Special treatment for Scofflaw Governor??

So, the news reports about Ahnuld's recent fat-lip-causing sidecar
mishap this last weekend bring to light an interesting fact, namely:

He has NEVER had a motorcyle license, and "never bothered to get one."
How many years has he been riding? I find this pretty lame, in light of
the fact that he's supposed to be upholding the laws of the state. Some
f%$king role model!

Oh yeah...He wasn't even cited!!
The LA City Attorney's Office is CONSIDERING issuing him one! No
ticket, no impound....no cop seizing his license, etc.

Do think that you or I would be so lucky, especially in El Lay?? Hah!

I just wonder... how many other asshole movie stars and other Important
People are accorded this kind of privilege? Too many, IMO.

 

Ca DMV says it's legal to operate a sidecar with a class C auto license.

 

Well. whether your machine is impounded in the Los Angeles area depends
a lot on your attitude and how you behave toward the detaining officer,
who is, after all, just doing his job. If you give the cop a ration of
shit, you'll get a ticket for no endorsement, otherwise he might just
let you go.

Local residents around the Rock Store were invited to a "stakeholder's"
meeting with the CHP about three years ago, concerning "Operation Iron
Horse" (1) which was intended to target motorcyclists and sportscar
drivers who terrorize Mulholland Highway every weekend. But the CHP
decided to postpone Iron Horse for a while.

They did start patrolling Mulholland Highway more heavily and they
checked sportbikes especially for current registration, proof of
insurance, equipment violations and a motorcycle endorsement on the
rider's driving license. If the only problems were out of date
registration or equipment violations, the rider would just get a fix-it
ticket.

But if the vehicle was uninsured and unregistered it would get
impounded and hauled away on the Official Police Garage's flatbed
trailer. Such sweeps have occurred numerous times around the Rock Store
over the years, as congregating riders continue to annoy local
residents.

The owner of the Rock Store is not a resident, he lives in Santa Maria,
and only opens up on weekends to keep the biker tradition going there,
and make $$$$ off the clientele,
who are mostly RUB's and yuppies that want to show off their
motorcycles and rub elebows with celebrities like Schwarzenegger and
Leno.

Well, one might wish for equal treatment when detained, but it just
doesn't happen. The cops are often a little bit starstruck and, since
they have a lot of discretion in who they actually cite for minor
infractions, they will tend to let celebrities go with a verbal warning
and a smile.

Then, you need to consider the moonlighting that goes on in the Los
Angeles area. Cops make a lot of extra money by providing security for
the production companies who film in private homes and on public
streets in order to avoid paying really high rates on the major
studios' lots and sound stages. I see movies and comercials frequently
which were filmed in or near a certain Craftsman cottage half a block
from where I used to live in Hollywood.

When I would go to the supermarket, I might find myself standing in
line with Brad Pitt or the LAPD chief of police. All the celebrities
are well known and admired and they are very likely to get preferential
treatment.

(1) There was an article on Wrench Whore's website about Iron Horse,
but he's probably taken it down. Wrench Whore does cheap motorcycle
repair in Thousand Oaks.

 

for some reason the CVC specifies 2 wheeled motorcycles...

"(I) Class C does not include a two-wheel motorcycle or a
two-wheel motor-driven cycle.
(4) Class M1. A two-wheel motorcycle or a motor-driven cycle."

 

It's been known for two days now that Arnold was not breaking the law
by not having an M1 endorsement. Why are some people still saying he
did? As for driving w/out the endorsement at other times, I'd be a
hypocrite to join the chorus since I didn't get my C license until I
was 18, but started driving when I was 12 (cars _and_ motorcycles,
though I did get my bike permit when I was 15).

Zach

 

(SNIP)

The reason that no special endorsement is required for a sidecar or trike
goes waaaaaay back. It was a loophole created for meter maids, so that they
wouldn't have to pass a motorcycle test in order to write parking tickets
from their trikes....What I DO find interesting is how much dancing the
governors spokespersons did in the aftermath, trying to tell us that he DID
have a sidecar endorsement (which doesn't exist) ...........

 

Ed sold his Mulholland Hwy house after his friend, Donald Scott, was executed by the LASO.

Would you want to live in that neighborhood?

 

I've never heard that story. Tell us about it.

One guy who has known Ed since the 1960's told me that Ed was an
aerospace engineer who got fed up with the layoffs in that industry.

I sure would. It would be a dream come true to live out there in those
mountains. But, if I owned one of those million dollar houses in the
Santa Monica mountains, I would be complaining to law enforcement
agencies and the Malibu or Agoura Hills city council every time I heard
a loud motorcycle go by. I would raise hell and put a block under it to
get the motorcycles out of the Santa Monica mountains if I was a
stakeholder.

