PROTECT YOUR RIGHT TO RIDE

The 2009 Washington State Legislative session started this month and Senator Ken Jacobsen from North Seattle has introduced the first two anti-ORV bills. Offroad vehicle hating Senator Adam Kline has signed on as co-sponsor of both.

SB5128 is similar to last year’s SB6301.

This draconian piece of legislation would send you to jail if you “damage vegetation”. Your bike would be forfeited based solely on probable cause and without process.

Additional unreasonable changes would also include allowing state agencies to take our ORV tab and gas funds to repair damage caused by “off road vehicles” even if the agency does not allow any ORV use on the land they manage. This money would come off the top before any ORV trail or facility funding would be granted to anyone.

You can see the complete text of the bill by using this link:

http://apps.leg.wa.g...0Bills/5128.pdf


SB5129 is not as bad, but it’s a waste of the taxpayers money and does not accomplish anything good.
It would require you to attach a 4 x 7 inch license decal on your bike.

The idea is that it will make it easier to identify you when you are committing crimes with your ORV.
Problem is that most criminals don’t usually bother to register their ORV so only law abiding people would be displaying the huge sticker.

You can see the complete text of the bill by using this link:

http://apps.leg.wa.g...0Bills/5129.pdf

These bills are schedule for a public hearing before the Senate Natural Resources, Ocean and Recreation Committee on January 29th.

If you don’t like what these changes to the laws would do, please contact the Senators on the committee right away.

The members and their email addresses are:

Ken Jacobsen (chairman and bill sponsor) = jacobsen.ken@leg.wa.gov,
Kevin Ranker = ranker.kevin@leg.wa.gov,
Bob Morton = morton.bob@leg.wa.gov,
Karen Fraser = fraser.karen@leg.wa.gov,
Jim Hargrove = hargrove.jim@leg.wa.gov,
Brian Hatfield = hatfield.brian@leg.wa.gov,
Val Stevens = stevens.val@leg.wa.gov,
Dan Swecker = swecker.dan@leg.wa.gov,


Here are some thoughts to consider when writing your comments:

If someone is actually damaging private or public property with an offroad vehicle that is already illegal and should be punished using existing laws.

If it is appropriate to send someone to jail for damaging a vegetable with an offroad vehicle, why wouldn’t doing the same harm with an automobile, horse hoof or shoe be just as heinous a crime and be punished equally severely?

Sending someone to jail for merely damaging any vegetation while otherwise legally operating an offroad vehicle is more than a bit disproportional is a state where the Court Rules list the maximum penalty for something as serious as driving the wrong way on the freeway as $182.

Taking funds from the Non-highway and Offroad Vehicle Activities account to pay for damage done by offroad vehicles at place where offroad vehicles are not allowed is like taxing sober drivers to pay restitution to the victims of drunken drivers.



Happy trails,

Tod Petersen
Vice President – Northwest Motorcycle Association
Political Action Committee Chairman – Washington Off Highway Vehicle Alliance
Email: tod701@aol.com

Thanks for being on top of this Tod...

I will be there

So far it's just the two extreme green ideologs, Jacobsen and Kline. Hopefully no one else will sign on... I would expect some support from Fraser in the Senate and B Williams and S Hunt in the house.

Good news, Brian Weinstein, D-41, Mercer Island, former chair consumer protection, is gone... Word has it his far left extremist agenda and bill support was causing a severe loss of business in his private practice, guess sometimes life does have a way of getting even.

Word also has it his replacement Senator Fred Jarrett is much more of a moderate.

The Senate Natural Resources, Ocean and Recreation Committee held a public hearing yesterday for SB5128 (resource damage by ORV), SB 5129 (large ORV decals) and SB 5586 (State required ORV training and certification).

Other than the Bonnie Bunning of the Washington DNR, everyone that testified was opposed to all three of Senator Jacobsen’s bills.

Three citizens testified against the bills.
All three were ThumperTalk members

Andy T, dirtcheapjohn and myself.

It’s never easy to testify in a legislative committee hearing against a bill sponsored by the committee chairman, much less three in a row, but we did must be done.

Most of the time when a bill comes before a committee, if its sponsored by the committee chairman it is hard to stop the committee for passing it out of committee.

After the meeting, I had meetings with two of the eight committee members and they felt that we might be able to kill these bills in committee.

Three are on our side.
Two never will be.

Three Senators are still in play:

Kevin Ranker = ranker.kevin@leg.wa.gov,
Bob Morton = morton.bob@leg.wa.gov,
Brian Hatfield = hatfield.brian@leg.wa.gov,

Note: Senator Hatfield has two little kids with little quads


Persuade them and this round of silliness is done.

tod701 said:

Well that is good news.