Trouble Brewing...Motorcycle Fatalities up 200% in BC

In the Okanagan in particular, police have noted that those riding "cafe style/Crotch Rockets" are overall the worst offenders for unsafe riding.

While I do believe that cafe racer/crotch rocket riders are a part of the problem when it comes to speeding and stunting, why does this article not address the fact that fatalities on motorcycles are up and the number of those accidents that are caused by motorists performing unsafe left hand turns, inattentive drivers etc...

The police in the Okanagan are planning a crack down on motorcycles - not drivers who are careless but riders.

In Ontario, the police are reported to be cracking down on riders with insignia's or any kind of patch on their back...

Politics - semantics....

In the USA, Freedom fighter Bruce Arnold takes on Harley-Davidson Motor Corp and asks why they do not have a fallen rider support fund instead of supporting MDA. He makes some very compelling points and is obviously frustrated that he is not getting any straight answers.

In Edmonton today at 10 AM, they are going to pull life support from a friend of mine, Kathleen Purser. She went down near Mayerthorpe last weekend and unfortunately the injury to her brain stm is such that they do not believe she will ever return to us in a meaningful way.
She may last a few moments, hours, days weeks or even months, no one knows but God.

Please say a prayer for her and her family today...

If I haven't told you through all of the nagging I do at you all...Each and every rider I meet becomes a part of my family.

I may not agree with you, I may get angry with you, I may scold and chastise you - you are my family.

I will always care about what happens to you.

I will never turn my back on you when you are in need - not if I know about it...that includes those who swear to be my enemy, because just like any family - our bond is far stronger than our grievances...

Family - it's who you are even if we have never met - as we share a very strong and common bond - the highway, the wind, the life.

Stay safe out there - you are IMPORTANT - never forget that!

Belt Drive Betty

Riding Clubs, Events, Businesses - PROMOTING YOURSELF JUST GOT EASIER

Our web site: www.beltdrivebetty.com was recently moved to a new server.

As a result of that move, our web site is now fast and easy to use.

We want riders, riding clubs, event organizers, businesses and tourism regions with rider friendly businesses to use our web site to promote their causes, rides, regions and businesses.

We have made it as easy as possible, as simple as possible for you to promote your "thing" whatever that may be and IF you are a member of Face Book or a good number of social networks, we have made it so that once you add an article to our web site, you can share it with your friends n Face Book - a great bang for your valuable time!

Your articles go live the minute you save them - you can control the look and feel of your information - every page, every section where we accept membership submissions has a SUBMIT YOUR (Article/Poem/News - Whatever).... link

Promote your riding club by submitting a Riding Club Profile.

Promote your event by having it added to our on line calendars, submitting a Motorcycle Event article to our Travel & Tourism area for your province.

Promote your business in our business section, promote your band - gear-art- in the lifestyle section.
Promote your discipline by submitting to our sports section.
Join in contests, auctions and never fill out another registration form - do puzzles in our forums or get to know other riders.
Share photos, tag people and create you own friends network.
Share your favorite Day Ride, your favorite recipes, your favorite poems, honor our troops....
Become a member of our Canadian Riders Network of Riders willing to assist during a time of need when on the road.
All of this and more is available to our membership for FREE

Businesses - You can now post your jobs to be filled on our site FOR FREE
Riders - You can now post your resume and apply for jobs right on line. FOR FREE

Our Newly overhauled Classifieds ad section is ready to accept your products for sale, trade or swap be you Business or Rider - it's FREE to our members and remember - Membership is FREE

You get a savings card that is good at over 150 locations and growing.

Yes we have some paid services too.

Our Newspaper - The Busted Knuckle Chronicles is printed weekly - 48 times a year and is available in print - at rallies, in stores, coffee shops etc and delivered to your door.
It is also available electronically - delivered to your computers in box every Thursday morning.

Along with your link to the newspaper is our newsletter - it is filled with last minute information, new BDB Club partners and all sorts of interesting information. It is also your weekly reminder to come to the web site at www.beltdrivebetty.com and see what else has been going on in our community.

The cost for the printed version of the newspaper is $47.20 GST Inc for one year
The cost for the Electronic version of the newspaper if $15.75 GST Inc for one year

Our Community Phone Book - the printed Version will be free in 2010 at participating businesses etc, or available for $15 plus shipping, handling and taxes
On line as part of our web site, it is available for free as are the GPS Coordinate information!

Our entire site is mobile too and available to our membership for FREE at www.beltdrivebetty.mobi - broke down? Got to wandering and meandering and Got lost?
If you need help on the road - our resources are available to you on your smart phone or web enabled phone!