I was sitting at the view point overlooking the ranch there at the big
S curve east of Malibu Canyon and I could hear a guy on an Aprilia
coming for at least five miles. Those damned things actually shake the
ground with their exhaust vibration.

(One of my neighbors used to ride past my house two or three times a
day on his TL-1000, shaking the building. I think the property owner's
association must have gotten on his case for doing that, because he
stopped.)

I've been riding out past the Rock Store on Mulholland Highway to the
ocean since the early 1970's. The ride used to be a quiet jaunt through
the peaceful countryside before Cook Neilson and the staff of Cycle
magazine started testing motorcycles out there. It would have still
been OK if they hadn't told everybody about "Racer Road" and how they
tested Neilson's "California Hot Rod" out there.

The Peter Strauss ranch is about 1 mile east of the Rock Store. The
motorcycle riders never stop there, but I was curious about it, so I
went there on a weekend tour and talked to the docent, who owns a house
up where Encinal Canyon and Lechuga Rd meet. He is also a docent at a
museum down in Malibu. He said that the City of Malibu had an
anti-mansionization policy to keep rich people from covering all of the
hills with huge houses. The people of the state of Kalifornia can enjoy
the scenery, unobstructed with buildings, as was intended when the
state
acquired all that land for the Santa Monica Mountains National
Recreation Area.

But the Ricky Racers and the Miata Wienies aren't interested in walking
around the trails and exploring the canyons, they only care about how
fast they can take the corners.

 

http://www.fear.org/scott.html

 

Oh, yes, I remember now. The blind guy who got shot. A nutcase at work
was chewing on my ear about him.

I shall *never* forget the paranoia of that era. Rodney King. The
"civil unrest" in Los Angeles. The fires, floods and the earthquake.
Ruby Ridge. Randy Weaver. Waco. Janet Reno. David Koresh. Branch
Davidians, Donald Scott. Oklahoma City bombing. Timothy McVeigh.

The ultra rightwing militia types at work were all ranting and raving
constantly that the government was going to bring in UN troops to
forcibly disarm them and they were all buying assault rifles before
they were outlawed. They were reading The Spotlight and denying the
Holocaust, talking about international banking conspiracies and
trilateral commissions and trying to avoid paying their income taxes.
And they were buying all the guns they could get.

All those idiots wound up on the streets looking for work. They should
have spent their energies protecting their jobs, but they were busy
getting ready for the forces of Janet Reno to besiege their
barricaded houses. The forces of change that put them out of work were
simple. Change came from within. Other workers had more seniority when
it became apparent that the loafing right wingers weren't needed
anymore.

The lesson of Donald Scott should have been that you don't meet law
enforcement officers serving a warrant with a gun in your hand.

 

They didn't announce themselves. They broke in on a warrant that
alleged there was marijuana cultivation. They shot him. They found
no marijuana. By all accounts, the real motive was to sieze some very
valuable Malibu acreage under war on drugs laws.

There was plenty wrong with the Fed's conduct in Ruby Ridge too.
To the list, I'd also add the Move siege in Philadelphia, where the
police managed to burn down a whole damn block in the name of
protecting children who died in the fire.

 

Oh yeah?

http://www.trilateral.org/

And for good measure:

www.illuminati.org

 

So, did the federal gummint actual get Scott's property? If they did,
it proves your point.
If no gummint agency wound up owning Scott's land over this admittedly
screwed up shooting, it disproves it, or at least, leaves it a disputed
matter as to what actually went down.

 

The government eventually settled for $5 million dollars after his
widow hired Johhny Cochran and sued. We used to live near
there ourselves, so I had read the original story with some interest.
The account of the park service and other agencies present at
the briefing matches the accounts I read at the time.

"It is the District Attorney's opinion that the Los Angeles County
Sheriffs Department was motivated, at least in part, by a desire
to seize and forfeit the ranch for the government. While the National
Park Service could indirectly obtain this land, there is no evidence
that it instigated or played a significant role in the forfeiture plan.
Based in part upon the possibility of forfeiture, Spencer obtained
a search warrant that was not supported by probable cause. This
search warrant became Donald Scott's death warrant."

He points out some truly sleazy tricks done to establish probable
cause.

A transcript can be found at

http://www.outpost-of-freedom.com/scott.htm

"Also involved in the raid were 32 representatives of 13 other agencies
including the U.S. Border Patrol, the DEA, the LAPD, Pasadena's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory and the National Parks Service.

http://malibutimes.com/articles/2004/03/31/life_and_arts/art2.txt

The $5 million settlement went mostly to legal fees. The house burned
down in 1993 and the widow eventually lost the property to the IRS.

