Tomorrow October 31 be sure to attend FU's Halloween at our weekly safety meeting (the original safety task force). Special guests from out of town will be present for your enlightenment and entertainment.
PS - New photos will post soon. However Biker Ezine has run out of web server space requiring a major upgrade or redesign of the site and removal of old galleries. You comments and suggestions regarding the redesign are welcomed.
~FF
1) Weekend Events
2) Lobbyists may be playing bigger role in SC
3) Council hopefuls take on bikers
4) Reader's Letter: Myrtle Beach Council
5) Policies trip on the law of unintended consequences
6) SMSA 2007 Conference in Buffalo, NY, presentations on line.
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1) Weekend Events
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Noon November 3, 2007: Green River Race, the most extreme kayak race in the world. This will take place in the Green River Narrows near Saluda, NC.
1:00 PM November 3, 2007: ABATE of SC Legislative Meeting. This will take place at Over Yonder in Columbia, SC.
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2) Lobbyists may be playing bigger role in SC
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FF Note: This might be an advantage for bikers provided they step up to the challenge and lobby effectively for biker rights. This should not be confused with lobbying for your civil servants on the motorcycle safety task force. To the contrary bikers should be lobbying the agencies on the task force to assure they serve the will of the bikers of SC.
http://www.thestate.com/politics/story/213328.html
Lobbyists may be playing bigger role
By JOHN O’CONNOR - joconnor@thestate.com
Sanford might have contributed to groups’ growing influence
Interest groups and lobbyists have more say today in setting spending and policy priorities in state government, some legislative observers say.
That’s because, at least in part, Gov. Mark Sanford cracked down on state agencies lobbying the Legislature. That opened the door for outside interest groups to push for programs not included in agencies’ budget requests, some say.
In the past two years, several new programs pushed by advocacy groups or trade associations — some not supported by state agencies — have won funding from the General Assembly and survived Sanford’s vetoes.
Interest groups have pushed to expand health insurance for poor children, provide autism treatment and insurance as well as pay for a number of county, municipal and local projects around the state.
Lobbyists are needed, they say, because Sanford’s limits on state spending have made it more difficult to get new programs added to agencies’ budget requests.
Three factors have contributed to the growing influence of lobbyists:
• More money: Three years of healthy revenue growth for the state, including more than $1 billion in new revenue, mean more money is available to spend. However, early forecasts are for far less budget growth during the next two years.
• More clients: Some nonprofits and private interests are hiring their own lobbyists, as well as working through trade groups. For example, the cities of Greenville, Columbia, Lexington and other towns have hired lobbyists in recent years, rather than rely solely on the state’s Municipal Association. Health care groups also have splintered among sometimes-competing concerns, such as hospitals, nursing homes, mental health and more. And their private lobbyists have an incentive to get results, such as money for a local project.
• More vetoes overturned: Sanford’s veto, a check on lawmakers and lobbyists, lacks a governor’s traditional punch. Sanford’s contentious relationship with lawmakers was partially responsible for the General Assembly overturning 263 of Sanford’s 284 vetoes — 93 percent — in 2007.
When Sanford took office in 2003, he made an issue of state agencies using tax money to contract with outside lobbyists. The practice has stopped.
But Sanford’s limits on agency spending opened a market for outside interest groups to push for programs not included in state agencies’ budget requests.
Frank Knapp, for example, has pushed for state aid to help small businesses buy health insurance.
“There is less room for discussion (with the agencies). They’re pretty rigid,” said Knapp, a lobbyist for the Small Business Chamber of Commerce. “The emphasis has to be shifted to working the General Assembly.”
WORKING THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY
Marcella Ridley of Columbia is symbolic of the change.
Treatment for Ridley’s 6-year-old son’s autism can cost tens of thousands over a lifetime, and Ridley and her husband thought it should be available to whoever needs it.
“I can’t comprehend my life without treatment for Winston,” Ridley said. “What struck us is that other children were not getting the treatment that Winston was getting.
“That is why we decided we’re going to the General Assembly.”
Ridley was a key member of a coalition of parents, education and public health advocates who successfully pushed for state funding of autism treatment and requiring insurance companies to provide coverage. In years past, state agencies would have stood by, assisted or helped to lead such a fight.
