Richard Quigley, freedom fighter

Richard James Quigley

BORN: Dec. 25, 1943
DIED: Sept. 15, 2007
RESIDENCE: Santa Cruz County for more than three decades
JOBS: Horse wrangler, stage coach driver, corporate marketing executive, private investigator and radio talk show host.
QUOTABLES:'Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, "Wow, what a ride!"'

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Richard Quigley, a freedom fighter who was one before the term bacame mainstream dared to defy California's helmet law and rode with a baseball cap. He taught himself the law and succesfully overturned dozens of helmet tickets in court.
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"He led each of us who knew him to a safer landing than we ever could have found for ourselves," Wells wrote in an obituary of Quigley. "How lucky we are that this great spirit turned out not to have been tethered to his wonderful being but flew even closer than before into our hearts, where it may now with some long-earned certainty, expect to find rest and welcome"

   
Click here for our last article before Quigley's passing.
   
Click here for how a motley group of biker activists dedicated their lives to fighting the mandatory motorcycle helmet law
 
Hall of Shame: Then Governor Pete Wilson who signed the helmet bill into law after nearly a century of freedom of choice in California. He did this despite the tens of thousands of protests by bikers over this law.