Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

Opinion 00 I""""i l-< Q,) ..0 a The politico-legal meatp-inder Part IV Of Q,) :> o Z In which our boy asks the age-old question, ~7s this trip necessary?" • With the ponderous brutality of a mill wheel; the machinery of government continues to grind, stripping its citizens of liberty by layers and grinding them exceeding fine. As predicted at the C.A.R.B. hearing, the Federal EPA has published its proposed rules for emission controls on motorcycles. But one of the numbers is a bit worse than predicted. First the good news - from January I, 1978 to January 1, 1980 all new motorcycles must meet a sliding-scale standard as follows: Under 170cc - 5.0 grams HC per kilometer (g/k) 170cc to 750cc - 5.0 g/k to 14.0 g/k, rising linearly with displacement. Over 750cc - 14.0 g/k. Now the bad news. The proposed limit for 1980 and after is 0.25 g/k. That's after the entire industry testified that it would be difficult; if not impossible to meet 1.0 g/k and survive. The C.A.R.B. took pity at that time and said "OK, fellas, 10 g/k in 1978,5.0 g/k in 1980, and 1.0 g/k in 1983." What do you wan t to bet, now that the Feds have come out with 'th is proposed standard, California will tag along and say 0.25 g/k also? What's it all mean? These bureaucrats, both in C.A.R.B. and in EPA, are playing a deadly cynical game with us motorcyclists in order to further their political and career ambitions. The 0.25 g/k figure wasn't plucked out of a hat. It was run up deliberately as a trial balloon because it matches the emission limit currently required for cars. 1t will give the bureaucrats the excuse to say to us, "Car drivers have to meet this limit, what makes you think you deserve special privilege?" Then after they've had their shy little closed meetings with the motorcycle industry, and revised the 0.25 g/k figure back to 1.0 g/k or thereabouts, if we still resist, they will tum to the car people and say, "See, we compromised with these motorcyclists, and still they're not satisfied!" Nice dirty little game of political chess we've gotten into, huh? 1 predict mate in about seven moves if we allow ourselves to get suckered into playing the numbers game with them, using the numbers they want us to use. So instead, 1 question: On behalf of car drivers and motorcyclists alike. is this trip really necessary? I have already been lectured by one bureaucrat on the necessity to make sacrifices. OK, let's assume I'm a dutiful citizen and can be persuaded to make any sacrifice if the goal is worthy. What am I being asked to do, and what is the sacrifice expected to accomplish? Ask not what your bureacracy can do for you, but. .. . 1 am being asked to watch silently as one company (Honda) obtains a virtual monopoly position in the motorcycle market while all the other firms scramble like rats to avoid being banned from that market come January I, 1980. And the scramble has already started. Suzuki has dropped its road racing program, citing its need to concentrate on motocross and to free development resources for other projects. Kawasaki has dropped its road racing program, dropped the 750 H2 from its street bike lineup and introduced one new model a four stroke' twin. Yamaha began scrambling even earlier, cutting back their racing efforts last year and getting about a half-step ahead of their competitors in converting their two-stroke line to four strokes. The output from Yamaha so far, two rather neat new four strokes, one rather blah new four stroke, and a complete rework of the RD350 into a long-stroke 400 in what looks like a desperation bid to meet the interim standard before phasing the model out entirely. The RD250 is already dead. The message in all this is that the money that used to go into racing and other good things to develop the kind of motorcycle that enthusiasts want, now has to be used mostly for kowtowing to the bureaucracy. Honda meanwhile has only to drop the MT125 and MT250 dual-purpose two strokes in 1978 and they're home free , free to race or not, raise prices or lower them, squeeze dealers or not, bring out new models or not, literally do anything they please in the market and still be in the best position to meet the 1980 standard. If they had achieved such a commanding position by their own efforts, they would now be in Federal court, answering to the Justice Department on several counts of anti-trust violation. But if they are handed the position on a silver platter by bureaucratic fiat, who takes the rap? That's what we bikers are being asked to stand and watch happen without protest. What's the bottom line? 1 am told that the payoff for this sacrifice on our part is a three to 11 percent reduction in the tons-per-day emission of hydrocarbons by vehicles in the So Cal area, and an unspecified reduction elsewhere in the country. Now I say, hey wait a' minute . What do these numbers mean? How'd we get sucked :in to this game in the first place? The "logic" of smog As nearly as 1 can tell, the logic of emission control centers about a problem known in Los Angeles and a few other