Posted on 02/04/2005 8:21:40 PM PST by FoxInSocks
RICHMOND, Va. - It's been a tough day for highway safety advocates at the Virginia General Assembly.
The House Militia, Police and Public Safety Committee endorsed legislation allowing motorcyclists 21 and older to ride without a helmet. The vote was 12-to-7.
The panel also rejected a series of bills to continue the use of photo monitoring systems at dangerous intersections in six northern Virginia localities and Virginia Beach. Those pilot programs allow police to use cameras to catch drivers who run red lights.
The programs are scheduled to expire July 1.
Another bill rejected by the committee would have expanded photo-red statewide.
The motorcycle helmet bill will be up for a vote on the House floor early next week. Similar bills have failed on close votes on the House floor three years in a row.
Oh, I agree. While I think wearing a helmet is the smart thing to do and cheap insurance against a number of possible injuries, I think people should be free to make their own decisions. I just hate seeing silly arguments made against their efficacy just to justify the desire to ride without one, which requires no jutification if that is what you want to to, in my opinion.
Otherwise, why allow motorcycling at all? Or downhill skiing or mountainbiking or rockclimbing or horse riding or smoking or drinking or any number of things that people do that are relatively dangerous? I've got a mother, I'm old enough to ignore her concerns if I want, and I don't need another in the form of the government.
LOL!
So true...Government should not be allowed Mom status!
...
Please note that the Virginia legislature has moved on from abolishing traffic laws and throwing away helmets to taking up the issue of "butt crack" and should that be subject to a $50 fine should it be displayed on the public streets.
I heard about that "butt crack" legislation today. That guy is obviously demented. Democratic Delegate Howell has proposed that
(1) Any person who, while in a public place, intentionally wears and displays his below-waist undergarments, intended to cover a person's intimate parts, in a lewd or indecent manner, shall be subject to a civil penalty of no more than $50;
(2) No person shall operate any motor vehicle if the driver's seat of such vehicle is reclined at such an angle as to prevent the driver from seeing the brake lights of vehicles ahead; and
(3) No operator of any vehicle shall operate or permit the operation within or from the vehicle of any sound amplification system that can be heard outside the vehicle at a distance of 50 feet or more.
I think we need an entirely new legislature. Maybe "W" can ship this bunch of Ayatollahs out to Iran or something.
Doesn't that make the majority of his constituents in violation of the proposed law(s)?
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