The impact of outside lobbyists and special interests is most visible in health care — where a myriad of issues are debated every year — and higher education.
The result, some say, has led to increasing state spending.
Last year, for example, Democrats, a coalition of anti-tobacco and health advocates and the managed care industry combined to push to expand the state Children’s Health Insurance Program. The cost to the state of extending coverage to 70,000 additional poor children, more than doubling the program’s enrollment, is $22 million a year.
In years past, lobbying the Legislature to pay for such a massive program expansion would have included the agency that manages it.
The S.C. Department of Health and Human Services did not ask the General Assembly for the SCHIP expansion.
“I get a general sense that we have added to agency (budget) requests” due to requests from lobbyists and special interests, said Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg, a member of the House’s budget-writing committee.
Why?
Information flow, in part, said Cobb-Hunter. “I tend to rely on outsiders for information that I used to rely on people inside state government for.”
Sanford banned the 13 cabinet agencies he controlled from hiring lobbyists when he took office in 2003. At the time, only two agencies had registered lobbyists. But it was not unusual for half or more of those agencies to have retained a lobbyist during the legislative session.
State Sen. Thomas Alexander, R-Oconee, chairman of the Senate committee overseeing health care, said lawmakers should consider budget requests from lobbyists, civic groups and private citizens as well as from state agencies.
“We have a duty and a responsibility to be open to other things we need,” he said.
But Alexander doesn’t think outside groups are gaining influence or that their rise is unique to Sanford’s administration. The expansion of children’s health insurance last year, he said, was a long-simmering proposal that won support in a flush budget year.
Joel Sawyer, Sanford’s spokesman, said South Carolina’s government structure means the governor has little control over the budget.
S.C. politics always has been balkanized, Sawyer said, and the increase in lobbyists is only another example of that fragmentation of power. Special interests, he said, always have been able to build coalitions to bypass the governor.
“If the Upstate gets one, then the Midlands gets one and the coast gets one,” Sawyer said. “It’s something that has existed long before this administration. It’s just a new twist on the same story.”
Sawyer also said lobbyists and lawmakers band together to protect each others’ projects when Sanford tries to use his veto.
INFLUENCE UNCHECKED
Sanford’s inability to sustain his vetoes means his opposition to a proposal — or that of a state agency — no longer is a dead end.
Traditionally, a governor’s veto — especially of a budget item — has carried weight.
Republican Gov. Carroll Campbell once famously struck 277 items from the state’s budget and not a single one of his vetoes was overridden by the Democratic General Assembly with which he worked.
A Republican General Assembly has not given Sanford — a Republican governor — the same courtesy.
“Are people saying, ‘We’re not going to go forward because the governor isn’t interested?’ No,” Knapp said. “The lobbyists clearly understand the General Assembly is willing to override the governor’s veto.”
Ridley had much the same experience walking through the State House lobby after Sanford vetoed insurance coverage for autism.
“They were all looking at us, winking,” Ridley said of lawmakers, “saying, ‘Don’t worry about it, we’ll take care of it.’”
Sanford’s veto was overwhelmingly overturned.
Reach O’Connor at (803) 771-8358.
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3) Council hopefuls take on bikers
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http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/news/local/story/233845.html
Council hopefuls take on bikers
MB candidates forum addresses rallies, parking
By Lorena Anderson - The Sun News
The majority of this year's Myrtle Beach City Council candidates would prefer not to hear the sound of Harleys rumbling up and down city streets - ever.
At a northside forum Monday night at Trinity Episcopal Church, incumbents Mike Chestnut, Phil Render and Susan Grissom Means and challengers Mike Lowder, Judy Rodman and John Easterling took questions from about 30 neighbors.
Moderator Randy Wallace read questions from people who couldn't attend, and one of them was about whether any of the candidates would consider reducing the number of bike rallies each year.
Chestnut said talks are already planned with motorcycle groups, and Means was the first to come straight out with her opinion.
"I would prefer we didn't have any bike weeks at all," she said. The motorcycle noise, she said, is "not fair to the people who live here."
Rodman said stronger noise ordinance enforcement would make the bikers feel less welcome - a feeling she didn't seem to want to discourage. And Phil Render said he favors moving events further outside the city.
