For years, the California motorcycling community has been restricted to just a one-punch approach to fighting the helmet law. But there never has been, and quite probably never will be, a one-armed heavy-weight champion. There have been champions that had one particular punch that won them the most fights. But if that punch was a left hook, the fighter still had to have a good right jab. If it was a right cross, he still had to have a distracting left.

    The Helmet Law Defense League and our supporters believe that there is only one way to take out the helmet law or to put a stop to the rampant discrimination against bikers, and that one way is to promote any and all ways. Our critics within the community, however, do not share that view. They have long insisted (often with violence or threats of violence) that their one-punch (actually more of a pat-on-the-back) legislative approach was the one and "only way".

    I sat in the Senate Transportation Committee hearing today to witness what I have so many times before, except today the treatment of the motorcycling community was particularly rude. Of course the meeting did not start on time. At approximately 2:15 p.m., four members of the nine member Senate Transportation Committee opened the meeting scheduled to start at 2:00 p.m., and Assemblyman Bill Morrow and supporters of AB-244 were given the opportunity to begin their presentation to an virtually empty panel. Eleven chairs for nine Senators, with only four committee members present -- less Senators present than it would have taken to pass the bill out of Committee. The proponents of AB-244 were allowed 30 minutes to make their case to this empty "house".

    Assemblyman Morrow did an excellent job of introducing the bill. Paul Lax of ABATE of California followed, and also did his normally effective job of summarizing the problem, and defining the solution. As I recall, Rob Racer from the AMA went next, but all he did was read a prepared statement that just about put everybody under. Then came the representative for the California Motorcycle Retailers Association who talked about the sales tax losses and the loss of business in general resulting from the helmet law, closing with a rousing testimonial outlining the valuable contributions that Dick Floyd had made to the motorcycling community through his efforts to establish and support the motorcycle training program in California. I was so distracted by that particular endorsement that whatever happened in the next few minutes I just sorta missed.

    By the time I recovered from that shock, it was CHP Lt. or Sgt. or something Perez who was explaining to the now virtually complete panel how the CHP was not, in essence, cooking the books to make the helmet law look more effective than it actually is. (Yeah, right.) As the string of bleeding-heart doctors and trauma-care professionals laid their view of all the human suffering brought on by the use of motorcycles in general, I kept thinking about what I was doing there.

    I was preparing to speak to the Senate Transportation Committee in opposition to AB-244. In order to do that, I had to associate myself with these people. But all these people know about Freedom is how expensive it is. How much of a "societal burden" the rights of individuals who violate their "should"s costs. But when I looked back over to my side, the glares I saw reminded me that their shoulds were no less important to them, and no less intrusive on me.

    I don't know who the girl was sitting behind me, but when she decided to beat me up for exercising my choice to oppose AB-244, her comment was: "You must not own a Harley." Of course, she's right. I don't own a Harley.

    By now, time was starting to run a little short, so I moved toward the front of the room and approached the Sergeant-at-Arms for the Committee Room to make sure that I would be able to address the Committee. He made me stand over in line with all the cry-babies -- I mean the ones who were opposing AB-244. It really felt strange.

    I still didn't know what I was going to say. (Sometimes I find out these things at the same time the people I'm talking to do, and this was starting to look like one of those days.) I just couldn't shake the feeling that the people I was soon to be mistaken for didn't want me there, or at least believed they didn't want me there; but I knew I was and am on their side.

    The next thing I realized it was my turn to speak. I began, but found myself suddenly interrupted by Senator Kopp -- the Senate-side version of the bigot Floyd. He mistakenly thought I was one of the people supporting AB-244 -- you know, a biker. (What would give him that idea? I don't own a Harley, remember?). Anyway, when he realized I was speaking against the bill, he wasn't even curious about why? He just sat back and gave me the floor. How could he know that I had opposed and do oppose all helmet laws, and the bigotry they represent, with every fiber of my being?

    Well, I did my little presentation. I tried to point out what I perceived as the most serious problems with having any helmet law, much less a helmet law amended such as to discriminate against people under 21 years of age. I pointed to the dangers of helmets, to the CHP's enforcement frenzy and talked about the inability of riders to know how to comply, with certainty, with the helmet law's provisions. I also suggested (as I remember) a potential modification to include all motor vehicle users in the mandatory helmet use category; and God forbid, I even suggested the possibility that they might even consider instead repealing the whole notion of helmet laws altogether.

    The committee then invited Floyd to speak, and he simply said that he supported the bill because he was looking for something to do to keep him busy for the next couple of years.

    The committee then took the vote and killed the bill 6-2.

    After it was over, I kept thinking. I wondered how different things would have been if the members of the committees had had eruptions of problems with helmet tickets in the courts in their respective districts -- expensive problems. I wondered if they would have been so disinterested if bikers by the hundreds, or maybe even by the thousands, were being ticketed and fighting with every ounce of energy in the courts for the right to ride free. I wondered how different the attendance and attention of the respective Senators would have been if the complaints against citing officers and other enforcement personnel were numbered into the thousands instead of just counted by the dozens. I wondered how different things would have been if BOLT had been allowed to throw just a few right jabs to set up a left hook to be delivered by ABATE and MMA. I wondered . . .

    quig

Prior to the committee meeting, we had published on the web site the following article warning of some the the problems encountered May 7th: My Rant on AB-244. We promised opposition, but the other rights groups chose to ignore our perspective (or potential).

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