Again, your tax dollars at work folks.

 

"Cochran said Plante-Scott told a judge at the time that she was so
poor she considered eating road kill. She didn't, but in 2001, she left
the ranch after the IRS auctioned it to recover unpaid taxes. A Dr.
Schultz ended up with "Trail's End" for a reported $1.4 million."

Well, there ya go. If the gummint had wanted the 200 acre ranch all
that badly, they could have gotten it for $700,000 by having a law
enforcement ossifer bid on it. According to the notorious
anti-Scientologist Phil Scott, there's a little-known law that allows
police ossifers to acquire properties with low ball bids.

 

There's emminent domain. That's pretty well known and says
the government can acquire property for fair market value
regardless of the owner's wishes.

There's also the war on drugs crap which allowed confiscation of
property withough payment if you can meet a civil rather than a
criminal standard of proof for drug crimes. You can't get much
more lowball than acquiring it for free. Not a great idea to provide
financial incentives for questionable law enforcement actions.

 

Sounds like our local squids in the "Century Club" on Hwy 84. Had one
wipe out behind me going downhill back in the early 80s..lucky for him,
he just got some road rash, some side damage to whatever UJM he was
riding, and a stern lecture from 5 SFPD motor trainees who just
happened to be heading the other way right when it happened. Used to be
at least one a year would buy the farm on Skyline or Woodside, but that
seems to be decreasing.

I just wish these stupid teens on their pocket bike racers/weed-wacker
choppers would find a nice vacant lot to practice their wheelies. I
watched some kid twice my size try to pass a Volvo on the right on 35th
Avenue yesterday....dumb.

Arnold DID break the law by riding without the proper license. A
Piss-poor example for a governor who's supposed to be upholding the
laws of the state. You can apologize for him all you want...IMO, he's a
Scofflaw AND a Squid. He cost the state billions of dollars for a
needless special election. Sure, some $$$ was his, but quite a bit of
your taxes and mine got spent...money that could've been used to, say,
improve some of the roads we love around here.

Anyone who was/is stupid enough to vote for him gets what they deserve.
Any chance we can trade him to Minnesota for the ex-guv Jesse Ventura?
Hell, Gary Busey or even Evel Kneivel'd be an upgrade...at least we
know how scummy they are, and they didn't have to marry a Kennedy Girl,
either.

Ok, so much for the OT rant. I just irks me to no end, 'cause I've
buried too many brother and sister bikers. Most of them died because
some dipshit cager was drunk, or "didn't see them"., etc.. What about
that poor guy who got run down in SanJo a while back, or the longtime
rider in SD who was plowed into by a drunk politician with a long list
of DUIs (who got off with a wrist-slap)??

I also worry that the "Motorcycles are dangerous and should be banned"
clowns will jump on this as fodder for their cause. As one who has been
riding street & dirt since 1966, I literally live to ride, and wonder
when "THEY" will outlaw lane-splitting, etc, and then finally make
bikes illegal for all except law enforcement & the RUB(e)s.

For the record, I've had my scoffflaw days, too, but at 44, I've
learned to be slightly less stupid, as far as 'sickles are concerned.

Jose' "Hawkeye Joe" Scott, MMA & AMA member, Independent Outrider,
SFMC Honorary member, and reformed Scofflaw.

''76 CB 750F

 

Lordy! When I started this thread, I just wanted to gauge reactions of
this NG to the topic at hand, not launch any LA/politcal diatribes,
but, oh well..

Perhaps next time, we can divert to something nearer and dearer to us,
like those hot tattooed motorcycle-ridin' women..

Which reminds me...whatever happened to The Furies MC??? Sure miss them
around the SFMC clubhouse....(sigh)

Oh, and thanks for the Rock Store info. Believe it or not, as long as
I've riding, I've never made it to most of those legendary rides in the
greater El Lay area...so, now if/when l do, l'll know what I'm in for.
I love nothing better than pulling up my beloved "B.C.W." (named after
a Led Zeppelin song) to a pack of shiny garbage wagons and watching the
predictable responses. If they only knew...my bike (the back of it,
actually) was in "Motorcyclist" in the "Greatest Motorcycling City"
issue in '04. I know...big whoop, but I'm still amused by it.