For Business we have a ton of services we offer in our paid services category...
Print ads in our weekly newspaper, the Busted Knuckle Chronicles
Web Site ads on www.beltdrivebetty.com
Phone Book ads in our electronic and printed Rider Friendly Business Directory & Community Phone Book The Little Black Book

There are a ton of tools at your disposal on www.beltdrivebetty.com

We are so much more than good event calendars - we are your clearinghouse of information for everything Motorcycle Related in Canada. We are your chamber of commerce, your tourism destination office, your shopping guide and so very much more.

There are over 400 active riding club links - add yours today!
There are web site links, and web wheel links - if its about motorcycling, motorcyclists or anything they do - we do our best to serve it up to you.

So come, join us in creating a strong on line information hub where all roads lead to the news, information and resources you as a motorcyclist needs -
Come promote yourself - it's easy to do!

If you need any help while on our web site, drop in to our forums, use our live help located at the bottom of your home page. Or email either Ali or myself through the contact us section of the web site located at the bottom of every page.

Your home page is your central hub for everything you do and participate in on our web site.
And for the for-see-able future, we will have more tools, more resources and more contests and auctions for you to participate in coming on line.

Stay tuned because we are on the grow again!

If you are lucky enough to be riding today, PLEASE - take a walk around that Iron Steed and really look at it. Stay hydrated - ride like everyone around you si blind and can not see you and PLEASE, use respect with that throttle hand.

Belt Drive Betty

In the news today...

Our good friend, Tom Mann of Biker TV is in London hospital in Ontario recovering from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident on Sunday. We have no other details than he is doing OK.

My thoughts and healing prayers are with Kathleen Purser who went down in Mayerthorpe on the weekend. She is in the U of A in ICU, fighting for her life.

Duane " Bling" Lowry's Memorial will be held at the Heritage Ranch, the date is still to be announced.

Saskatchewan bikers lover their Timmy's!
10 motorcyclists were having a coffee in the Tim Horton's on Regina's Albert Street and
4th Avenue when they noticed two men putting on masks. One of them had a machete.

That's when the bikers took action. Staff-Sgt Brian Wilkinson says the man with the knife
tried to use it on one of the bikers. "A couple of these helpers jumped the bad guy and took the machete away from him and held him for police."

In Nova Scotia, a rider from Moncton NB and a black bear had an encounter you really don't want....he credits good gear for coming out of it virtually unscathed!

It's been a rough riding season on our community and guys like the 7 in Edmonton who got caught speeding by the police helicopter don't really help our cause much!

The OPP in Ontario are cracking down on aggressive motorcyclists - sport bike riders in particular. They have seized a number of bikes for stunting, speeding and failing to stop for police...when are people going to get it? YOU CAN NOT OUT RUN A MOTOROLA!

I have a question to ask...

When are we riders going to come together as a community, from coast to coast to coast and start creating a positive movement towards safety?

It's time folks. I am sick of seeing people on their bikes wearing sandals, flip flops, shorts, tees and bikini's. I am sick of hearing about people I care about sustaining life altering injuries or dying in avoidable accidents. My heart is heavy people. I am sure yours must be as well...

The Alliance for Injured Motorcyclists of Canada would like to invite you to start a chapter in your region - the Alliance is all about supporting riders and their families in the days, weeks and months after a motorcycle accident. For more information on the Alliance and how to get involved please visit their web site. www.aim-can.com

If you are fortunate enough to be riding today, please take a walk around that Iron Steed of yours. Ride like everyone around you is blind and can not see you, stay hydrated and please use your head for something other than a helmet rack...

Belt Drive Betty

Motorcycle Deaths, a time for action.

The time has come for all motorcycle awareness groups in Canada to come together to start a trend towards improving motorcycle safety.

Too many, far, far too many good and talented people have been dying in our community.
Dying in left hand turn accidents - avoidable left hand turn accidents.
Accidents involving inattention/distraction by motorists, illegal u turns and failing to stop infractions.

Terry from Fantom Choppers, Duane in Red Deer, a young man in London Ontario, killed when a driver failed to stop. I can go on and on - it's like an epidemic in this country.

What's even more horrifying from my point of view are the charges that are being laid.
Failing to stop? How about adding a charge of undo care and attention causing death?

I personally think it is high time that AIM-Can, AIM, BRO, OCC, RoadAwareness.ca, Biker Down in Nova Scotia and all organizations involved in riders rights including BCCOM, Saskatchewan Motorcycle Association and all of the Safety Councils across this country sat down together either by video phone or something and get together to produce so solid and unified lobbying efforts for stiffer penalties and we need to work on a really good safe driving campaign.

We need to approach the issue of unsafe motorists in such a way that we are promoting and focusing on BEING SAFER - Attention goes where energy flows!

We want to promote safe riding, safe driving - we do not want to be against bad driving - we'll only get more bad driving!

I have what I believe is a really GREAT idea...
I would love to host a video contest. We'd need some prizes and buy in from the community at large...

