South Carolina Motorcycle Rights Association

United States House of Representatives Subcommittee Improves Motorcycle Safety with Amendments to Highway Bill, Reports the Motorcycle Riders Foundation.

The Science Committee, Subcommittee on Research and Technology, approved two amendments that both greatly benefit motorcyclists. The first amendment halts the federal funding of motorcycle-only roadside checkpoints and then assigns a study to the National Academy of Sciences to determine the best methods of preventing motorcycle crashes.

The amendment sponsor, Representative Randy Hultgren (R-IL) had this to say: “If the federal government is providing grants to improve motorcycle safety, these grants should be focused on ways that actually improve the safety of motorcycle riders.”

The second amendment would prohibit the Federal Department of Transportation from lobbying for actions at the federal, state or local levels of government. Currently the lobby ban is only applicable at the state level.

Hultgren added, “I do believe that we can be doing more to improve the safety of motorcyclists on the road, and there are reasonable laws that motorcyclists should all follow. But before the federal government casts down another top-down mandate on local law enforcement officers, we should be sure that we are not wasting valuable police time, while singling out and infringing on the rights of law abiding motorcycle riders, unless there is a compelling safety related reason for doing so.”

The Motorcycle Riders Foundation would like to thank Mr. Hultgren for his dedication to motorcyclists. We also cannot thank enough the Chairman Emeritus, the Honorable James F. Sensenbrenner, for his tireless work improving the lives of motorcyclists across the country