Wisconsin riders,
This summer, as you all should know, Wisconsin enacted legislation that requires motorists have a minimum level of insurance on motor vehicles. As you may have seen in Wisconsin Motor Bicycle Law Part 1&2, the statute is worded in a way that clearly includes motor bicycles as requiring insurance.
If you consider the fact that motor bicycle insurance is almost impossible to find, and expensive if you do find it, this basically kills the legality of motorized bicycles in Wisconsin. With a large number of police officers believing motor bicycles are illegal completely, it is simply a matter of time before any of us Wisconsin riders gets pulled over and ticketed for not having insurance. Or we will pay a rediculous amount for insurance.
You could infer from this that Wisconsin politicians are okay with this law essentially grounding us motor bicyclists. However, I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. This insurance legislation was a lot of work, and let's face it, motor bicycles aren't the #1 priority in the Capitol. It is entirely possible that they were simply looked over during this legislation. For example, read 2009 Assembly Bill 197. This bill was introduced just last year and its sole intent was to more clearly define a motor bicycle and support its legality. Obviously this is just a small bill but if our government really wanted to do away with motor bicycles, this would not have passed. I truly believe that motor bicycles were simply overlooked in this insurance legislation.
After reading other states' laws here, most have exemptions for motor bicycles, so it stands to reason that Wisconsin legislators could agree. But they don't read motorbicycling.com and it is our responsibility to make them aware of this situation. So I recommend phone calls, emails, letters, anything to anybody in our government that can make a difference. Explain to them the way that motor bicycles are being shut out by the current insurance legislation. Explain that tens of thousands of dollars of investment are being turned to garbage because of the wording of this law, and how other states have worded their insurance requirements differently.
Some points I will be including in my letters:
1) It is virtually impossible to get insurance on a motor bicycle which means the new law is causing potentially thousands of motor bicycles in our state to be unrideable.
2) Displaced motor bicyclists will be forced to trade in their 150 mpg transportation and use their normal vehicles in the 15-25mpg range. Even modern scooters do not get the same sort of gas mileage as a motorized bicycle. Motorized bicycles are an EPA-approved, extremely green alternative to driving cars all day. This green alternative is gaining in popularity because a gas-efficient scooter is not fiscally reasonable, costing over $1,000. Best not to bring up the 2 stroke vs 4 stroke. Although I just don't see my 15mpg SUV having a smaller pollution footprint than my 125+ mpg motor bicycle.
3) A motor bicycle is more like a bicycle than a scooter. 49cc scooters can reach up to 40 mph while most motor bicycles barely make 25mph, which is also the max speed of a regular bicycle, which does not include insurance.
4) I want to find out numbers for Wisconsin to illustrate that this isn't just 15 people who are affected. If any motor bicycle kit outlets read this, I would appreciate any information to illustrate sales to Wisconsin. If you wish to email me instead of declaring it to the world, my email is dougan778 at gmail.com. I will not release information in any way that you don't give me permission. Showing the WI legislature that motor bicycles have a good base will be a great way to get this law modified and help your sales.
5) It is possible to get generic moped insurance through major online insurance agencies. Since a motor bicycle is not a moped, this will not be honored in the event of a crash. However, to a police officer, a card saying the moped is insured will suffice. So the current legislation will encourage motor bicyclists to pay for false insurance, just to get police officers to get off of their backs. I plan to bring this up to support the notion that the current legislation is flawed.
6) Current legislation clearly is written with the intent to allow motor bicycles to have a place on Wisconsin roadways (cite the 2009 bill 197 above). Legislative work has been done to insure this, but the new legislation negates all of these laws because motor bicyclists aren't able to insure their bicycles.
That's all I can think of right now. Discuss any other comments.
I think the #1 point to make here is that we should be polite. My stance is to politely explain that the wording of the law is flawed and explain an improvement. I think that's the best approach. Legislators receive hundreds of pissed off letters every week. It has to be the logical, well-written, polite ones that are actually considered. I intend to write a very short cover letter explaining the above points, and attach a longer description citing as much information as possible included.
Now I'm not certain who should be contacted. But I currently intend to contact everyone in that 2009 bill 197 because they actually initiated the bill and have at least heard of motorized bicycles. Also my local legislators. We need to get as many people as possible to do this, since it is a smaller group of people. I'm very confident that, if this made it to legislative discussion, everybody would see this as a simple flaw of wording and fix it in our favor. But the trouble is actually getting it in front of Congress, and the only way for us to do that is for us to get as many people to bring it up as possible.
Lastly, with the election going on now, it wouldn't hurt to send the same letter/email/call once a month for the next few months, since legislators may be busy and overlook it now, when they wouldn't later, or vice versa.
Please discuss, post any feedback, additional points, advice, etc. This is an oversight that we need to get fixed.
