Benefit runs should benefit bikers

By JAMES (DEUCE) BRONDER

Contributor

Every Christmas has a Scrooge and I may be named one for 2008. In checking various events calendars in the State for November I found 50 motorcycling events, 48 were charity benefits, one swap meet and flat track event.

Over the course of a year, those benefit runs will result in hundreds of thousands of dollars for the benefit of the recipients. Do bikers really know where the money goes? Do they do any research to see if indeed the charity is a biker friendly organization?

Will these organizations bikers give to put a word for us with those who continue to attack our lifestyle and/or legislate against us? In my experience, the answer is no.

Do bikers really know who and what organizations will come against them? Here's a couple that might be interesting to look at. Health care organizations are the first to stand up and testify against bikers freedom of choice in legislative hearings.

Many of the large charity organizations fund lobbyists and campaigns of politicians not friendly to our cause.

Many have ties to insurance companies who are now lobbying for "source of injury inclusion" written into insurance policies.

If you don't know what that is you better learn. In simple terms, if you have an accident on a motorcycle, your medical insurance coverage is null and void.

Bottom line: it allows them to refuse benefits based on the source of injury. Motorcycles are the first on the list, as are other activities.

Why don't bikers take a lesson from these mega charities that use bikers to raise money for their causes. Put some of that money in a kitty to pay for the expenses of those who do the work for motorcycle rights at the capital out of their own pocket?

Charities that I know bikers have put benefit runs on for have spent big bucks at the Capitol in Columbia.

One day, I was in a senator's office when the most wonderful smell of a covered plate went by.

I was to find out later it was a free lunch for the legislators by no less than a charity that I had participated on a run for. I, however, could not participate in the lunch.

According to the National Safety Council, last year 103,000 bikers were maimed, crippled and injured. Another 5,154 were killed.

Many were victims of negligent motorists who escape penalties because of lax right-of-way laws that we have fought to change, with no luck I might add.

To add insult to injury, bikers get the blame for social costs to the State for an accident. If you are looking for someone to help this holiday season, you might want to put one of these brothers or sisters on your list instead of some charity that already receives millions.

Before you hand over that saddle bag of donations from your run, best find out who you are giving it to. I have lobbied for biker rights for a long time and I have never seen one benefit recipient back up a bikers rights issue.

Not one letter, phone call or e-mail has been sent in regards to a legislative motorcycle rights issue. Not one voice raised to defend us against those who tarnish our image. What do you think of the new commercial with motorcycle-riding-mucous-thugs taking over a town?

The same bikers who Myrtle Beach is working so hard to ban will be riding for some benefit somewhere with no thought of what is being said about their rights.

South Carolina House Rep. Tracy Edge from Myrtle beach, who has sworn to take away the bikers' right to decide, retained his seat by a resounding 81 percent of the vote.

It will take a presence of bikers to be in the legislative session every day, to defend bikers' rights. I hope your feel-good charity run will win the day for them.