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Sunday, March 13, 2011

Nevada's 1st Helmet Hearing..

OFF THE WIRE
from TigerLily
Yesterday was the first hearing for Nevada's helmet choice bill. (I recorded the entire thing.) I intend to review the opposing arguments and share them with you all for input. It appears we have a very motorcycle-friendly group of senators compared to previous legislations. But I am warned by Bones and others not to get too confident. It was amazing, however, that all the testimony to support the Bill was heard first, then the opposing views, and then the supporters were allowed to rebut at the end. Also, we got rid of an anti-motorcyclist senator who was replaced by a great young gal. She was a real spit-fire, giving commentary to those who oppose the bill to neutralize them.

A couple of highlights:
1. A Las Vegas Metro Police Officer testified opposing the Bill because of the "carnage" he has seen. It was interesting that he testified in Reno and not in Las Vegas. I wonder if Metro paid for him to give that testimony. We had quite a few people in the audience at the Vegas site.
2. Below is a transcript of what was said by a "neutral" party Ken Kiphart, our Nevada Rider Program Adminstrator. (Attached is the audio.)
About Kiphart: He's a retired North Las Vegas Cop who is "contracted" by the State of Nevada to run our MSF Program. He is contracted so as not to penalize his pension.

About the Nevada Rider Program:
It's funded by a $6 fee that we Nevada motorcyclists pay each time we register our motorcycles.
Kiphart applies and receives Federal grant money for the program.
There is $.5 million in the pot.

There is a quarterly meeting - governor's advisory board - that includes 5 members (Ken is not a member - he runs the program.)

Ken is a whiny little bureaucrat that hasn't been taught that HE works for US - not the other way around. This is a classic example of how we get screwed when we allow the government to do things for us - in this case - when we allowed the government to "train" us.

Madam Chair: Thank you. Mr. Kiphart? I think you came in and signed as neutral.

KK: … My name is Ken Kiphart and I am the Program Administrator for the Nevada Rider Motorcycle Safety Program. My comments I wrote before I arrived here, and in light of the fact that Senator Gustafson has made an amendment, or …. amendment, my comments are gonna be made based on the original bill, how it’s drafted right now. Last year the colleges which is our biggest provider of rider training, operated at complete capacity and even had to turn away students in 2010 because we didn’t have any more room. (Undecipherable) in order to comply with a law that would require a rider education course, it would seriously overload our capacity. It’s possible that some creative scheduling - with creative scheduling may help the increased demand for classes and private providers probably could pick up the slack as well, chip in. As far as financial impact an increase in the students, increasing the capacity of the colleges would directly impact my reserve budget. That means more money coming out of my budget. There are 61,000 endorsed riders in this state including riders that are under the age of 21, leaving about 16,500 potential students wanting to take the course. When there’s no way of confirming how many of the riders have already taken the course. The data is just not correlated with the Department of Motor Vehicles. We assume that most endorsed riders would elect to take the one-day, experienced rider course rather than the two and a half-day basic rider course. Right now there are fewer experienced rider courses offered since most of the demand is for the basic rider course. The average age of the students right now taking the basic rider course is 30-35 years. Thank you, Madam Chair.


TigerLily
Southwest Ad Manager/Correspondent
QuickThrottle Magazine
http://www.quickthrottle.com/
702-417-6260
Visit my blog:  http://tigerlilsblog.blogspot.com/
Senate Cmte Hrng NV Transp Helmet Bill SB 177 kiphart testimony.MP3


From Tigerlily
Beginning to understand the value of No Compromise...
Below is dialogue about the safety training compromise that is being proposed in Nevada. I'm attaching the document that was submitted by someone in support of the safety training compromise. This is what concerns me most about the compromise - but in all, I give Doc a great deal of credit for exposing Ken Kiphart - retired-cop-turned Nevada MSF leader - for being the douche he is.

You may be told that there in no way to properly enforce this law because police won’t be able to identify who has and who has not passed the class. Mr. Kiphart testified to that effect in 2009, even though it is not in his purview as a training provider. In fact, it is a simple fix. The state can design a special decal to affix to the license plate or a plate mounted on the motorcycle, as they do in other states. To save the state time and money, training providers can give out the decals at the time of course completion, the same way we give completion cards to students at the end of class.

TigerLily