At least here in OUR Bay Area, the Woodside/Skyline crowd is a mixed
group,( as opposed to the Skyline/Hwy 9 bunch). Either way, I see it
as we're all on two wheels, and these days, it's US against the
cars.The M&^%$F^%$s ARE out to run us over, and now they back up and
try again, too.

Oh, and AFAIK, I'm not related to Donald Scott, but there are a few of
us in our wing of the clan who've been dumb enough to run around with
loaded firearms (ahem, cough-cough).

 

If you get a chance to spend a few days in the Los Angeles area, check
out the Rock Store on a Sunday to rub elbows with the "I own the
latest-greatest sportbike" yuppies and cruiser-riding RUB's.

They all get along just fine, there are very rarely any outlaw bikers
there, and the sportbike squids on machines with unrepaired damage get
ignored by the weekend warrior guys who want to stand around under the
oak tree checking out each other's motorcycles or relax in the patio
drinking beer and eating tri-tip.

The CHP doesn't ignore the squids, though, they patrol the Mulholland
Hwy area between Malibu Canyon and Kanan Dume Road heavily.

The best time of year to visit the Rock Store is in July, after the
marine layer quits blowing in off the ocean. Sometimes you'll see the
marine layer curling over the ridgetops and vanishing into the warmer
valley air in May and June.

The yellow-flowered Spanish Broom is in bloom along both sides of the
road in July as you zig and zag up the Snake, which winds up the hill
west of the Rock Store. Spanish Broom is a called an "alien pest" by
the environmentalists, but it fills the air with its sweet scent. By
August, the yucca will be in bloom, with white flowers like torches on
the hillside.

At the top of the Snake, where you see skid marks and burnout donuts on
the road, there's a vista point that the squids call "the Grandstand".
There's a rock with a target painted on it, where squids wouldn't be
able to make a hairpin corner and they'd crash right there.

But the view from the Grandstand back across the valley is fantastic,
with great boulders that were pushed up there by volcanic action lining
the tops of the ridges. There are fantastic unexpected views
everywhere. It seems a shame to try to see how fast you can ride
Mulholland Highway just because it's known as a "racer road" in the
motorcycle magazines.

I stopped to look at a stand of huge white Matilija Poppies on a
hillside vista, looking across Malibu Canyon and saw a brilliant white
Hindu temple's towers. Naturally, I had to go look at that
architecture.

To the south, I was looking at the volcanic hills from the MASH set,
and the rolling pastures and tree-covered area where the Dukes of
Hazard was filmed. I found a burned out Jeep from the MASH set
abandoned in that canyon as I peddled my mountain bike through there.

If you want to enjoy the Santa Monica mountains at their best, you
should also spend a day or three during the week, when you'll have it
all to yourself.

Believe it or not, you're missing the best part of the Santa Monica
Mountain Recreational Area, if all you have is a motorcycle.

If you have access to a mountain bike in the area, you'll really enjoy
the scenic solitude of the canyons and the awesome views from the fire
roads. I never understood why anybody would want to get out and run on
their own two legs on a fire road until I got onto the Backbone Trail
and saw the views. It sure made me feel like running!

If you can arrange for somebody to drop you off at Rancho Sierra Vista
in Newbury Park and pick you up at Sycamore Cove on the Pacific Coast
Highway, Big Sycamore Canyon is an easy mountain bike ride for
beginners, as long as you ride toward the ocean. Heading north, Heart
Attack Hill will have you off the bicycle pushing it up a steep paved
hill.

Off to the side of Heart Attack Hill, there's a sign that says "Fossil
Falls". There are imprints of fossilized scallop shells in the
sandstone. I had to move a Pacific Rattlesnake off the trail to get by.
As a matter of fact, I had to move half a dozen rattlers off the trail
that day. It's their environment, and they
let me walk there, but they aren't happy about it.

To the west of Big Sycamore Canyon you'll find La Jolla Canyon, and you
can pedal a bicycle over there, too. It was once part of a Spanish land
grant, and the big empty valley is filled with the largest remaining
stands of native cereal grass, standing five feet tall.

I heard the sweet song of a Lazuli Bunting in a scrub oak. I've only
seen three Lazuli Buntings in my whole life. The male's head is
brilliant turqoise blue.

If you have read all the above, you can appreciate why I love the Santa
Monica Mountains, and why I'm glad so much of it has been preserved for
those of us who enjoy just walking around in it, instead of trying to
tempt fate with daring deeds of motorized travel.

If you're speeding through those mountains, you'll miss the best parts.

 

Driving without a license in LA is not limited to the privileged, but
extends to those who can't explain how they entered the USA legally. In
any case, the law doesn't come into play unless one is caught in the act.

Rich, Urban Biker