[bob.wolff68]

I agree with lopsided. I'll add a few things as well.
* As a bug/nit - I dont see encoderDist being 'set' or assigned or incremented anywhere. Maybe outside the scope of what you pasted in. But without...it'll not operate as you intend.
* You talk about putting code into the .h header file. Header files are not the best place to put implementations (code). This is because there are other files which may EACH #include such a header file. When it gets included by multiple files, the implementation will be done multiple times and you'll at least get strange errors from the compiler which may be very non-obvious how to fix. Put implementation/code in .cpp files only.

bob