04/28/06
 

SB 807, the helmet modification bill, is ready to be heard on the floor of the Senate!!

Members and friends,

Our week started out with a hearing on the helmet modification bill (SB 807) in the Senate Finance Committee. Once again, the only objections raised came from Vanderbilt University Hospital. This time they sent a nurse who read from a long, long, pre-prepared statement. It was full of the usual Vanderbilt weasel words like could, might, predictable, possibly, and my very favorite new one, "numerous studies have shown."

They're not sharing things like who made these studies, when they were made, where we can find them or anything at all to show that they actually exist but there are "numerous studies" nonetheless.  These studies of course, show that if anyone even walks by a motorcycle without a helmet on, they will suffer immediate fatal brain injury!  The top dog of these bogus arguments is the statement that 'nearly half' of all brain traumas come from motorcycle crashes. The actual number is 8%. 'Nearly half' and 8 percent, hmmm, doesn't sound much like the same thing to me.

We then heard a long heart wrenching account of a brain trauma treated at Vanderbilt this week. By the end of that, everyone's eyes were glazed over. Turns out, this particular tragedy happened to an ATV driver who crashed while chasing another ATV driver through the woods.

Vanderbilt still chooses to 'misunderstand' that our bill deals strictly with legal motor vehicles that are licensed to operate on the public streets and highways. Oh well, what the heck. If it makes a good sympathetic story and it makes the numbers look worse for the motorcycle riders they'll use it regardless.

At the end of the 'presentation', Sen. Tim Burchett, our senate sponsor, made a few remarks and asked the nurse a couple of questions that pretty well annihilated what little of their argument that was actually valid.

I would have enjoyed wading into what she had said but there was no reason to, so I declined. There was no reason to, because we knew we had the vote. It was 8 to 3, in favor of passage. Had I rebutted, it would simply have revealed our arguments without a good reason to do so.

The helmet bill is now ready to go to the Senate floor to be debated and voted on.  I'd like to point out that in the Senate this bill is still "clean", meaning no amendments.  It simply says that if you're over 21 you can decide about using a helmet.  No insurance requirement or any other foolishness.  We'll bust our buns to keep it that way.  The timing of sending the bill to the floor is a strategic decision that will be made by Sen. Burchett.  I'll keep you advised.

Tuesday afternoon, our ROW bill was heard in the Senate Judiciary Committee. This is a committee made up exclusively of lawyers.  Unfortunately, they had a problem with our bill.  There were two objections. The first was that we wished to assess a more severe penalty on someone who seriously injures or kills someone, yet had no intent to do so. This is the "I don't want my mother thrown in jail just because she accidentally pulls out in front of someone.  After all, she didn't leave home that afternoon with the intention of running down a biker."  We've faced this argument before.

The second objection was that "you're trying to criminalize this" meaning we want to make a crime out of what wasn't a crime before. The answer is that we want to do exactly that if there's serious injury or death. Right now, blowing a stop sign is not a crime and doesn't leave a criminal record like a misdemeanor would. Other states have gotten around these two arguments and so will we. We have a couple of lawyers on our side advising us plus we've had guidance from the AMA on this issue ever since we started on it last year. At Sen. Curtis Person's suggestion, the bill was rescheduled to be heard again in two weeks. Any and all suggestions on amending the bill will be welcomed.

Wednesday's action was in the infamous "black hole", the House Budget Sub Committee. Rep. Gene Davidson, the bill's sponsor, started it off with a request that Vanderbilt state their case first, giving us a significant advantage. Rep. Davidson then gave a brief impassioned speech as to why this bill should be passed. He ended with a quote from our old friend and long-time supporter, Sen. Doug Henry. "This is part of the eternal struggle between security on the one hand and freedom on the other." He then turned it over to Vanderbilt.

They chose two trauma physicians to carry their case. If your life needed to be saved, I'm sure these would be two gentlemen you'd want working on you. As far as being persuasive speakers however, they probably shouldn't quit their day jobs. They both stated the same tired misinformation we've heard and discredited before and then couldn't help themselves from doing what they do best in the legislature. They asked the legislators for more money for themselves and their hospitals! The look of disgust on the faces of some of the committee members was unmistakable.

When it came our turn, I used the full tilt boogie of everything thing we had. The members had been given handouts from us two weeks ago and again just before the meeting. In all, it's about 15 pages of statistics, graphs, and arguments from government documents put out by the US Dept. of Transportation and Tennessee's Safety and Health Departments. We disproved social burden, incidence of brain injury etc.
and most importantly of all, showed that there is very substantial detailed information showing that helmets have absolutely no discernable effect on fatality rates, cost of care or anything else of importance.

We also showed that helmets can kill just as well as they can protect and that since helmets are a potentially lethal device, it is not the job of the State of Tennessee to force us to wear them. To do so violates our freedom of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness, specifically, it violates our right to life itself. We also showed the huge economic benefit that would come to Tennessee once we are rid of the mandatory lid law.

Unfortunately, in the House Budget Sub Committee, the merits of the bill often take second place to politics. The committee is still tied 4 to 4 although progress has been made to bring one or more members over to our side. Since we didn't have a winning vote, Rep. Harry Tindell suggested the bill be taken up again in the sub committee after the budget has been set. He promised Rep. Davidson the bill would be brought up at that time and that additional consideration would be given.

If your Representative is McMillan, Overbey, Shaw, or Joe Armstrong, please call, email, send pony express or anything else you can think of to urge them to support this bill (HB 456). If your Representative is Steve McDaniel, Robert McKee, Randy Rinks, or Mike Harrison, please try just as hard to contact them to thank them for their support. Without each and every one of those four gentlemen, our helmet bill would have died two months ago. The longer we keep it alive, the better the chance we have of getting it out of this committee and to the floor where we do have the vote to get it passed.

I know this is a long report but I'd rather you have more information and detail than you want rather than have to wonder about what happened.

My thanks to those of you who were able to attend these meetings. It does make a difference. Since both of these bills have been 'rolled'
forward by two weeks, there won't be any formal action on them next week. We will however continue to work behind the scenes.

jp