"Our folks are tired of motorcycles," he said.
Only Easterling, himself a biker, suggested a compromise, such as having planned events at the fairgrounds in Loris, the old racetrack and the dragstrip, and having vendor booths within the city so at least the city could make money off the rallies.
"They are coming," Easterling said. "If you give them something to do besides cruise the streets and drink, they'll do it. Bikers like to ride."
Lowder said he didn't see how the city could tell one group of people they are not welcome anymore, but he did suggest stricter law enforcement and more officers on the streets.
Neighbors also asked several questions about parking along Ocean Boulevard and in residential areas - a problem that never goes away, they said.
No one wants parking meters in residential areas, the candidates agreed. Rodman and Easterling said that perhaps parking decks could work in some areas. The parking discussion became more like a town hall-style meeting, which Means said the city is planning to have with northside neighbors to discuss parking, anyway. Lowder suggested the city could have a parking garage and a trolley to carry people to the beaches.
The candidates all agreed parking along and around Ocean Boulevard is hazardous, especially in the summer, and that the city needs to come up with some solutions before people are injured.
Residents are also concerned about northside single-family homes being used as vacation rentals. "We really need help, or it's not going to be a neighborhood anymore," one woman said.
The candidates reminded residents they have to be willing to speak up when a house that should only hold one family is overloaded with partying vacationers, and each of them said they do not favor that kind of use in a residential area.
Monday night's meeting was likely the last candidate forum for Myrtle Beach City Council before the Nov. 6 election. Candidates urged people to be sure to cast their ballots on Election Day.
Contact LORENA ANDERSON at 444-1722 or landerson@thesunnews.com.
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4) Reader's Letter: Myrtle Beach Council
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Reader's Letter: Myrtle Beach Council
During a Myrtle Beach Council candidate this evening, one of the candidates, Susan Means told the audience that they should lobby their legislators for a helmet law so bikers would not return to Myrtle Beach for the rallies.
If she is willing to take this personal freedom then what else is she willing to take?
John Easterling
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5) Policies trip on the law of unintended consequences
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http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/editorial/story.html?id=7c67e422-7d80-4d0d-a402-00b5b0926d81
Policies trip on the law of unintended consequences
Harvey Enchin
Vancouver Sun
Saturday, October 27, 2007
It's conventional wisdom in the insurance business that people tend to be somewhat cavalier about the risks they've insured themselves against.
A car owner, for example, may leave the vehicle unlocked, willing to take the chance it will be stolen if the loss is fully covered. Similarly, fire insurance may lull homeowners into a more lackadaisical approach to prevention, or even increase the incidence of arson.
This behavioural change, by which insured people tend to expend less effort to avoid misfortune, is called moral hazard. Its influence goes beyond the insurance industry; it has far-reaching effects on governments and their introduction and implementation of social policies.
Insurance companies recognize that by reducing the consequences of taking risks to zero, they encourage reckless behaviour. They compensate for this by charging premiums, imposing a substantial deductible, insuring assets at less than full value and restricting eligibility.
Governments don't have the luxury of discrimination. Their policies must be universal.
So governments decreed that all cyclists must wear bicycle helmets to reduce head injuries and thereby lower health care costs. While helmet manufacturers applauded the initiative, critics wondered how many would-be cyclists would forgo the benefits of cycling as a result.
A mandatory helmet law makes cycling sound more dangerous than statistics say it is, and could dissuade the risk-averse. A Danish study found that people who do not cycle to work have a 39 per cent higher mortality rate than those who do. A policy that would discourage cycling is clearly not in the interest of the health care system. Besides, researchers have found that, per kilometre, cyclists are 12 times more likely to suffer a fatal accident than car drivers, while pedestrians are 23 times more likely to be killed. Perhaps it should be made compulsory to wear helmets while walking.
It's not hard to find examples of government policies that have produced the opposite outcomes of those intended.
- Steven Landsburg pointed out in his book The Armchair Economist that after governments introduced regulations requiring the use of seatbelts, airbags, dual braking systems, padded dashboards and other safety measures, the threat of being killed in an accident was reduced, drivers were less careful, and the number of accidents increased.
