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by Maureen Lee
The AMA computer blew its cork
again! I don't know what kind they '1Se
but I suspect it needs a good dose of
salts, as they say in Blighty. This one is
a gas. Remember how I complained a
few weeks back about the time it took
'em to return my renewal: four and a
half weeks? Well, how this one for size?
I renewed husband Gene's card early
in August. Just two days ago, I thought
to myself, well, here we go again. We
got the card O.K. yesterday, along with
a very nice letter from a Hog rider in
Pittsburg, PA. I must admit they did the
cards off in decent time, just under two
weeks, but Pittsburgh, PA. ain't Long
Beach, CA., and Jim Proie got both of
them but only one ten year pin. Since it
is his tenth year too, he naturally kept
it. Official correspondence will follow,
not that Cene really cares a hoot about
that pin. It's the principle of the thing.
But, oh dear, AMA!
However, doesn't the incident prove
one thing, that motorcycle people are
great people? Instead of either
destroying Gene's card or shipping it
back to Ohio, Jim took the time to send
it on to Gene. We all seem to take care
of each other.
.
Got a report that the Beatty Grand
Prix was great although at the last
minute they weren't allowed to use the
roads through town. They even had a
chopper to hover over the course and
there was no way anyone was going to
cut course. Lees use one at Elsinore
next year! D';st trails in the wrong
places show up very clearly from the air.
Now that the Ascot Half Mile
Championship has been chawner
to buy fire insurance.
Unfolt
!1& ~~1Yi . ~,lh:e
c!everly-<>rchesttated' slogan
no-fault
Within the context of twentieth
century American government exactly
three things are necessary to eliminate
any given freedom: a power base, one or
a few dogged legislators, and a suitable
slogan.
The power base is some formal or
info~ group that thinks it will gain
by surpressing the freedom of others,
and its function is to agitate for the
legislation prop sed to do this. Some
power bases are economic in origin - a
corpo\ation, an en tiTe industry J a group
of employees, a type of specialist, etc. and such groups always seck exactly the
same thing: monopoly. Whenever an
economic group feels that it is not
getting as much income as it thinks it
deserves, under conditions of voluntary
buying and voluntary selling, it becomes
interested in putting an end to the
economic freedom of its customers and
suppUers, forcing them to do business
on its own terms.
The other mllin kind of power base is
what might be called an authoritarian
group; these are less interested in
coercion as a means towards some
rational, objective goal like economic
MOtCORCYCLE
TBIIS'DBI BUIT
S8000.00 in Prizes!
Sunday, October 1, 1972 Lucerne Valley, Ca.
Partial Prize List
Ycamahca 150 EndulO
YGfMhG Mini-EftChNo
insurance" is deflecting nearly all the
victims from this key issue. By
appealing to short-sigh ted greed and to
the secret, immoral yearning to evade
responsibility for one's actions, NFl
promises Non-responsibility for Injury.
Even
a usually perspicacious
commentator like Frank Conner, in the
July issue of Cycle, allows himself to be
diverted into a jungle of irrelevant
items, like how much N FI would cost
motorcyclists, and ends up minimizing
the point that motorcyclists are being
legally compelled to buy insurance. This
is exactly as if the footwear industry got
a law passed to legally compel every
man, woman and child to buy a certain
number of pairs of shoes each year.
As long as automotive insurance
operated under the 1443-year-old
tradition of civil law stemming from the
Code of Emperor Justinian there was a
plausible excuse for legally compelling
people to buy insurance, liability
insurance, so that they would be able to
pay a judgment issued against them for
injuries they caused. Such provisions
strengthen personal responsibility, and
help to assure that a person can be
effectively held fmancially accoun table
when he is morally and legally
accountable. Take away the notion of
accountability, and there is no
difference between forcing you to buy
insurance on your Honda, or on your
home, your horse, or your hi-fi.
.-\lIow me to predict what will
happen when Non-responsibility for
Injury becomes universal. There will
emerge, slowly at first, then more
rapidly, a growing awareness of
automotive games, like buying a $50
junker, fixing it up so it will just run,
and then sideswiping a line of parked
cars to see how many you can graunch
in a single pass. At first everybody will
be amused by this sort of thing, and will
happily turn to their insurance
companies for the costs of repairing
their damaged cars. But premiums will
soon mount and there will be growing
"concern" from both drivers and
insurance carriers that Something Must
Be Done. Civil liability having been cast
aside, what will happen is a
strengthening of criminal laws so that
what are now accidents - lacking malice
and pre-meditation and intent to do
harm - will become crimes. What are
now handled as civil injuries against
another person will come to be handled
as criminal offenses against the state.
Auto drivers now know that they can
pretty well evade criminal charges by
claiming, "I didn't see him", when they
deliberately pull out in front of, or tum
left in front of, or crowd off the road an
oncoming motorcycle. The one thing
they are likely to be stayed by is the
possibility of a large civil damage suit
against them, which could cause loss of
their liability insurance, or a great hike
in its cost. With this possibility removed
by N on.responsibility for Injury,
motorcyclists will become fair game.
The most probable response of the
government will be to outlaw
motorcycling on the grounds that it is
too unsafe.
It will, of course, become absolutely
impossible to park a motorcycle'
between two parked cars. The car driver
will know that there is absolu telv
nothing to stop him from smashing into
or knocking over the parked bike with
tank-like, federally·required "safety
bumpers". Why should I go to all the
trouble of cutting back-and-forth to get
Ollt 0
Y ~
ben I e .ia;s1;
(Please turi! to PC' 47)