localities like it as smog. We went along for several years not even knowing what caused it , Then researchers learned that a mixture of hydrocarbons laced with oxides of nitrogen and a little ozone, turned to smog in the presence of sunlight. Er, that is, it does so in a closed container. Now a natural mountain-ringed basin capped by a temperature-inversion layer in its atmosphere is a closed container. So in Los Angeles we got smog. Phoenix, which is a little Los Angeles in all respects, is not in a closed container and does not have smog. File that tidbit for future reference. Here in Los Angeles, and other localities that live in closed containers, we are told that if we let the bureaucracy tell us what kind of vehicles to drive, we will be rid of the smog. Like a sick man in very real distress, we're desperate for a cure. (1 know - 1 have to live in Los Angeles.) So the politicians seized on our distress and began prescribing a cure. 1 think it began when Edmund Muskie, author of the original Clean Air Act, started saying we ought to cut vehicle emissions by some set percentage, say 50% now and maybe 90% later, then having run up those figures on the 01' flagpole, began jiggering them up and back in an effort to win the Democratic presidential nomination. He and the Democrats both lost the Presidency, but the numbers and the idea behind them got stuck in Federal policy. The bureaucrats are goingto still allow us to jigger the numbers back and forth, but the prescribed surgery remains the same. It's like the doctors telling a patient, "We're going to take out half your intestines and 75% of your stomach. It's going to cost you $30,000 and you won't be able to work for a year, but we guarantee that after you learn to live with a restricted diet we'll prescribe, you'll feel better." At least the patient (for better or worse) has the right to say, "Fellas, if 1 don't feel better, I'm gonna sue!" Now 1 ask the lofty bureaucrats, when we've made every vehicle in the whole countrv run rotten and waste gas, when bikers and car enthusiasts have both had their worlds turned upside down, yet we still have smog in Los Angeles, who do 1 get to sue? You .say 1 shouldn't doubt the efficacy of their prescription? Hey, we've had emission controls on cars for seven years, and I'm presently looking out my window at a layer of stinking smog. You think slapping controls on . motorcycles is going to make a difference? 1 live downwind of several refineries (one of the "privileges" of being poor) and every night at sundown, after visual monitoring becomes impractical and the APCD folks have gone home to bed, the air around our place starts to stink. My , kid starts to cough and my wife and. wake up next morning, after a supposedly good night's sleep, feeling l like the wrath of God. The APCD is just i now debating whether they have the authority to shut the mothers down. ,1 Want more reasons to doubt? I'm told that before the white man brought 0 any motor vehicles here, the Indians called the place "Land of Smokes" or'll something to that effect. The Great Smoky Mountains of the east lie in ai J perpetual photochemical haze because ; ': 1) pine needle scent is a reactive 8 hydrocarbon just like engine exhaust, U only more so and, 2) many of the _ mountain valleys are closed containersl' This summer the Midwest has had a' I horrib Ie dose of eye-burning? photochemical haze, caused not by vehicles but by acres of grain and an occasional belching cow, giving off reactive hydrocarbons under a freak ,il inversion layer that made a closed' /' container of much of the Mississippi I River drainage area. With these doubts, I accuse the · bureaucracy .o f, a) making a Federal .' issue out of a local problem and, b) failing to nail down with sufficient accuracy all the sources of photochemical smog. Before 1 knuckle under to their smog con troIs, on my van or on my motorcycle, they had best answer these charges with something ii', bit more inspiring than "Do it because we say it's good for you." Lane Campbell " rl. M ..R.E. the CAPITOL l Mandatory helmet law Wow! Were we ever impressed with the response to our request for financial help to send 01' Russ back to Washington, D.C., to 'do _, battle' with the Feds during the September helmet hearings, Russ managed to keep his expenses down to $520.44 and we expected that, at the most, we might receive half of that amoun t from our request for help. As of October 20, we have received the staggering amount of $1,262.99 and donations are still coming in varying amounts, ranging from one or two dollars to $ 100 or more. It was a surprise to us that so many 'dirt-riders' and 'dirt-clubs' contributed so heavily to the 'anti-helmet fund '. Just proves that all motorcyclists need to, and are, recognizing the necessity of helping each other in times of crisis. At the Washington, D.C., hearings, the State of California (including Representative Hannaford who spoke on behalf of the California Congressional Delegation) presented the position that California is a leader in

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