Talk:National Motorists Association

authorship?

This article looks like it was written by a corporate spokesman.

It's better than it used to be, but it can still use work. Even though its owner has noble thoughts, for the sake of accuracy, the article needs to make it abundantly clear that the NMA is a for-profit corporation. This fact has been glossed over and obscured in prior revisions.

Nova SS (talk) 03:38, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Official NMA Response

There seems to be a semantics issue related to terms related to corporate status and member versus customer when describing the status of the people who financially support the NMA. Also of concern is the implication that the NMA may not have really had much influence on the repeal of the 55 MPH National Maximum Speed Limit (NMSL).

There are multiple kinds of corporations and they fall into two broad groups; taxable and tax exempt. The terms “for profit” or “non profit” are informal labels that have been applied to these two categories, more often to confuse than to clarify. There are “taxable” (for profit) corporations that have never made profit. For example the NMA has never made a profit in 27 years of operation. There are tax exempt corporations, public and private, that make substantial profits year after year. (I am defining profit as taking in more income than is being used to fund the activities and purposes of the corporation.)

As noted, the NMA was founded as a standard “C” corporation (taxable) because of it’s political intentions. A tax exempt corporation (or foundation) is quite limited in it’s ability to engage in political activities. It is highly unlikely that a public policy oriented organization would ever sustain a meaningful trend of profitability. Additional funds are more likely to be invested in more staff, public relations, lobbying, research, and other functions that further the organization’s goals. Certainly it’s possible for principals in any corporation setting; taxable or tax exempt, to enrich themselves with outsized salaries and benefits and thereby not show a “profit.” However, with an annual payroll expense, for five full time employees, three part time employees, and contract workers, of approximately $200,000 I don’t see much in the way of undeserved enrichment at the NMA.

“Customers” typically pay a company for tangible products or services. NMA members pay dues and make contributions for which there is very little tangible return. They do so to support our efforts to pursue public policies that they support. Yes, some are customers for books or other items that we sell, but our members consider themselves as members, we consider them as members and they voluntarily support the NMA with their dues and donations. If they don’t like what we are doing or advocating they are free to cease their support. This isn’t like a labor union (tax exempt) where someone is forced to pay dues whether or not they support the organization’s policies.

I can unequivocally state that the NMA was the leading and principal advocate for the repeal of the 55 MPH NMSL, including the 1987 modification that allowed 65 MPH on Interstate Highways and so-called “look-alikes.” It was the NMA that testified at Congressional hearings, lobbied Members of Congress and their staff, built grass roots support, and persuaded other organizations to support the effort. I and other NMA members were there, walking the halls, funding the lobbying campaign, generating publicity, and engaging the media. We were opposed by the insurance industry, AAA, safety organizations, the major trucking firms, and enforcement groups. We also had support from independent truckers (OOIDA) motorcycle organizations, and some states. My knowledge is first hand and spans over two decades and I know exactly what transpired and how events unfolded. Consequently, I find it troublesome when someone whose name I don’t know implies that the NMA, at most, might have had some sort of peripheral role in the repeal of the 55 MPH NMSL. If you have evidence that I am exaggerating the NMA’s role in repealing the 55 MPH NMSL I would be happy to review it and respond. If no such evidence exists then you are expressing a personal opinion and I don’t believe an unfounded personal opinion should define our organization’s achievements in a reference document.

Jim Baxter, President National Motorists Association —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.130.200.134 (talk) 19:40, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Since a key purpose of for-profit corporations is to enrich shareholders, skepticism of any claimed altruism is appropriate for a firm organized as a for-profit.

If you have nothing to hide, prove it and publicly release all your tax records. Don't hide behind that foundation where you took records offline.

If you are unwilling to share, the presumption must be that you are a no different than other for-profit corporations.

As for the peripheral involvement issue, find us better sources (other than content generated by you) that clarifies your role with speed limit issues.

Nova SS (talk) 20:52, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for posting the updated tax information for your foundation. To be clear, however, this does not address questions about the subject of the article, which is not the foundation. Nova SS (talk) 17:22, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

We're willing to publish the NMA tax filings, but we don't have an electronic copy available or any desire to create one. However, if you send your name and address to awq@motorists.org, we will immediately mail you out a hard copy of the latest filing. Once you receive it, feel free to convert it to electronic format and publish it anywhere you want, including the NMA wikipedia page. The same goes for anyone reading this page who would like a copy.

Aaron Quinn

NMA Staff

awq@motorists.org

P.S. Note that I've signed my real name and direct email address. I hope the same courtesy will be extended to us in any further discussions/edits. Posting under an anonymous username fails to give readers the opportunity to evaluate any personal, professional, or financial bias that may be in play.

