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Biker Rights Other Motorcycle Blogs

2008-10(#2): RIDE TO THE POLLS AND VOTE (Bikers' Rights)

On Tuesday, 4 November 2008, “We the People” will elect a new President and Vice President. In addition, 33 U.S. Senate
seats are up for grabs, as are all 435 seats in the House… We will also be choosing 11 new governors, and deciding
the winners of countless thousands of state and local political races. So on Tuesday, 4 November 2008, I am calling
on every American motorcyclist to RIDE TO THE POLLS AND VOTE. It is a fundamental obligation of every American citizen
to share the responsibility for deciding who will govern us, and how we will be governed. Voting is how that
responsibility is discharged. Motorcyclists who don’t vote have no right to complain if they don’t like the outcome.
And that goes doubly for MRO leaders and others in what Maryland Nannycrat and GHSA Chairman Vernon F. Betkey Jr. calls …

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Biker Rights Other Motorcycle Blogs

2008-10(#1): OF LAWYERS … BY LAWYERS … FOR LAWYERS (Bikers' Rights)

Like millions of Americans, last night I watched the first Presidential debate between “Borrow-and-Spend McSame”
and “Tax-and-Spend Oblabla”. I saw the event as 90 minutes of re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Neither
offered any new ideas as to how to capture Bin Laden, defeat global terrorism, restore our reputation abroad, rebuild
our crumbling infrastructure at home, or end our dependence on foreign oil. More importantly, they were equally
clueless as to how we can keep our economy from sinking in a rising 10 TRILLION DOLLAR SEA OF DEBT that…

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Biker Rights Other Motorcycle Blogs

2008-09(#2): DON'T CALL YOURSELF A FREEDOM FIGHTER (Bikers' Rights)

Fellow Riders and “Freedom Fighters”: The November elections are only a few weeks away. Soon we will finally get a
merciful reprieve from the disappointing back-and-forth “lipstick politics” polluting our myopic media, and at long
last we will know whether the mess We the People made by voting for Dubya twice will be inherited by
“Oblabla and the Mouth” or “McSame and the Milf”. SPEAKING OF VOTING… If you have not yet registered to vote, please
do so as soon as possible. If you have any questions about where or how to register or vote in any state, you’ll find a
wealth of information online at…

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Biker Rights Other Motorcycle Blogs

2008-09: Rebound Riders (Bikers' Rights)

Look! A Yamaha Virago 1100. A Honda Nighthawk 700! A Honda GL1200 – and a Yamaha XT 350?
A recent commute tickled my moto synapses with forgotten motorcycles. I saw all of those bikes–on the road, refueling and parked at the barber shop. Funny how 400 pennies per gallon brings the dusty rides out of American woodsheds…

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Biker Rights Other Motorcycle Blogs

2009-11: A Motorcycle Right-of-Way Violation Widow and Survivor Addresses the Killer of her Husband (Bikers' Rights)

Brenda Garon Melancon, Former Mayor
44337 Melancon Street, P.O. Box 7
Sorrento, LA 70778 . 225-675-8*7*
I hope on this day, 14 October 2009, that you will spend some time reading my letter, and that the message I am conveying will make a difference, because on this day I will spend some time at the cemetery mourning my husband Jim, and spend some time honoring him by reflecting on all the reasons that I fell in love with him.
“It’s not the life that you live, it’s the courage that you bring to it.”–Yogi Bhajan
This is the quote I adopted in 2004 when I started to teach yoga. I really never understood why I adopted this particular quote as my own credo, and even put it on my yoga business cards. Now, I truly understand why.
It’s been 2 years since your grossly negligent behavior as the driver of the car who violated our right-of-way, and as the Mayor, who although with prior knowledge did nothing about the existing problems at the intersection. We know the result of your negligence. The death of my husband Jim, the permanent disabling injuries to me, and the devastation to our entire family. I will remind you of your immediate response after the crash when asked if you had been in touch with the Pickholtz family, was “No. I don’t wanna know. This is all so devastating to me. The accident was just horrible.”
Horrible, yes, but this was not an accident, Ms. Melancon. This was an incident, caused by you, but not solely about you…

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Biker Rights Other Motorcycle Blogs

2009-10(#2): Motorcyclists Slighted by USDOT Distracted Driving Summit (Bikers' Rights)

