WA State plates now available for "off-road" designated bikes
 

Good news to those of us in Washington. This is copied from the Stumpjumpers website....

Congratulations to YOU. YOU did it! SB 5800 signed into law yesterday!
04/20/2011
THE WASHINGTON STATE LEGISATURE HAS PASSED LEGISLATION PERMITTING OFFROAD
MOTORCYCLE TO STREET USE CONVERSION
Olympia, Washington 19 April 2011
The Legislature has passed and the Governor signed SB5800. This bill would
allow properly equipped and documented off-road motorcycles to be legally
converted to street use.

This common sense piece of legislation was passed with strong bipartisan
support, 46 to 2 in the Senate and 96 to 0 in the House of Representatives.

SB5800 was sponsored by Senators Curtis King, Mary Margaret Haugen, Paul
Shin and strongly supported by the Washington Off Highway Vehicle Alliance,
the Northwest Motorcycle Association and a large number of offroad
motorcycle enthusiasts.

With many offroad motorcycle trails being fragmented by road building and
timber harvesting, there is a growing number of riders that would like the
opportunity to make their motorcycles legal to use the forest roads to
connect the otherwise lost trails.

The equipment requirement compliance inspection will be accomplished by
motorcycle dealerships and the owner of the motorcycle will have to sign a
statement that releases the State from all liability and acknowledges that
they are aware that the motorcycle was not manufactured for street use and
has been modified to be suitable for that purpose.

The Washington State Patrol did not oppose this bill and stated before the
Senate Transportation Committee that properly modified offroad motorcycles
would not be any less safe than other street motorcycles.

Rural communities would also benefit when these motorcyclists are able to
travel into their towns and enhance the local economy.

Other states have enacted similar laws and they have proven to be a safe and
effective solution.
With the additional fees involved, this will also be a revenue positive
change for the State of Washington.

Tod Petersen
Political Action Committee Chairman, Washington Off Highway Vehicle Alliance
Legislative/Land Use Coordinator, Northwest Motorcycle Association
P.O. Box 61161
Seattle, WA 98141

great news and it shows they are still looking out for the bikers...here in MA. they just passed a new law requiring all riders to register their bikes off-road,regardless if they already have a street plate or not,this goes for public,private and state land...basically going to kill the legal riding and racing in Ma. if the EPO decides to visit the racing scene,imagine every racer having an off road reg to race the southwick national moto race??? oh and the way the law reads,you cant take a truck,jeep or motorized wheel chair on a fire road/cart path without the same off road reg..we do a ton of trail maintenance in a few of the local state forests,guess we will have to get off road regs for the skid steers aswell now?? crazy indeed

Great news! Do U know if this includes all 2t's and 4t's?

This is all bikes, 2T and 4T. Not too sure how it's going to work if you have to have a dealer "sign off" on it though. But I'm thinking my '00 will slide through since it isn't "off-road use only" on the title. My kids bike came from out of state so it was already branded "off-road". I'll guess they will make us install a battery, horn, signals, head and tail lights plus brake light to pass. Plus mirror(s). Who knows what else. But I'm thinking a lot of people are going to like this. Certain towns within the state (under a certain population size) can already make ORV use legal within their jurisdiction so this will go hand-in-hand with that. Idaho allows 4-wheelers (ATV's) on city streets already also as long as they have lights and are licensed. The smaller communities in Idaho get lot of tourism $$ during the summer from ATV and UTV owners because of this.

The town I live in is trying to get that done now.They are even trying to make a OHV park. Just like Odessa Wa.

Street legal kits for Gassers available as we speak (as I type?) ... give me a shout.

It's great this bill passed for some I guess.... But I was pulling for the other bill and of course it failed. The bill that would allow non street legal motorcycles to access forest service roads to connect trails, not to exceed a certain speed in doing so etc..

I don't want to put all that junk on my race bike just to be able to legally connect trail. If I'm looking to road ride getting a factory dual sport would be the way to go and would be road legal regardless, so really its a useless law for me.

I also think the 99% off road only used dirt bikes with license plates and street tabs also will not be putting any funds in the direction they need to go, trail systems. I know the NOVA funds theft and all as I am very in the loop of all this bureaucratic B. S., among other things that have happened this past decade in this state. Without ORV funds we will be locked out!

Looks as if a staging area pass is our future everywhere.

Roscoe

I agree with you Roscoe. But with a plated dirt bike in the National Forest the rangers (in my area at least) only want to see a license plate. They could care less about the horn and etc. So where they would ticket you on a forest service road in the past (if you only had ORV tags) they will not enforce the "small" stuff if you have an actual plate. This was straight out of one of the officers mouth. He said they would leave that up to the sheriff. Fat chance seeing a Sheriff on a forest service rd. I guess we'll have to wait and see how this plays out.

Thanks Twowheels, street legal kits will be a hot commodity here I'm sure. And if I do street license my bike I would probably want to ride it to the small town I live by and need that stuff anyhow.

Now we have many more choices of dirt bikes to choose from. Two of my offroad bikes are street licensed, but it got to the point where it was all but impossible to do anymore. This is great news for 2t rider's here in my area anyway.

I agree with Roscoe, I would like to have seen them approve the other bill and as well as this one. There are some areas around Tahuya where we can use the plate to connect to Green Mountain again.

To me this bill was very good news. Now they won't come after my plate like they did the KTMS last year.