January/February 2018 –

Lobbyist Report

Your lobbyists have had a Huge success for our legislative agenda.

We have accomplished the separating of motorcycle crash stats from autocycle crash stats, without having to run legislation to do so.

We started off as usual with a fair amount of research. This included obtaining a copy of Pennsylvania’s language for their bill, and talking with various others states that have done the same. Senator Fann offered to open a folder for us, so we sent the case we’d built, along with our reasons for wanting to take this action. A folder (bill draft) was opened.

We used that draft to approach the 4 Law Enforcement (LE) agency lobbyists, as well as ADOT, in order to get their support. We informed them that we would also need the approval of the Director of the Governors Office of Highway Safety (GOHS), Alberto Gutier.

We explained to Law Enforcement (LE) that we already had laws on the books that defined an autocycle, eliminated the driver from having to acquire and ‘M’ endorsement or wear a helmet, and requiring a class ’D’ license only.

Why did we want to separate our crash stats from autocycles?

– The 5th edition of NHTSA’s Model Minimum Uniform Crash Criteria (MMUCC), which I believe came out in June this year, has added a 9th category to vehicles, of autocycles. The federal government is in the process of doing the same. The MRF had requested states to start now. We want to be able to submit them separately for federal statistical purposes.

– Autocycle statistics should be kept separate from motorcycle statistics. Records for autocycles have yet to be established. Should autocycle usage prove to have safety limitations the negative numbers could have a detrimental effect on motorcycle legislation. The repercussions could be statewide and possibly national.

– By separating the stats, we can truly track the impact of autocycles on Arizona roads.

– When it comes to Motorcycle Safety and Awareness funding for Arizona, it would be impossible for us to include awareness and safety information in our motorcycle class criteria, for autocycles. They are constructed differently, they have seats instead of saddles, steering wheels instead of handle bars and peddles instead of shifters. Their ‘profile’ is more like a vehicle than a motorcycle.

Upon sending all of this to LE and ADOT, we received the following from John Carlson, Director of Government Affairs. “Thank you Bobbi for the opportunity to review. I need to talk to Director Halikowski on what our position would be.

I can tell you that what you are asking to do is something that could be done administratively through request to the ADOT Director rather than legislatively. Under the law we partner with Arizona’s law enforcement agencies to come up with revisions to the ADOT Crash Report”.

He also informed us that the designation of “ autocycle” is already in place for fatal crashes (supplemental form). He spoke to the ADOT Traffic Records Coordinator (Timothy Jordan) and they decided that since this option is on the supplemental form it makes sense to add under the crash report vehicle type “autocycle” as one of the options an officer can choose.

He confirmed that this was an easy change that would be incorporated into the revised crash report, and therefore there was no need for legislation.

Tim Jordan said, “We are in the process of modifying page 1 of the standard crash form. In block 5 of the standard form, there is a box for “Body Style.” We are adding “Autocycle” or an abbreviated version of that to the list of choices for that box in the electronic version of the form.

We still have to educate Arizona LEO’s to the changes on the form and in the Crash Manual, as there have been several unrelated to autocycles. With regards to publishing, we will be able to separate the data in the 2018 Crash Facts (published in June 2019), as we currently do not have this data for the 2017 edition”.

John Carlson informed us that they would hate to see the crash form statute full of inclusions or exclusions.

He said that they have a very deliberate process with law enforcement coupled with national guidelines for crash reports that they follow that has served the state well for many years.

This is a HUGE WIN FOR MOTORCYCLISTS, to be able to accomplish our goal, without the running of a bill.

MMA Lobby Report by,

Skypilot

MMA Designated Lobbyist