NHTSA Still Pushing Motorcycle-Only Checkpoints Nationwide....

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http://www.scooternews.net/node/2945
NHTSA Still Pushing Motorcycle-Only Checkpoints Nationwide...

Submitted by the boss on mon, 12/13/2010 -  The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has ignored congressional requests to halt or delay a plan to implement and fund motorcycle-only checkpoints nationwide.
The first federally funded checkpoints, dubbed “roadside motorcycle safety checkpoints,” will be launched by the Georgia Department of Public Safety, via the Georgia State Patrol. The initial grant from NHTSA grant to the Georgia troopers is $70,000.
NHTSA decided to fund the program despite being asked by Congress not to fund the program until the merits were explained. In a letter sent by Representative James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, along with ten other Members of the House of Representatives last month, Sensenbrenner and his colleagues specifically asked NHTSA to respond to the letter before funding the program, they did not.
NHTSA did not wait. It is not clear if the agency, its head, Strickland, or Secretary of Transportation James LaHood even responded to the legislator’s request before going ahead with the implementation of the checkpoint funding plan.
“Not only is this an injustice to the motorcyclists of America, it is a complete waste of taxpayer money.” said Jeff Hennie, Vice President of Government Relations and Public Affairs for the MRF.
The NHTSA-designed plan calls for Georgia, and presumably other states which asked for funding, to conduct motorcycle-only “safety checks” along roadsides. The constitutionally questionably checkpoints will be established when and wherever law enforcement agencies choose. Criteria of the alleged “safety checks” has not been made immediately clear, but was apparently spelled out in NHTSA’s request for applications from various agencies.
The Sensenbrenner letter NHTSA ignored was published in the October 2010 issue of Southwest Scooter News, and is posted online at www.scooternews.net.