The contest idea:

Produce a 30 second commercial PROMOTING safe driving at intersections for motorists
The commercial must include a motorcyclists going straight and the automobile driver wanting to turn left....The goal would be to see these commercials be sponsored and played on TV stations and web sites across the country as Public Service announcements that could play during the entire riding season.

If any of you who read this blog, think that it is a good idea and would like to become involved, PLEASE respond to this post with what ever help or involvement you might wish to offer.

We could expand this idea into other areas of concern like cell phones and texting issues, distractions inside a vehicle, tailgating etc. Promoting the right way to be driving, not focusing on the bad driving behaviors.

I for one am tired of loosing so many good people because of the poor choices of others,
and I am also tired of the way tickets and charges are handled in these cases.

A united community is a strong community. If we learned to work together on causes and issues that are close to and affect all of us we might actually get somewhere.

Please join us on www.beltdrivebetty.com where we are working to create a stronger riding community in Canada by sharing ideas, information and thoughts!

If you are lucky enough to be riding today, please take a walk around that iron steed and check it over. Stay hydrated, ride like everyone around you is blind and can not see you and please, use respect with that throttle hand!

Belt Drive Betty

Some important facts about our web site and memberships

We have been asked by many people, why do we require so much information to register for the Free Membership on our site.

Here's the answers:

Your name and mailing address, we need this information for three main reasons:

• If you subscribe to our newspaper, the Busted Knuckle Chronicles, we will be mailing you out a hard card once per year - that card is good for specials, special services and or discounts at member businesses. Right now, about 140 - 150 locations and growing.

• If you are "free" member, in other words you use our tools and news but do not subscribe to the newspaper, we still need your information to send out prizes. We run a number of contests all year long, and on the chance you decide to enter one, having your accurate and up to date contact information means getting your prizes to you. If you want to submit articles or stories, we need to know your information just as if you had submitted a story to the regular newspaper. Not to mention that if you decide you like what we do and choose to later subscribe to the paper, it makes it easy on all of us!

I don't like calling or bugging people if I don't need to!
(I am a one person admin team at the moment)

• Because everyone fills out the same form, business partners or members, our business partners know that our information is rock solid. That gives us the credibility in their eyes that they have come to the right place. Our list is not bloated - it is not fabricated.

Why do we want to know the brand you ride?

So we can ensure that we are providing all of our members information that has value to them and we can gear our contests and information to suit our community.

Why do you want to know what I do for a living?

As many people know, statistics are what drive our governments and their agencies.
Being able to tell tourism and other government departments who makes up our community in statistical terms has enormous value to our community. In terms of lobbying, there is also great value in statistics.
We can share the statistics that hold NO personal information with our various counterparts

Why do you want to know if I own my own business?

All riders are encouraged to promote their businesses to other riders. If you choose to put the information about your company in your profile, we MAY, contact you to ask you if advertising and promotion of your business to others in the riding community would interest you. You will NEVER get a high pressured sales call. You will generally get an email asking if it is OK for us to send you the marketing information or a phone call to ask the same question.
This is also valuable statistical information and we can share the statistics that hold NO personal information with our various counterparts.

Why do you want to know what riding club I ride with?

Again, content and contests and how we decide what we are going to do and or provide is largely driven by the community and its interests. We also want to ensure that every group is represented, that they are promoted...

What is the BDB Club?

For you riders it is the Bikers Discount Buying Club

For business owners - it's the Bikers doing Business Association

Both are a part of the non registered Belt Drive Betty Foundation which has a mandate to assist the promotion of the riding community, it's people, businesses and charities.
Here at Belt Drive Betty, we are not some big faceless corporation that just wants to make money. We are here to work FOR our community.

Ali and I, along with the riding clubs, groups and individuals who write articles and share with us are riders who want to see our community be treated with respect and dignity.
We want our community to be strong and vibrant.

Ali and I have been working on fixing and fine tuning a few things. Watch for changes and improvements on the site daily for the next while.

Our classifieds section is now up and running and ready to receive your ads!

Our Cook book is also up and running and ready to receive your recipes.
As always, we accept story submissions from all of our members - we do have to approve them and put them in the appropriate category so they may not appear immediately.

Our Riding Club Directory has been moved from the old server and installed - please check to see if your group, club or chapter is represented there and if not - add them!

Our forums are up and running and super easy to use.

Your personal photo galleries are ready to use )This is the link to the general community albums list) To create your own gallery, click on the Gallery Component in your profile tool box in the center of your profile/home page.

You can now share your stuff from our web site to your Facebook page as well as to our forums and by email to your friends! Different components allow you to share in different ways.
As we go, more and more of our tools and components will be sharable!

And you can comment on articles in the news and share the news with your friends!

Please join us... www.beltdrivebetty.com

If you are fortunate enough to be riding today, please take a walk around that iron steed, stay hydrated, ride like everyone around you is blind, and PLEASE, use respect with that throttle hand.


Belt Drive Betty