Even though you will not see this until May, Happy April Fools Day! And I do not have any April fools prank or jokes, but I do have an update on ongoing legislation and some thoughts on a recent development on distracted driving, failure to yield.

HB 92 (Rep. Taylor), Autocycle definition, is on the Informal Perfection Calendar in the House, HB 996 (Rep. Taylor), Auxiliary lighting for motorcycles, was voted do pass out of committee, SCR 9 (Sen. Moon), Motorcycle profiling resolution, was voted do pass out of committee. These are the only motorcycling legislation that are moving, moving slowly but moving. There is only a month and a half left in this session. I do hope that for those of you that see my posts on Facebook to act when asked do so, act, if you want change or a need for change you must be engaged with your legislators and act or open a dialog with them. By the time you get this session will be nearly over and hopefully these three pieces of legislation will have moved further along.

I would like to expand on failure to yield/distracted driving and even though we had a sponsor for this legislation, it was not filed in time for this session. One of the biggest obstacles we face with this is that most legislators do not want to raise the penalties again for failure to yield. So, we need to decide how to approach this subject in a different manner and get support for it. One way to do that is to research a way to enforce the current law to its fullest extent, i.e., take away the plea bargain or once charged with failure to yield it sticks and prosecutors cannot dilute the charge. Another way is to go directly to the prosecutors to get them to use the law to its fullest extent. We need to over the course of the summer to go and talk to our legislators and see what they are willing to support and if they would be interested in sponsoring legislation to enforce this law to its fullest extent. In other words, we need ideas and participation from you, the membership, to move forward with this type of legislation. I also have become a member to a Facebook page, BADD-Bikers Against Distracted Driving, that claims to be fighting this in Missouri. I must be honest; I do not know much about them or why they have not included us in the conversation about this legislation. I have sent a message to the Admin of the page to find out about the group and its mission. I hope to know more soon. Any questions on anything please feel free to contact me.

Deanna and I would also like to thank everyone that took the time to come to the 21st Annual “Mike Sloan Memorial” MAY Rally this year. We hope everyone had a great time and had a chance to speak with their legislators and our speakers at the event.

                                                                                                              Ride Free and Be Safe out there,
                                                                                                                       Smokin’ Joe Widmer
                                                                                                                     Legislative Coordinator