April 2016

Who Cares About Motocyclist Rights?
Dennis “Budman” Kobza
(we hope you do too)
By Surj Gish
Photos by Surj Gish
California is the biggest—and
arguably best—motorcycle state
in the union. With over 800,000
registered bikes, almost 1/10 th of all the
bikes in the US, we dwarf most other states
and best the number two state, Florida
(take that as you will) by over 30%.
And yet the relationship between
the number of bikes and the level
of moto-stuff sometimes seems off
compared to other states with fewer
bikes and riders. I’m talking both
governmental / institutional and
individual involvement. Some may
prefer a lassez faire, keep your laws
off my bike approach to government
involvement, but consider that the
CMSP (California Motorcycle Safety
Program) has nearly eleven million of
our moto-dollars—$10,978,000 for
the 2014/15 fiscal year, as we reported
late last year (“Let’s Talk About
California Motorcycle Safety This One
Time Each Year And Not Really Tell
Anyone” – Pit Stops, December 2015).
That money comes from motorcycle
registrations, and is earmarked for new
rider training and motorcycle safety
programs—it’s even in the name, duh.
The problem is that the fund grows quite a
bit each year (by over $1.3 million dollars
over the previous two years) meaning a lot
of the money isn’t being spent on keeping
riders safe.
It’s not just The Man that doesn’t care:
among individuals, many riders are
uninformed about legislation, or take a
separatist approach: “That just affects
Harley riders, not me.” “It’s just those
damn crotch rocket guys.” Sure, people
join the AMA or ABATE or other MROs
(Motorcycle Rights Organizations), or
bitch about how these organizations don’t
reflect their views—but attend a CMSP
meeting and you’ll see just how little
involvement there is from the unwashed
masses. CityBike goes every year and it’s
pretty much just the CHP, the advisory
committee, and a handful of gadflies. Sure,
the CMSP ain’t real good at promoting
the meetings (almost like they don’t want
regular people to observe, huh?) but last
time, we warned you all about the next
meeting, and guess who showed up: not
you, gentle reader.
Part of the reason for this is that
motorcyclists, or bikers if you prefer,
tend to be rebellious and individualistic,
and would also rather go ride than stay
home and pore over reams of legislative
horse-puckey. Either way, it turns out that
the majority of the moto-rights work in
California is on the shoulders of a pretty
small group of activists.
While sitting on our pompous asses in the
palatial CityBike offices, poring over the
aforementioned reams of legislation (or
just cruising BARF, depending on who
you talk to), we decided we’d start telling
the stories of some of these people. Not the
institutions—everyone knows what the
AMA does (or thinks they do, well enough
for misinformed whining) and anyway
they’ve got their own damn magazine—
but the grassroots advocates putting their
own time, money, and sweat into watching
out for us riders.
Our original plan was to do a tour de force
of moto-advocacy in California, but a
couple things ruined that plan. First, we
realized that we only have 28 pages most
months, and there’s other stuff we gotta
talk about—give our readers some sugar
with their vegetables, to avoid turning
into ZealotBike. Second, one of our
awesome ideas for that
story was quashed by
some bigwig outside
California (maybe
Ohio?) due to concerns
about perception—
as if anyone who
reads CityBike does
anything other than
laugh and shake
their head. We’re the
zombie court jester
of moto-journalism,
ferchrissake.
So we decided to do
a series of stories
on regular riders,
moto-activists
giving up big
chunks of their lives for
me and you and every other rider here in
the Golden State and beyond. We’ll start
with the same questions, like “what made
you care about this stuff?” and see where
the conversations go, until we run out of
people that’ll talk to us.
So without further ado: this month, we
talked to The Budman, originally known
Photo Eric Le
DENNIS ‘BUDMAN’ KOBZA:
BUILDING COMMUNITY
Six Motorcycling Innovators
Who Are Changing Your World
FALL TOURING AT ITS BEST
to the world as Dennis Kobza. Former
racer turned moto-safety advocate, he also
runs BARF (BayAreaRidersForum.com)
on top of a regular job—apparently motoadvocacy
is a train sorely lacking in gravy.
His story is truly amazing—he’s almost
like a moto-rights Wizard of Oz, the man
behind the curtain, minus the weird
flying monkeys. Many know he’s our
representative on the CMSP Advisory
Committee, some know he is one of but
a few private citizens on the California
Motorcycle Safety Committee, but most
don’t know just how much time he’s
invested into this stuff, and how pivotal
he’s been in keeping lane splitting legal.
Our conversation starts with inspiration—
what got you started in caring about
motorcyclists’ rights
and issues?
November 2015
“I always cared
that we get to
go do our thing.
It started for me
fairly early. When
I was in junior high
school, there was a
proposal to make a
motorcycle park out
here in the Baylands.
“Palo Alto Baylands
was basically a dump,
so the idea was make
it a preserve, make it
a motorcycle park…
I happened to be
the president of the
motorcycle minibike club, and I went up
in front of city council in a shirt and a tie,
and gave a speech supporting the proposal
to make it a motorcycle park… So that got
me a little bit into it. We lost, but that was
kinda important.
“I don’t think it really touched on me again
until later in life, when I started to see other
April 2016 | 17 | CityBike.com