Motorists (talk) 18:20, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Since the terms "member" and "donation" seem to have sparked some controversy, I've removed them for the sake of neutrality. It's incumbent on authors to provide evidence to support their claims. If such evidence cannot be produced, then editors may remove those claims. Simply citing your own website over and over is insufficient evidence. Ambiguator (talk) 19:08, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Conflict of interest

I have noted that this article is representing a biased viewpoint thanks to a conflict of interest of a recent editor. User:Motorists, an employee of the corporation about which this article was written, is whitewashing the article.

The NMA is a for-profit, closely-held organization despite the connotation suggested by the use of Association in the name. As such, it is appropriate to provide clarification of the corporation's true for-profit status in the opening.

Nova SS (talk) 19:32, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

http://www.merriam-webster.com/netdict/association 1 a : the act of associating b : the state of being associated : combination, relationship 2 : an organization of persons having a common interest : society 3 : something linked in memory or imagination with a thing or person 4 : the process of forming mental connections or bonds between sensations, ideas, or memories 5 : the aggregation of chemical species to form (as with hydrogen bonds) loosely bound complexes 6 : a major unit in ecological community organization characterized by essential uniformity and usually by two or more dominant species

As you can see above, there's no requirement that the word "association" not be used in conjunction with a for profit entity. Definition #2 applies closest. Just because you may not agree with them doesn't mean they can't use the term. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rahmspeed (talk • contribs) 15:26, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

As for the issue of "members", the NMA website has a "members only" section. So it apparently does have members.   Will Beback  talk  06:15, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Again, the use of "members" in this context does not clarify any statements, or provide any value to the topic. The controversy over its usage on this page is enough to strike it from the description. Additionally, the terms "donate" and "grassroots" are subjective marketing language, provided directly by the party in question. I have removed them for the sake of neutrality. Ambiguator (talk) 19:08, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Hi Ambiguator. Although you've picked this discussion up here from a good while ago, I disagree that, for example, 'controvery over its usage on this page is enough to strike it.' Rather, I suggest that the issue be solved by a good faith effort on this page. If we just struck any term or language from every article where there was controversy, we would have a pretty spare wiki. I also take issue with a lot of the text you added to the description. I'd ask you to provide a citation before adding a descriptor like "meager" to describe funding. Also, your personal observation that you don't find the NMA's marketing materials to do a good job separating their corportation from their foundation isn't enough to call it "obfuscating" without a citation. And the fact is their website does have a "Foundation" link with its own About page.

Further, I don't see how the short descriptive text in the introduction about the NMA's stated purpose was problematic. If you found that it sounded that marketing, you could have changed to read that the entity "describes itself as" or has a "stated purpose of" without blowing away the content. But we can visit that after you've had a change to weigh in. I commented on my edits mostly at the bottom of this talk page. See below. --joeOnSunset (talk) 07:50, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Need better documentation of these claimed "other business" items

I moved this section to this discuss page because it is not clear if the following represents real events or offers or if it's just propaganda/advertising.

Other business

In the past, the NMA has organized "civil obedience days" where customers actually drove at the posted speed limit, although there is no known evidence that this had enough participants to cause any significant traffic impacts.

It has also issued a "Highway Robbery Award" to entities that it claims have abused motorists. Most recently, the organization has issued a $10,000 challenge to communities that plan on installing traffic signal enforcement cameras under the belief that simple traffic engineering changes are more effective than cameras.

The NMA operates a speedtrap registry and a roadblock registry where people can post the locations of known speed traps and road blocks.

The NMA, in cooperation with GetMADD.com, is offering a $20,000 reward to anyone who can verify the claims of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) regarding the number of people killed by drunk drivers.

Nova SS (talk) 02:51, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I've added some of this content back. It was trivial, to show that "the NMA operates a speedtrap registry...". For the citation, I just linked to the registry home page that attributes the NMA to it, but I suppose I could go ahead and look up the domain ownership info and link to that. It was similarly trivial to substantiate the statement regarding the $20,000 MADD statistics reward. I will clean up the citations shortly, but it's dinner time. --joeOnSunset (talk) 23:34, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

And in further reading, I have a problem with the following statement in the article: "Because of this, it has customers, not members. Its customers do not have voting status. Regardless, some customers provide uncompensated labor to advance the corporation's legislative agenda. Some customers also provide uncompensated labor for the positions of State Chapter Coordinator or State Activist." Firstly, I am not aware of any definative source that says a for-profit corporation cannot have "members." If we visit the page of a national gym chain, we will read a similar admonition against calling its customers "members?" No, because a for-profit company can sell "memberships," and in English we call them just that. There is a similar argument to be made against the "uncompensated labor" term. I am aware that one or more editors are concerned that it is made clear that the NMA is not organized as a 501(3)(c) unlike the NMA Foundation. That can be made clear by making exactly such a statement. Discussion? --joeOnSunset (talk) 22:29, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Very well, I went ahead with those changes. --joeOnSunset (talk) 22:56, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

