Distracted Bikers

The latest Michigan helmet law repeal bill is all over the news.

It's definitely on bikers' minds, too. There has been a "call to action" making the rounds, encouraging bikers to take part in an on-line poll on the helmet law.

(No, I'm not posting a link.)

Bikers certainly want to do all they can to win the repeal battle. But are they actually making any difference by taking part in an on-line poll? So I asked a simple question, "If we win the poll, do we get some kind of prize?"

The answer I got was pretty straight-forward. "Someone might show the poll results to the governor." While this might happen, it will have no effect on the outcome. Here's why:

Governor Snyder isn't going to sign or veto this bill based on an unscientific on-line poll, especially where one side can run up the numbers. He's going to make a practical decision base primarily on who his friends and enemies are, as well as his gut feelings.

On-line polls are for entertainment purposes, which is stated by the poll takers themselves. And entertaining they are. When they ask a controversial question, a lot of people visit their website (including bikers in this case). That drives up their website hit counter, which increases their advertising rates.

So yes, bikers are having a big impact. Just not where they intended.

The irony is that bikers actually could have taken action AND gotten results. While the keyboard commandos were running up the advertising rates for the poll-takers, a couple of special elections were taking place in Michigan.

The results speak for themselves.

One pro-repeal candidate lost his Michigan seat by 147 votes. About 15 campaign volunteers would have made up the difference. And he just happened to be a friend of (you guessed it) Governor Snyder. His friend.

In the other special election, there's no telling where any of the candidates stood on repeal. And in both of these elections, the bikers who were totally consumed with taking the on-line poll were not a factor.

But they had fun, so at least they got something out of it.