Last week, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and the Department of Transportation staged a two-day Distracted
Driving Summit in Washington DC: [ http://tinyurl.com/ncozgx ]
Of all motorists, motorcyclists are the most vulnerable to injury or death as a result of accidents caused by
distracted drivers. Yet for some reason, neither the American Motorcyclist Association (“AMA”), nor the Motorcycle
Riders Foundation (“MRF”), nor any of the attorney-fronting faux MROs were invited to sit on any Summit panel,
give a presentation, or even make a formal statement. In fact, neither “motorcycles” nor “motorcyclists”
were even mentioned in the Summit agenda: [ http://tinyurl.com/yalgzex ]
Why motorcyclists were slighted is a mystery. Another mystery is how the federal government managed to issue press
release DOT 156-09 summarizing the conclusions and recommendations coming from the Summit at 1:07pm ET, when
the Summit did not officially conclude until 23 minutes later:

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Biker Rights Other Motorcycle Blogs

2009-10: Recession, Revolution and Bikers Rights (Bikers' Rights)

Rather than answer the call of a shallow party-line hack like Utah State Representative Curtis Oda to “proudly” run
Ole Glory up a pole and celebrate 9-11 … a date which should more appropriately “live in infamy” like December 7
… I chose instead to mark the 8th anniversary of our 2nd Pearl Harbor by riding 1100 miles from South Florida to
the Washington DC Beltway suburb of Silver Spring MD. In so doing, I logged my 43rd Iron Butt ride and not
coincidentally my “11th” SaddleSore 1000.
I had a mixed agenda for my three-day stay in our nation’s capital, not the least of which would be gazing at the
gaggle of true believers in Glenn Beck’s 9-12 Project gathered on the National Mall for an Astroturf Tea Party.
What I saw was life imitating art, with Beck playing the role of deranged “Network” TV anchor Howard Beale while
his staged, sign-waving and media-seeking followers vied to broadcast their prepared sound bytes and declare with
Twitter-compliant brevity why they were “mad as Hell” and “not going to take it anymore”…

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Biker Rights Other Motorcycle Blogs

2009-09: Harley-Davidson and Corporate Social Responsibility to Fallen Riders (Bikers' Rights)

Dear Bill, A kind assessment of your response to my letter of June 6 entitled “Why Should Motorcyclists Support the MDA?”
incorporated by this reference… http://tinyurl.com/pgny4n …would be that what we have here is a failure
to communicate: http://tinyurl.com/navt4s And if you consider my replies to your surrogate somewhat harsh, you
can attribute that to the condescending attitude pervading the dismissively evasive answers proffered for my
direct and serious questions. I am no enemy of Harley-Davidson, Bill. I have been a biker at heart since I watched
my first episode of “Then Came Bronson” as a boy, and a motorcyclist in fact since my father helped me buy my first
ride in 1969. I bought into living “the dream” promoted by the Motor Company hook, line and sinker, and perhaps in
some small way have contributed to “the legend” by completing over 40 IBA-certified distance and endurance rides
on my ’99 FXDS: http://distanceriding.ldrlongdistancerider.com That is not to say, however, that…

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Biker Rights Other Motorcycle Blogs

2009-08: When is it Right to Ride in the Emergency Lane? Or … How I Ended Up Head Down on a Hood and Handcuffed (Bikers' Rights)

A FEW SATURDAYS AGO … I was riding home to the flat sands of South Florida after a twisting tour through the steep
mountain ridges and narrow winding valleys surrounding Charleston, West Virginia. The weather was comfortably cool
heading south down the WV Turnpike and on through Virginia’s Blue Ridge Highlands to Fancy Gap and North Carolina.
But from Mayberry (“Mt. Airy”) on, the temperature and humidity rose rapidly as the elevation descended. And by the
time I stopped for gas just south of Charlotte in Rock Hill, South Carolina, my handlebar thermometer was
registering over 100 degrees.
Continuing south on IH-77 through Columbia, I reached its terminus near Dixiana and turned east on IH-26.
The oppressively sweltering heat was making me regret drinking Coke instead of water at my last stop a hundred
miles back, and I was really looking forward to quenching my thirst at the next fill-up. Not long after that,
though, I topped a rise and saw that my next stop would be delayed: There must have been a bad accident ahead,
because before me was a sea of stationary taillights stretching in two lanes to the horizon. Damn! I stopped for
a few moments like everyone else … but only for a few. I recognized my dry mouth and draining strength as signs
of dehydration. And yes, I admit I had neglected to pack any emergency water that morning, but I decided not to
punish myself for that omission by sitting in the sun and baking on the hot pavement until I passed out.
The emergency/breakdown lane was open, so…

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Biker Rights Other Motorcycle Blogs

2009-12: We Have No Rights

Our democracy is a myth,
Our leaders can’t be trusted;
Our government is corrupt,
And our system is busted.

We have no rights,
Save those we defend;
We have but each other
On which to depend.

Bruce Arnold

Source: http://tinyurl.com/y9mlced