This summer, as you all should know, Wisconsin enacted legislation that requires motorists have a minimum level of insurance on motor vehicles. As you may have seen in Wisconsin Motor Bicycle Law Part 1&2, the statute is worded in a way that clearly includes motor bicycles as requiring insurance.
If you consider the fact that motor bicycle insurance is almost impossible to find, and expensive if you do find it, this basically kills the legality of motorized bicycles in Wisconsin. With a large number of police officers believing motor bicycles are illegal completely, it is simply a matter of time before any of us Wisconsin riders gets pulled over and ticketed for not having insurance. Or we will pay a rediculous amount for insurance.
You could infer from this that Wisconsin politicians are okay with this law essentially grounding us motor bicyclists. However, I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. This insurance legislation was a lot of work, and let's face it, motor bicycles aren't the #1 priority in the Capitol. It is entirely possible that they were simply looked over during this legislation. For example, read 2009 Assembly Bill 197. This bill was introduced just last year and its sole intent was to more clearly define a motor bicycle and support its legality. Obviously this is just a small bill but if our government really wanted to do away with motor bicycles, this would not have passed. I truly believe that motor bicycles were simply overlooked in this insurance legislation.
After reading other states' laws here, most have exemptions for motor bicycles, so it stands to reason that Wisconsin legislators could agree. But they don't read motorbicycling.com and it is our responsibility to make them aware of this situation. So I recommend phone calls, emails, letters, anything to anybody in our government that can make a difference. Explain to them the way that motor bicycles are being shut out by the current insurance legislation. Explain that tens of thousands of dollars of investment are being turned to garbage because of the wording of this law, and how other states have worded their insurance requirements differently.
Some points I will be including in my letters:
1) It is virtually impossible to get insurance on a motor bicycle which means the new law is causing potentially thousands of motor bicycles in our state to be unrideable.
2) Displaced motor bicyclists will be forced to trade in their 150 mpg transportation and use their normal vehicles in the 15-25mpg range. Even modern scooters do not get the same sort of gas mileage as a motorized bicycle. Motorized bicycles are an EPA-approved, extremely green alternative to driving cars all day. This green alternative is gaining in popularity because a gas-efficient scooter is not fiscally reasonable, costing over $1,000. Best not to bring up the 2 stroke vs 4 stroke. Although I just don't see my 15mpg SUV having a smaller pollution footprint than my 125+ mpg motor bicycle.
3) A motor bicycle is more like a bicycle than a scooter. 49cc scooters can reach up to 40 mph while most motor bicycles barely make 25mph, which is also the max speed of a regular bicycle, which does not include insurance.
4) I want to find out numbers for Wisconsin to illustrate that this isn't just 15 people who are affected. If any motor bicycle kit outlets read this, I would appreciate any information to illustrate sales to Wisconsin. If you wish to email me instead of declaring it to the world, my email is dougan778 at gmail.com. I will not release information in any way that you don't give me permission. Showing the WI legislature that motor bicycles have a good base will be a great way to get this law modified and help your sales.
5) It is possible to get generic moped insurance through major online insurance agencies. Since a motor bicycle is not a moped, this will not be honored in the event of a crash. However, to a police officer, a card saying the moped is insured will suffice. So the current legislation will encourage motor bicyclists to pay for false insurance, just to get police officers to get off of their backs. I plan to bring this up to support the notion that the current legislation is flawed.
6) Current legislation clearly is written with the intent to allow motor bicycles to have a place on Wisconsin roadways (cite the 2009 bill 197 above). Legislative work has been done to insure this, but the new legislation negates all of these laws because motor bicyclists aren't able to insure their bicycles.
That's all I can think of right now. Discuss any other comments.
I think the #1 point to make here is that we should be polite. My stance is to politely explain that the wording of the law is flawed and explain an improvement. I think that's the best approach. Legislators receive hundreds of pissed off letters every week. It has to be the logical, well-written, polite ones that are actually considered. I intend to write a very short cover letter explaining the above points, and attach a longer description citing as much information as possible included.
Now I'm not certain who should be contacted. But I currently intend to contact everyone in that 2009 bill 197 because they actually initiated the bill and have at least heard of motorized bicycles. Also my local legislators. We need to get as many people as possible to do this, since it is a smaller group of people. I'm very confident that, if this made it to legislative discussion, everybody would see this as a simple flaw of wording and fix it in our favor. But the trouble is actually getting it in front of Congress, and the only way for us to do that is for us to get as many people to bring it up as possible.
Lastly, with the election going on now, it wouldn't hurt to send the same letter/email/call once a month for the next few months, since legislators may be busy and overlook it now, when they wouldn't later, or vice versa.
Please discuss, post any feedback, additional points, advice, etc. This is an oversight that we need to get fixed.
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