Representatives in the New Hampshire House have introduced a bill to charge a fee of fifty dollars per year to register a bicycle in the state. There is a fine of $100 for non-compliance.
The bill, HB1703, has a hearing in the House Transportation Committee on Tuesday, Jan. 27 at 11:00 a.m. Riders in New Hampshire can register their opposition to the bill at a convenient comment page on the House of Representatives site.
Use this link to open the page. Follow the prompts at each dropdown menu to select your desired response. It takes a couple of minutes at most, and is very important to help the sponsors of the bill and the legislators considering it to gauge public response.
Fifty dollars per bike per year. That's every single bike you intend to ride on any road or trail that receives any kind of public funds. It also applies to e-bikes, many of which are ridden by low-wage workers already dealing with astronomical rent costs and low housing availability, along with all the other cost of living expenses.
I would imagine that the sponsors of the bill look at people with a thousand-dollar bike rack and several bikes costing more than two grand each and see a big bucket of disposable income. Add to that the annoyance motorists feel at bikes in general, and recklessly-ridden e-bikes in particular, and you can see why they would propose a fee designed essentially to kill cycling on public roadways entirely. Two of the sponsors are from Merrimack, in the heavily populated, very built-up southern part of the state. The third sponsor is from Hillsboro, still in that "Concord and south" zone. Ironically, Hillsboro was also the site of a very popular 35-mile mountain bike race in the 1990s. RIP the Hillsboro Classic.
New Hampshire Republicans are also constantly looking for ways to levy taxes that aren't really taxes, to make up for the beloved but now catastrophically overstressed property tax system on which the state has depended for more than a century. Coincidentally, $50 a vehicle is what they gave up when they voted to do away with motor vehicle inspections.
The bill text does say that all revenues collected will be giving to the state's transportation department for the construction and maintenance of bicycling infrastructure. Greaaat. Only well-to-do and highly motivated residents of New Hampshire will be able to afford the fees, so it will operate rather like tariffs on imported goods: kill demand, reduce the revenues received, and deteriorate the quality of life in general for lower income citizens on which the capitalist economy depends.
Of course there will be outlaws. And how much will law enforcement waste its time chasing rogue riders? On the other hand... it's a guaranteed hundred bucks a pop, so maybe they'll go on a spree. If the bill passes, we are in for a very interesting few months after its implementation.
Then there are the thousands of visitors who come here in the warm months with their bikes. They get a freebie, but will find that a lot of supporting businesses have gone under because of one strain too many on the bike shop economy. As for rental fleets, will they (we) have to pay $50 per bicycle every year to have our vehicles to offer to visitors? By the basic text of the bill, yes. Fold that cost into the rental fee and you encourage renters to do something else with their day, or simply visit Maine or Vermont.
A commenter on social media said "Oh, that's just like New Jersey." I looked up New Jersey's bill. They charge eight dollars per bike. It's still unenforceable and a gross intrusion, but at least a pocket-change kind of gouge.
The New Hampshire bill says that a rider must have proof of ownership and proof of registration on their person at all times to present to law enforcement on demand. Do you still have the receipt for every bike you own? I don't have a receipt for any bike I own, because they're all uniquely assembled from frames and parts. They're like ghost guns of the cycling world, except that they are designed to make life better, not end it abruptly.
I knew a guy down in Maryland who would build entire Saab automobiles out of salvaged parts. They were the old 3-cylinder jobs. No matching VIN on those.
The New Hampshire bill is designed to fail. Maybe it's a piece of protest legislation by representatives who just hate the plague of two-wheelers living it up and "paying nothing." Maybe it's intended to make a lower, but still ridiculous fee like $20 seem reasonable. We'll see where it goes from here. I have been heartened to see the link to oppose the bill posted on social media sites that skew pretty hard right in my area.
It reminds me of a bill proposed in Maryland in the early 1980s, that would have restricted bicycles to roads with a speed limit of 30 miles per hour or less. That would have effectively penned cyclists into residential neighborhoods and downtown areas. It was beaten into the ground by a tidal wave of opposition. I seem to recall that another version floated up just a few years ago and met a similar fate. That may have been in Iowa, which derives a good chunk of revenue from RAGBRAI, even as bike haters derive a good chunk of gut-churning rage at the traffic congestion any large group ride will temporarily induce. Whaddya gonna do?
Please go to the site to add your opposition and stay tuned for updates.
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