Rumor

I overheard something interesting at a run today. It sounded like Florida is trying to make a law that if you are caught driving a bike in excess of 50 mph over the speed limit they want to confiscate your bike. This should get some people on both sides pissed.

I am anti more legislation, but I know it would make me think twice.

I saw some huckleberry on TV today. His comment was if these "kids" that are 17 race, we will take their bikes.

Let's take this weekend for instance and the dead pilot. He and his friends were said to be racing. It turned out to be false. So, next time you pass a car that is doing 45 in a 55 and there is more then one bike, they will call you in a racing and have your bike pulled.

This is more bullshit. We don't need new laws. We need the ones we have enforced properly.

I saw some huckleberry on TV today. His comment was if these "kids" that are 17 race, we will take their bikes.

Let's take this weekend for instance and the dead pilot. He and his friends were said to be racing. It turned out to be false. So, next time you pass a car that is doing 45 in a 55 and there is more then one bike, they will call you in a racing and have your bike pulled.

This is more bullshit. We don't need new laws. We need the ones we have enforced properly.

Everybody needs to write your representative

It's been a law here for years that if you're more than 15 over the speed limit and within less than 1 bike length apart for each 10 miles per hour of speed, it's automatically racing. $350 fine and 6 points on your license. Usually your insurance company will drop you after a racing ticket, and here if you don't have insurance your plates get pulled by the state. 2 racing tickets accumulates enough points on your license that you don't legally drive for three years. They aren't confiscating your bike, but they're making it impossible to ride if you get caught racing.

In my opinion It's not so bad.

Everybody needs to write your representative

I will supply the information as soon as I look it up.

I will get the Huckleberry's name and address too. This guy is the devil in desguise. It's obvious he has an ax to grind about motorcycles. The fact he tried to make it sound like only "kids" would lose their bikes scrares me. His point is to get people thinking like BW, it's good.

Once we give them this it is not a far strecth for them to conficscate motorcycles on the subjectiveness of a police officer for many other "reasons". And we know not all police officers are created equal and follow the law.

I didn't say it's good, I said it's not so bad.

There's no counting how many times I've been startled out of my saddle by a couple of crotch rockets shooting past me at 9000rpm. I ride within the law for the most part. I keep it at or under the speed limit up here in the mountains because to exceed it is just flat dangerous, to me and to the other people I might encounter.

There's no counting how many of these yahoos I've seen in a ditch or wrapped around a tree a few miles down the road. I have seen head on collisions with bikes and cars because of racing. I had a dead body in my parking lot once because of it.

If you want to consider laws against racing "bad", you might as well encourage it. Racing is for the track, not for the road where public safety is a priority. You know that I know a thing or two about speed, but there is a time and place for it, and it isn't on the public roads.

If it takes confiscating somebody's bike because they insist on racing on public roads, then so be it. Tugs initial post said "50mph over the speed limit". Any idiot running 125 on the freeway, or 95 in a 45 needs to be removed from the road. Period. They are as much of a danger to me as they are to themselves.

I agree...
My speedo says 125 at the high end...that doesn't mean I am supposed to peg my needle to it.
This is just like the drinking and driving issue...
There is absolutely NO legitimate reason to be exceeding the speed limit by
50 MPH...not even by 20 MPH.
There are times when I have to run at 75 or 80 on the expressway, particularly when heading south towards Detroit. For some reason everyone seems to be in a hurry to get there or to leave, but heading north or east or west from here I rarely ever have a need to go above the speed limit, at least no legitimate reason.
I have seen my share of deaths involving high speeds on two wheels...
The actual control you have at high speeds if something jumped out in front of you is little or none, even on them crotchity rockets....
And it isn't always a car or truck or another bike that will get you...A deer or dog, a fox or even a big 'ol June Bug in the forehead at 120plus can wreck yer ass....
Enforce the laws we have effectively, and stop wasting time and tax dollars trying to patch a broken system with new laws that won't be enforced...
In the time it takes to legislate the next set of like saving laws , we'll likely see another couple dozen "kids" killed by their own reckless endangerment...

We don't need more laws. That is a liberal cop out. We need to enforce the existing laws.

The point is existing laws can be used and these laws are not so subjective that they can just take your motorcycle.

Bikers are perceived now to have money. Imagine a town like those over in the Daytona area that want to ban bikes. Imagine that every bike going through town side by side was considered racing and confiscated on the subjective judgment of them.

Then imagine them saying, you can have your $30K motorcycle back for 2K. And it gets paid.

Yeah, all that on a judgment call.

If I ever get caught going 50 miles over the speed limit, I'll gladly give the cops my bike and never ask for it back. It proves I'm too stupid to own one in the first place.

You know me FX, I'm not a liberal by any stretch of the imagination. I'm no more conservative than I am liberal. I am all about common sense... and if you have to legislate common sense then I guess I'm all for it. 50MPH over the speed limit is way outside the limits of common sense by every stretch of the imagination.

I don't know what your current laws call for for that kind of behavior, but if the existing punishment is not harsh enough, then it needs to be changed, and that is not stepping on anybody's rights. You don't have the right to ride on a public road at 50MPH above the speed limit. Speed limits are established to ensure the safety of everybody that rides the road, not just to protect the stupid idiot that might break the law. In Georgia current laws work, are enforced and don't step on anybody's "rights".