References

Repeal of the National Maximum Speed Law

The article stated, "The CCRTL/NMA's claims to have contributed to modifications and eventual repeal of the National Maximum Speed Law, although no independent records exist to substantiate this claim." But, there's no citation of any research looking for the 'independent records,' so how can it be said that 'no independent records exist?' Clearly we don't know if such records exist, or at the very least, cannot state that they do one way or another without a cite. So, I've changed the statement. "The NMA claims to have contributed to modifications and eventual repeal of the National Maximum Speed Law." --joeOnSunset (talk) 02:00, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

The NMA's self-story is fundamentally deceptive. It portrays itself as a nonprofit or charity, but in fact it's a for-profit corporation.

And let me clear: I have no problem with their views. I agree with most of them. But having those views does not convert a for-profit company into a nonprofit, nor does it give a license to overstate its contributions. We have to treat them with the same skepticism of any for-profit company.

Novasource (talk) 02:57, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

IIHS purports to be non-political and educational, although IIHS employees provide testimony at the same legislative hearings as NMA volunteers. I'd say the IIHS deserves the same skepticism as the NRA or similar "non-profit". As for NMA's impact on repeal of the NMSL, what kind of documentation are you asking for? And what other lobbying organizations could provide it for their activities? 19:13, 12 October 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Duke Ganote (talk • contribs)

Where's any independent evidence that the NMA did anything? NMA is not a nonprofit. Novasource (talk) 03:55, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Again: what kind of documentation are you asking for? And what other lobbying organizations could provide it for their legislative advocacy activities? Duke Ganote (talk) 14:42, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Anything that meets Wikipedia's guidelines and is not produced by the NMA or its allies. To be clear: my problem is not the NMA views per se, it is the fact that a company is taking credit for something without independent verification that it actually did it. Novasource (talk) 16:27, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

And I repeat: what other lobbying organizations can provide "independent verification" for the effectiveness of their legislative advocacy activities? I'm just wondering if you're asking for something no one can provide, let alone NMA. Duke Ganote (talk) 02:30, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Novasource, you didn't address the evidence for your statement. Your overall impression of their honesty level is not research. You wrote that there was NO independent evidence to support their claim. That would your personal opinion, or original research, unless you have a cite from someone who's written about the issue. And "No, we're not deleting this" in the comments section doesn't count as a citation, either. The most you can do is state that they make a claim. You have nothing to back up a statement that it absolutely, cannot possibly be corroborated. You could go so far as to point out that they make a claim and do not themselves offer additional evidence on their site to back it up. --joeOnSunset (talk) 05:46, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Removed the unsourced statement "Since the repeal of the 55/65 mph National Maximum Speed Limit law in December 1995, this event has been used sparingly, if at all." This isn't substantiated by any of the references. --joeOnSunset (talk) 00:53, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Corp status, foundation

I've removed some of the recently added text from the main body, which was original research and/or uncited (e.g., describing the NMA Foundation's revenue as "meager", saying that the NMA obfuscates the difference between its for-profit and not-for-profit entities without a cite, etc). I've also edited the Corporate status/Foundation section so it has an NPOV tone while leaving the cited facts there, in tact. I've updated the reference to the Foundation mission statement to be the text currently published as the citation for the old mission statement was 404. --joeOnSunset (talk) 07:21, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

I also object to the total removal of a description of the stated purpose of the corporation from the introduction. The text was short (less than 10 words) and from the group's own mission statement. I'm contemplating adding that back in but will wait to see if these is discussion about it here. --joeOnSunset (talk) 07:29, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

JoeOnSunset, thank you for your thorough audit and thoughtful feedback. Many of the citations on the page use the subject's own website as source material. Thing like "mission statement" are not appropriate, especially when single-sourced from the website in question. You're right, I probably removed a few things too speedily, and allowed my own opinion to seep into some of the writing. Please feel free to adjust it to a more neutral POV. Ambiguator (talk) 14:35, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

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Traffic laws fairly written?

You sure about that? These people hate bikes and other forms of transit. We know what fairly written looks like: the Netherlands.

Maybe you might not agree, but their advocating for "fairly written" traffic laws is not an objective truth. 73.228.112.44 (talk) 15:04, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia depends on reliable sources for its content. Can you provide any to support your view? HiLo48 (talk) 23:23, 25 March 2022 (UTC)