[ST] product liability

[TrmpetDave@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated 4/16/01 9:56:25 PM, owner-st-digest@xxxxxxxxxx writes:

<<The fact is that the 270 million Americans who care
nothing for motorcycles are getting fed-up with the aggravation of
riders burning their eyeballs with bright lights and assaulting their
eardrums with loud pipes. It will be EASY for this majority, under
color of altruism, to have their politicians simply regulate, tax and
restrict our sport to the point where riding will be
unaffordable or undesirable. A simple helmet law reduces motorcycle
registrations by almost a third; legal requirements for stringent
training, expensive and exhaustive licensing, mandated insurance
coverage, displacement limits, protective gear and safety & emissions
inspections (each of which is ALREADY in place in some nation) would
likely reduce the riding population by some 90%. The question then
becomes - who is going to manufacture motorcycles, in the face of
bloated product liability insurance rates, for so few prospective
buyers? This is the EXACT SAME SCENARIO used by the government to
effectively end production of light, single-engine aircraft in this
country a dozen years ago!
>>

I agree with the part about the bright lights and loud noise, but not about 
the cessation of light plane manufacturing in the US-I think their product 
liability rates (and the govt requirements for excessive safety equipment) 
went up because of the propensity for the owners of such aircraft to get 
drunk, fly into a mountain, and sue the aircraft manufacturer (and the 
mountain).  IE, it is the good old American tradition of looking for someone 
else to blame or sue when one fouls up. Dave Collins, San Diego

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