OFF THE WIRE
Posted on May 08, 2014
A news alert from the Motorcycle Riders Foundation (MRF)
suggests that the proposed new federal transportation bill may prompt
calls for mandatory helmet laws nationwide. The draft of the bill is 350
pages long and you have to suffer through over 160 pages to come to the
part about motorcycle safety grants in Title IV, Section 4004, where
the language is amended by adding, "The Secretary or the Secretary's
designee may engage in activities with States and State legislators to
consider proposals related to motorcycle helmet use laws."
This is an interesting use of language suggesting that there could
indeed be a push for mandatory helmet laws coming from Washington. But
then, there is nothing really new about that except this time around its
being included in the proposed transportation bill. What's an even more
interesting use of language is the name of the bill: Generating Renewal, Opportunity and Work with Accelerated Mobility, Efficiency and Rebuilding of Infrastructure and Communities throughout America, or just GROW AMERICA for short. One has to wonder who thinks these titles up. If you have trouble sleeping at night, you can read the entire bill here.
Anyway, another thing to consider is that not too long ago there was
an assessment of the various state's highway safety plans and states
that did not have a universal mandatory helmet law in effect were given
lower grades and assessed as "high risk" for their plans. Part of this
GROW AMERICA Act includes permission to reduce federal grants for
highway safety by as much as 20% for deficiencies or "high risk" factors
in the state's safety plans. This could be another way to pressure
states to enact helmet laws by once again invoking the punitive
witholding of grant monies.
The MRF urges everyone to contact their congressmen and express concern over the use of the helmet law language in the bill.
READ MORE HERE...
http://www.mrf.org/2014/news_release/14NR21.htm
