27th NCOM in Indianapolis - by Gypsy Limey
May/19/2012
The main topics again this year were profiling and education. Profiling has even become a bad word for the government to use since they lost the anti-profiling suit in Washington against the State Police versus the Outsiders MC. With the support of the US Defender network the State lost big time, in fact the State was ordered to pay $90,000 to the Outsider MC member for the lost wages etc that he suffered because he was a Outsider MC Member. I have copies of the court proceedings and notes if anybody is interested. For future reference the powers that be will use the word “Trending” not “Profiling”.
The President of Abate of Florida, James “Doc” Rochenbach ll, in the general assembly meeting reads out the names for all lost MC members the bell rings for each name, it is especially touching when a name is read that you recognize as a Gypsy Member. There were 4 pages of names of fellow club members that were lost this year. This brings us all closer for a short time and that is the true effort of the NCOM organization “A voice for all Motorcyclists to protect our rights and lifestyle”.
New York and Georgia were the first States to adopt motorcycle checkpoints in the name of safety. AIM lawyers have been battling this for some time now. Although they are not winning in New York or Georgia, they vow that they will take this fight to the Supreme Court. With no money in the States budget, states are cutting back on education so they can afford to have cops on overtime. K-9 Units, Gang Units and Border Patrol are all checking VIN numbers and doing background checks under the name of safety checks! The highway authorities justify these checkpoints “because these bikers party and drink and many have no motorcycle endorsement on their license”. In New York they set the checkpoint up mid-morning on a wet day close to the Canadian border - with all the above listed departments on overtime no wonder we are broke.
We had a meeting with Jay Jackson, President Abate of Indiana. He had arranged for a speaker from the Indiana State Government, Dan Jeffries, to speak to us about motorcycle safety. He is in the department that funded police activity with the goal of reducing motorcycle fatalities in Indiana. Last year they had 118 motorcycle fatalities. After presenting his study and his conclusions I could see the results were not appreciated by the audience: 70% of the accidents were the fault of the biker, 45 incidents of bikers unable to control the motorcycle in a turn, 50% of the bikers who died did not have a motorcycle endorsement on their license and had not been through a motorcycle safety course. He explained that his goal was to reduce motorcycle deaths and he’s convinced the best way to reduce accidents was for the police to show up at events and check bikers for drinking and if they had a current license. The folks in the meeting thought this was profiling, he explained that he did not say it was fair or right but he had his goal to achieve. He also explained that everybody blames the car drivers for pulling in front of motorcycles and that if we want the cops to stay away we must clean up our own act and be legal. It seems that bikers are easy pickings for law enforcement to issue citations that keeps the funding coming. One last note about Dan Jeffries he is an avid motorcycle rider along with the Indiana Governor, these are really good guys we need to find officials in all our communities that ride then we would know what is going on in our local governments.
Jay Jackson also invited everybody back to Indianapolis later in the year to see the Moto GP races at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. They are going to close all of downtown to traffic with the exception of motorcycles. If you have never seen a motorcycle going 150mph in the rain (or over 200mph on the straight away) then you have to check out Moto GP.
We had the opportunity to see the new systems of cameras they are now putting on police cars. These cameras connect to police in-car computers and can read 300 license plates a minute while they are cruising through a parking lot or just driving down the highway. Indiana is against motorcycle only checkpoints. In Texas we have fought against checkpoints and have been successful; many states are much further behind Texas in the way motorcyclists are treated.
With the aid of Abate of Michigan and the US Defenders, the 30 year helmet law in that state was changed to allow riders 21 and older to have the choice. In Minnesota the riders that organize parades and large runs can now legally stop traffic for the parade they do not need cops; this was another effort by the COC and the Defender program.
The EPA is working hard to establish legislation that would require an EPA stamp on the mufflers of all motorcycles. Police could then issue tickets to motorcycles parked on the side of the road if the stamp is not visible.
This is just a short account of what was happening at the 27th NCOM if you’d like more information see your Legislative Offices at Mandatory. Please registered to vote, become knowledgeable of the candidates and, above all, get involved with our Calls to Action, they do work and it is our right to govern the government, they work for us.
Looking forward to Mandatory, on behalf of the Gypsy Legislative Team.
L&R
Gypsy Limey
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