsheet/database, but by then I had learned that the typical motorcycle gets ridden about 1,400 miles a year with a strong modal average at about 750 miles. Most people who call themselves “bicyclists” beat those road miles by a long ways well into their 70s.

So now that, as a society and thanks to the novel coronavirus, we’re asked to reduce our exposure to each other and to try and reduce the load and risk on our healthcare system what are motorcyclists doing? The usual, anything but something useful. I should rephrase that statement, motorcyclists are doing what they usually, being careful, going AGAT, and maintaining a small social and environmental footprint.

Bikers are the problem. Bikers are out in force, riding in their underwear, protected by magical napkins on their bald heads, making as much noise as possible, and spewing fuel and mayhem where ever they go. Bikers, on the other hand, are proudly members of the two-thirds of Minnesotans who could give a flying damn about anyone else. Their biker “rights” so grossly overwhelm any responsibility they might accept for their actions that they are beginning to attract attention from the public and, sooner or later, legislators.

As of early June, 2020, 29 people have died on motorcycles on Minnesota roads and highways; the majority are single vehicle crashes and the overwhelming majority are the pirate biker crowd. We’re on track to beat or equal the previous 1985 high for the state’s motorcycle deaths. I guess we’re “lucky” that attention has been diverted from our fatalities to Covid-19’s devastation. Bikers aren’t happy with losing that focus, though. In my small town, we have had multiple biker gatherings that are practically begging to be viral hotspots and, when they are, I’m sure we’ll hear all sorts of whining about “government tracking” when the bikers get the blame for spreading Covid-19. In our area, restaurants have been allowed to reopen with outdoor seating and decent spacing, but our local biker bar is flaunting all of that and their customers are dragging tables together and making a show of pretending to be tough boys and girls. From what I’ve seen (and experienced with asthma, bronchitis, and pneumonia) I suspect that tough façade will collapse about the time they can’t breathe. Drowning in your own fluids is the ultimate waterboarding.

Imagine the attitude of overworked and stressed healthcare workers working without adequate PPE, staff, and other resources when some dill-hole in a pirate outfit is wheeled into an emergency room suffering injuries from recreating on a motorcycle. Do you really think people who label bikes “donorcycles,” “murdercycles,” and a collection of other even more graphic derogatory names are going to be happy to risk their lives on people who are too lazy and arrogant to even bother with a helmet? Do you think they should be required to care more than you do? Good luck with that. If your argument is “they knew what they were signing up for,” get ready to hear “right back at you big, bad bikerboy.” At the least, they are going to take special joy in scraping the rocks and asphalt from your road-rashed ass.

This video is of a New York biker gangster funeral procession back in early April. On their website, these characters claim they were “social distancing and being responsible.” You judge.

Crashes and Deaths by State

How crazy are the drivers in your home state? The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety does a nice job of providing data for you to decide. Unfortunately, my HTML/Google Blogger capabilities makes this harder than it should be to read. I apologize for that. Excel spreadsheets don't transfer smoothly to webpage tables and correcting the spacing and alignment is beyond my patience and interest. This is 2017 data, but I doubt ANYTHING has improved since then, since nothing else in this country is getting better.

State	Population	Vehicle miles traveled (millions)	Fatal crashes	Deaths	Deaths per 100,000 population	Deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled
South Carolina	5,024,369	54,859	924	988	19.7	1.8
Mississippi	2,984,100	41,387	614	690	23.1	1.67
Louisiana	4,684,333	48,094	696	760	16.2	1.58
Alaska	739,795	5,028	75	79	10.7	1.57
Kentucky	4,454,189	50,284	721	782	17.6	1.56
West Virginia	1,815,857	20,106	280	303	16.7	1.51
Arizona	7,016,270	67,821	919	1,000	14.3	1.47
Montana	1,050,493	12,738	169	186	17.7	1.46
Florida	20,984,400	215,810	2,922	3,112	14.8	1.44
Kansas	2,913,123	32,504	407	461	15.8	1.42
Texas	28,304,596	270,621	3,343	3,722	13.1	1.38
Arkansas	3,004,279	35,746	457	493	16.4	1.38
Idaho	1,716,943	17,676	223	244	14.2	1.38
South Dakota	869,666	9,341	111	129	14.8	1.38
Alabama	4,874,747	69,277	864	948	19.4	1.37
New Mexico	2,088,070	28,171	340	379	18.2	1.35
Oklahoma	3,930,864	49,228	611	655	16.7	1.33
Tennessee	6,715,984	80,128	959	1,040	15.5	1.3
Wyoming	579,315	9,492	105	123	21.2	1.3
Georgia	10,429,379	122,398	1,440	1,540	14.8	1.26
Missouri	6,113,532	74,005	863	930	15.2	1.26
Colorado	5,607,154	53,750	600	648	11.6	1.21
North Carolina	10,273,419	117,754	1,306	1,412	13.7	1.2
North Dakota	755,393	9,760	105	115	15.2	1.18
Oregon	4,142,776	37,528	400	437	10.5	1.16
Delaware	961,939	10,242	112	119	12.4	1.16
Indiana	6,666,818	80,282	836	914	13.7	1.14
Maine	1,335,907	15,063	163	172	12.9	1.14
Nevada	2,998,039	27,803	290	309	10.3	1.11
Pennsylvania	12,805,537	104,022	1,083	1,137	8.9	1.09
Nebraska	1,920,076	20,828	210	228	11.9	1.09
Rhode Island	1,059,639	7,997	76	83	7.8	1.04
California	39,536,653	353,868	3,304	3,602	9.1	1.02
Illinois	12,802,023	107,369	1,005	1,097	8.6	1.02
Hawaii	1,427,538	10,513	96	107	7.5	1.02
Ohio	11,658,609	117,194	1,094	1,179	10.1	1.01
Michigan	9,962,311	103,080	939	1,030	10.3	1
Virginia	8,470,020	85,335	783	839	9.9	0.98
Wisconsin	5,795,483	64,160	557	613	10.6	0.96
Iowa	3,145,711	34,241	301	330	10.5	0.96
Maryland	6,052,177	59,417	511	550	9.1	0.93
Vermont	623,657	7,436	63	69	11.1	0.93
Washington	7,405,743	61,569	536	565	7.6	0.92
Connecticut	3,588,184	32,126	260	278	7.7	0.87
District of Columbia	693,972	3,550	29	31	4.5	0.87
Utah	3,101,833	31,874	247	273	8.8	0.86
New Jersey	9,005,644	76,550	591	624	6.9	0.82
New York	19,849,399	129,146	933	999	5	0.77
New Hampshire	1,342,795	13,467	98	102	7.6	0.76
Minnesota	5,576,606	57,922	340	357	6.4	0.62
Massachusetts	6,859,819	60,560	336	350	5.1	0.58

For me, there were few surprises. I absolutely admit that I would assume that Red States have a higher percentage of pissed off assholes and the resulting sorts of highway deaths and mayhem.Texas is, as you'd expect if you've ever driven or (suicidal-ly ridden a motorcycle) in that nutbin of a state, Deathrace 2017 and Beyond: 10 million fewer people than California but 100 more people dead on the highways. The Southeast is consistently the most dangerous place to be on the road with only Virginia in the safest states at #14. Minnesota Nice appears to be reflected in our highway safety record. Traffic congestion seems to be less of a contributor to highway fatalities than you might think, since Massachusetts, New York, California, and many of the  states with significant urban traffic are under-represented in fatality numbers.