Colorado legislators yesterday killed a bill that would have made the state the first ever to kill a motorcycle rider safety program. In a 4-3 vote along party lines, the Senate Transportation Committee rejected a measure that would have eliminated the state's Motorcycle Operator Safety Training (MOST) program. Although significant problems with the program have been identified, the consensus was to give those involved an opportunity first to fix it. If those fixes are not successful the committee would then be open to the possibility of ending it.
The impetus to kill the program came from Republican legislators seeking to roll back government involvement in an area they believe is best left to private entities. Ironically, it fell to the heavily Republican members of Colorado's motorcycling community to coordinate with Democratic legislators to stop the bill and provide breathing room to give reform efforts a chance to succeed.
The MOST program was created 22 years ago at the request of ABATE of Colorado and other motorcycling groups. It established fees that would be added on to motorcycle license registration and also to driver's license renewals where the license holder has a motorcycle accreditation. Those fees were designated to subsidize motorcyclists taking rider safety training courses, reducing the cost of those courses to the riders.
The program appears to have worked well through the years up until the point where the committee set up to oversee it was abolished. In subsequent years, as a legislative audit in 2010 showed, there were numerous situations where training companies used the funds they received from MOST for purposes not in accordance with the program's aims.
In the audit report it was recommended that the legislature either abolish the program or institute significant changes that the report spelled out. Since then, the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT), ABATE, and other training organizations have put considerable effort into instituting those changes. They saw the move to kill MOST as premature.
"Give 'em a couple years to fix it," said Terry Howard, ABATE's state coordinator. "If they can't fix it in two years then shut the program down and get rid of it."
Opponents of the bill, arguing to continue MOST, told the committee that the Colorado Department of Revenue, which administers licensing, had said that without the aegis of the MOST program it would no longer accept successful completion of training courses as sufficient to grant motorcycle licenses. As a result, they said, the state would need to spend money to test riders whereas currently the testing is done without cost to the state.
They also argued that without the subsidy, fewer riders would take the training courses, and with more untrained riders on the road, there would be more crashes and fatalities. Additionally, they argued, an annual $100,000 grant from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration for rider safety programs would be jeopardized if the state's rider training program was eliminated.
Sen. Scott Renfroe, who introduced the measure, SB 89, presented polling information that he said showed extreme indifference to costs among those electing to take the courses. MOST currently reduces the cost per course by $70 and while the large majority said a $35 increase would not have dissuaded them from taking the training, nearly 50 percent said a $70 increase would have caused them to reconsider.
"That's perhaps 4,000 plus people (per year) who wouldn't have taken the training," said CDOT's Herman Stockinger.
Testifying in favor of the bill were representatives of the Colorado Confederation of Clubs, the US Defenders and Coalition of Independent Riders, and T3RG, which is a Colorado rider training organization. Colleen Boyle, head of T3RG, argued that she felt CDOT had already demonstrated its inability to reform the program and that therefore it should be abolished. Debra "Tiger" Chandler and a COC representative identified as "Diablo," maintained that their concern was that a great deal of money provided by MOST had gone unaccounted for. Diablo expressly stated that he believes in training and has no issue with paying the fees for that purpose. But the proponents felt it would be better to abolish MOST than try to reform it.
The Democratic majority of the committee, however, favored giving CDOT time to effect reform, and the 4-3 vote effectively killed the measure.
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