- Based on U.S. risk assessments that classified chlorine as carcinogenic, Peru stopped chlorinating its drinking water to reduce the risk of cancer. The result of that decision was one of the largest cholera outbreaks in history, in 1991, which affected 800,000 people and killed 7,000.
- The prohibition on artificial sweeteners deemed a cancer risk may have increased the consumption of sugar, increasing the risk of obesity-related illnesses.
- In British Columbia, the provincial government has made it mandatory that children travelling in an automobile be secured in an approved child safety seat. But in 1,000 inspections conducted by the British Columbia Automobile Association between September 2001 and April 2004, only seven per cent of child car seats were found to be installed or used correctly, putting children in as much, if not more, jeopardy than if they were not strapped in at all.
- By providing subsidized housing and welfare, governments pay people to be poor and thus create more poverty. Easing the hardship of living on the margins has given an incentive to a particular segment of society to do so. This principle was clearly articulated by David Cunningham, self-proclaimed head of the so-called Anti-Poverty Committee in Vancouver, who explained he wouldn't work full-time because he'd lose his social benefits.
Moral hazard suggests that universal health care has reduced the risk of loss as a result of illness and citizens are less inclined to take care of their health than they would if they had to privately bear the cost. The result will be higher health care costs.
What's more, by making health care "free," governments stimulate demand for health care services. There is increasing public pressure for more doctors, nurses, beds, hospitals and MRI units. Consumers are encouraged by free cradle-to-grave medical care to follow lifestyles deleterious to their health and will impose ever-rising cost on the system. The demand for health care services will never be satisfied.
There will always be some who choose a healthier path -- who eat wisely, exercise regularly and floss religiously. They subsidize those who do not. Government-run health insurance is a form of income redistribution from the healthy to the sick.
Policy-making is often informed by statistical extrapolations but rarely by studies of human behaviour. This explains why government interventions may not turn out as expected, but also points to a better way of developing policy to yield a desired outcome rather than unintended consequences.
henchin@png.canwest.com
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6) SMSA 2007 Conference in Buffalo, NY, presentations on line.
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http://www.smsa.org/motorcycle_awareness/pdw_presentations/index.php
SMSA 2007 Conference in Buffalo, NY, presentations on line.
The following items are available to the public at the URL above:
Handouts:
Impaired Riding Campaign Profile - Motorcycle Dial A Ride Inc.
Impaired Riding Campaign Profile - Project Green Yellow Red
Impaired Riding Campaign Profile - Ride Smart Drive Smart
Impaired Riding Campaign - Open the Throttle Not the Bottle
Impaired Riding Campaign - Ride Straight
State Administrator Module IV - Handout Section I
State Administrator Module IV - Handout Section II
State Administrator Module IV - Handout Section III
State Administrator Module IV - Handout Section IV
RiderCoach/Instructor Handouts:
Eight Principles of Adult Learning
Learning Styles - Modality Preference Inventory
Learning Styles - Clues and Learning Tips
Search, Evaluate and Adjust Worksheet
RiderCoach/Instructor Modules:
Module I - Introduction
Module II - Impaired Riding Countermeasures
Module III - How Do We Make a Difference?
Module IV - Highway Safety Program Management
Participant Modules:
Module I - Introduction
Module II - Impaired Riding Countermeasures
Module III - How Do We Make a Difference?
Module IV - Highway Safety Program Management
Power Point Presentations:
OVI Motorcycle 340 (audio file)
State Administrators Module - Introduction
State Administrators Module - Impaired Riding Countermeasures
State Administrators Module - How Do We Make a Difference?
State Administrators Module - Highway Safety Program Management
RiderCoach/Instructor PDW Sessions:
Module I - Adult Learning Principles
Module II - Challenging Situations
Module III - Coaching on the Range
Module IV - Did You SEA_That Motorcycle?
RiderCoach/Instructor Participant:
Module I - Adult Learning Principles
Module II - Challenging Situations
Module III - Coaching on the Range
Module IV - Did You SEA_That Motorcycle?
RiderCoach/Instructor Power Point Presentations:
Module I - Adult Learning Principles
Module II - Challenging Situations
Module III - Coaching on the Range
Module IV - Did You SEA_That Motorcycle?
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