Indiana

April 2012

The 117th session of the Indiana General Assembly is over. Being a short session made this year even more challenging. Both the Senate and the House got motivated to finish on March 10, before the actual deadline of March 14, 2012.

SB257 was a "clean-up" bill from the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. It addressed numerous technical corrections and adjustments to existing laws. ABATE of Indiana worked closely with the BMV on this since some motorcycle-related statutes were affected. This bill passed and is good for us.

SB192 allows sales of motorcycles (but not automobiles) on Sunday. ABATE of Indiana did not take a position on this as we have friends on both sides of this bill. This bill seemed about 50/50 either way, and ran its course. The bill did pass.

HB1197 concerned scooters/mopeds/motorized bicycles. The purpose of this bill was to get some accountability of these due to issues with crashes and thefts. ABATE of Indiana doesn't normally support regulatory acts, nor did we want to regulate or prohibit them. By registering them, we would have an idea of the number of units on the streets and obtain some accountability. The bill passed the House and Senate, but the Senate made amendments and sent it back to the House. It didn't have the votes to pass the House, didn't make it back to the floor, and died. We will have this on the agenda again in the 2013 session.

SB137 was Indiana's version of the California muffler stamp law. Dead and buried. This is our greatest victory this legislative session. Two years in a row, ABATE of Indiana was successful in getting this killed in committee without a hearing.

Due to an unusually mild March, there's been a lot of motorcyclists out riding early. This helps greatly in getting the automotive population re-acquainted with motorcycles after the winter break. April brings out the rest. May is our official Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month here in Indiana, with many ABATE Safety Awareness rides scheduled throughout Indiana.