Mandates
Posted by: RoachDate: August 6th 2008
MANDATES
Over the past few years I have read all about cell phones and how studies compare them at the same level as drunk driving. This may be so, but as a biker with no protection from the elements, but our own conscious of our surroundings as we chose to take on the dangers of riding, doesn’t it seem that if one is scared to ride they should sell their bike and by a cage?
There are a lot more things to worry about than cell phones, besides you can see someone using a cell and with a little common since you keep an eye on them while riding around them. This hazard is visible but many others are not and the ones that are not are the ones that kill most riders.
One of the unseen hazards is the fact that many bikers do not know how to ride from lack of experience or training. Look at the stats; 75% of deaths in SC are biker error but some want to pick out one action and damn everyone in the state with mandates against it because they are scared. How about the three hundred pounder that has half of a chicken stuck in their face driving down the road; or like the other day I pulled up behind a dude that had his steering wheel camouflaged with the news paper! I see these things while riding and protect myself from them, you never know what action is going on in another humans life at a given moment.
I live on Sampit River, the world record shortest fresh water river, with snakes, alligators and other varmints that are everywhere; even when I go out of the house in the morning I have to keep a keen eye out for the dangers of the environment I live in. Just yesterday I sat on the porch with the family and can’t count how many snakes crossed the driveway; should I run and get legislation passed to wipe out all these dangers I chose to live with? That would be a joke and I would probably be the laughing stock of the general assembly. Hey I choose my environment and I live with it so what is the difference? I am not scared of the choices I have made but I keep a keen eye open for the hazards that can kill me; this includes riding.
There are many more hazards that we cannot control, except but by being alert, that will kill you; for those that want to mandate everything that you are afraid of, to be against the law, stay home, sell your bike and build you a shelter that will protect yourself; Myself, I don’t need any mandates making even everyone a law breaker. The only way to fix stupid is to get stupid to look at stupid in a mirror but until then, just like with all the other hazards such as snakes, gators and falling tree limbs, we have to learn to live with it to stay alive.
One more thing as I close; look at all the other mandates that have made even you a law breaker and ask if they work; If you study them you will answer no; all they do is grow the state coffers, people are still getting killed. Do the Freedom Fighters stand for Freedom of Choice or does that line just sound good so as to get people to stand with you? When one starts lobbying for a mandate then one has made himself a hypocrite; sitting on a fence and jumping off it on the side that sounds good. The laws are already in the books, they just need to be enforced, but I guess people are brainwashed into thinking we need new ones making even themselves a lawbreaker.
Have the MRO’s turned their backs on Freedom also?
