FLORIDA: Motorcycle only checkpoints stir controversy

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http://www.clutchandchrome.com/news/news/motorcycle-only-checkpoints-stir-controversy
Motorcycle only checkpoints stir controversy

Thursday, 24 February 2011
Written by Digits

The legendary Daytona Beach Bike Week could have its own controversy, starting long before riders have the chance to ride into Florida as the AMA warns of motorcycle checkpoints in the state of Georgia.
Motorcycle only checkpoints aren’t necessarily a new challenge faced by riders, but the latest round of road hazards comes courtesy of state and Federal grants.
The checkpoints, which target well-known motorcycle events, force motorcyclists traveling to and from those events to leave the roadway regardless of any wrongdoing and have their vehicles and equipment inspected for safety and non-safety equipment violations and stolen VIN numbers.
Reportedly, motorcyclists have been detained as long as 45 minutes in makeshift stockades while undergoing the inspections. The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration recently began Federal funding for motorcycle checkpoints nationwide in order to assess their effectiveness despite objections raised by members of Congress.
In the State of New York the motorcycle specific checkpoints have resulted in a lawsuit currently being considered in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York. Although the stated purpose of the checkpoints is to promote safety, the majority of the more than a thousand tickets which were issued during the first year of the checkpoints had nothing to do with safety and instead focused on non-safety violations such as loud pipes.
With the possibility of similar checkpoints being organized in the state of Georgia the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) is asking riders nationwide to contact Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal to urge him to stop the Georgia State Patrol from conducting any motorcycle-only traffic checkpoints.
Tens of thousands of motorcyclists from around the nation could be subject to Georgia motorcycle-only checkpoints if those checkpoints are in place before, during and after Daytona Bike Week, which runs March 4-13.
Ed Moreland, AMA senior vice president for government affairs, suggests that riders contact the governor through the AMA website and ask that any motorcycle-only checkpoints be suspended until key questions are answered.
Those questions, which have been posed by the AMA to Deal and other officials, include, How do motorcycle-only checkpoints increase the safety of motorcyclists? Where do states draw their authority to conduct motorcycle-only checkpoints? Is "probable cause" required to stop a motorcycle and, if so, what constitutes probable cause?
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) gave Georgia a $70,000 grant to conduct one or more roadside motorcycle-only checkpoints. New York State has operated a similar program. The AMA has been tracking this disturbing development of motorcycle-only checkpoints since it first appeared in New York several years ago.
"The AMA believes that the primary source of motorcycle safety is in motorcycle crash prevention and not in arbitrarily pulling over riders and randomly subjecting them to roadside inspections,” Ed Moreland says.
In addition to letters submitted to the past and present governors of Georgia, the AMA has questioned the potential discriminatory and legal nature of this program and submitted a list of questions for clarification to the New York State Police concerning that agency's program.
The AMA also sent a letter to NHTSA Administrator David Strickland urging him to suspend the grant program that gives states money for motorcycle-only checkpoints until questions have been addressed.
It appears Mr. Strickland doesn’t agree. He views the checkpoints as part of the NHTSA’s ongoing safety campaign to decrease motorcycle accidents and considers the results in New York State as a success.
‘After reviewing promising results from a program applying this checkpoint concept to motorcycle safety conducted by the State of New York, NHTSA is using the Motorcycle Law Enforcement Demonstration Program to assess the concept for possible replication by other States,’ Strickland replied in his reply to the AMA, ‘At one of the motorcycle checkpoints conducted in New York, 225 motorcycles were inspected and 11 percent were found to have unsafe tires, 1 percent had illegal handlebars, and 36 percent of riders were not wearing helmets meeting the New York State law.’

But not so fast, say the AMA.

“The NHTSA should focus on decreasing the likelihood of crashes from occurring in the first place, " Ed Moreland, AMA senior vice president for government affairs says, ”No public money should be applied to promoting such a program without first addressing questions from the motorcycling community."