Helmets? I could care less. I wear one anyway. But I do not want to be on the road with somebody going 50 miles on the speed limit and am in full favor of doing whatever it takes to keep them off the road. They are a danger to *me*.

If you think the proposed legislation is wrong, then come up with a plan that is better, but I would respectfully ask that you don't advocate the lack of further legislation out of any sort of biker's *rights* when an obvious public safety issue is being addressed.

What laws already exist that you feel are not being enforced? If there are some, then address the issue from that standpoint. Call your lawmakers and point that out to them... but if there are no laws that address it already, then perhaps there needs to be one.

50 over is not just speeding, it's public endangerment. How are the laws currently written in your state to address that?

You are falling prey to the wording of the law. While some things, like 50 MPH are tangible, there are too many weakly written parts that are open to interpretation IMO.

There are instruments in place that, like I said, exist already that can give similar relief for law enforcement with out degrading our rights to the subjectiveness of a particular officer who may hate bikers.

Give them an inch and they take a mile. This is happening everywhere with our rights.

Some people are always going to hate bikers. It's a culture that was enforced back in the 60's and 70's. But the fact remains that an officer will not take action against you any more than he will a cager when it comes to upholding the law. If your speeding, you'll get a ticket. If you're driving drunk, you'll get arrested. Same as with a cager. But the cop knows as well as you do that if he issues a ticket or arrests you for something you didn't do it will get thrown out of court. Then you've got a harrasment case on your hands.

So I still ask, what laws are on the books that are not being enforced that are addressed by the current legislation?

Exactly my point. All the laws we need are in place already and just need to be enforced. They also have the proper mechanisms in them so that "the man" can't go out of bounds forcing you into a guilty until proven innocent and you pay first situation.

So...what's it take to get the laws enforced?
Maybe changing the law to read..."if you are in excess of 50 MPH over the posted speed limit, it will be mandatory for any officer that witnesses this to put his donut down and give pursuit"...
I was at an intersection yesterday, and there was a cop sitting next to me. As the light changed a car went through the red light in the cross traffic...He never slowed down, and the driver wasn't already in the intersection when the light changed. The cop just drove away like it never happened...
I about went ape shit...
If I had started to pull out, especially if I had been on the bike...my ass would have been toast. I have learned to stay put until I am certain that opposing traffic is stopped...not appearing that they 'might' stop...but stopped.
The cops have no interest in doing their job of enforcing traffic laws, except for arresting drunk drivers, which is big money around here, as I am sure it is in any city/state.

Well conversely, I saw a guy run a red light in front of a cop the other day too. And he got busted.

It's my case in point. The laws are there, they just need to be enforced.

Complain to the police chief about what you saw and make those cops work. Our cops are working it appears.

Making more laws is not the answer. It just erodes our freedoms.

Who's to say that cop was not looking at his computer dispatch screen in his cruiser when that guy blew the cherry that hoppy was talking about? Cops don't have to be sucking doghnuts to miss what goes on around them. They're no more perfect with detail to attention than you and I are.

I miss spam posts on this board when I'm looking at another board. It doesn't mean that I'm a failure or a slacker or a jerk just because if I don't see everything that goes on here and prevent 100% of the problems... and yes, sometimes I'll make an over reactive move on one of these boards that seems punitive... but I always get put in my place for it.

If we were all perfect, there would never be a traffic accident, and there would never be a traffic citation issued undeserved, or not issued when it was deserved. It's putting yourself on a righteous stump to try to say that the cop's don't do their job.

Times change FX. I'll say it again, at one time there was no law against somebody shooting you in the back because they didn't like the color of your shirt. Laws came about to prevent that. Motorcycles didn't used to go from zero to 100 in three seconds, so there was no need to create a law to stop that kind of behavior either. Address your concerns with the existing laws, yes, but don't rule out new legislation that addresses issues that haven't had a need to be addressed before.

You're trying to blanket everything regarding new legislation under the "erosion of our freedoms" without discussing WHY preventing somebody from driving 95 in a 45 erodes anybody's freedom. It doesn't erode any freedom in any fashion I can even imagine.

Laws are bad, Ok. I'll go along with that... as long as you put the word RESTRICTIVE or STUPID in front of it... but what is stupid or restrictive about placing serious consequences on people who place the entire population they come in touch with in jeapordy of their lives? I guess we just need to turn a blind eye to serial killers too since we'd be infringing on their freedom.

I wasn't being to serious on the our's are working your's are not issue. I was making a point.

Would another red light law fix the problem? No. See the point?

I see the point enough to concede the issue.

You know, it is incredible that we can debate serious issues like this and not get so hung up in strangling each other that we destroy good debate. That's one of the things I like about this board. Generally we can get through a contested debate defended on numerous sides by multiple personalities and nobodies mother gets called a whore. It's rare these days to be able to have politically controversial discourse without the name calling and bashing that we seem to be able to avoid here.

O yer just being a butthead.

O yer just being a butthead.Don't make me start talking about your momma Ricky :)