On Jul 19 2007 at 2:49 PM, the North Carolina General Assembly ratified HB 563 which included a section requiring USDOT FMVSS 218 safety helmets as standard safety equipment for all motorcycle Riders in North Carolina.   The bill was then sent to the Office of the Governor for signature.  Once signed, this bill will become enforceable in January 2008.

Three days later, on 22 July 2007 at the CBA/ABATE State meeting in Asheboro, NC,  the Executive Council approved the formation of a special "Helmet Citation Defense Committee" to develop and disseminate materials (i.e., legal briefs) to be used by individuals, within the judicial system (courts), in the fight against the increasingly more oppressive helmet laws of North Carolina.  A special financial fund was also established, to assist with organizational costs for legal counsel and procedures that may be involved in CBA sanctioned legal defense activities.

The new law when enacted will become effective in January 2008.  With this date in mind, it was believed that the Helmet Citation Defense Committee would have at least five months to prepare for the onslaught of citations brought on by the new law.  That has proved to be, not the case.  Apparently, the bureaucrats of the NC DOT have another strategy planned. 

Recently, in anticipation of the new law being passed, your tax dollars have been used to train Law Enforcement Officers in the detection of non-FMVSS 218 helmets.  Immediately following ratification (and before the bill has even been signed by the Governor) overzealous law enforcement officers are flagrantly “stalking” riders. 

The current rush of citations for non-compliant helmets is the first wave of efforts to wear our resistance down.  Even if these tickets are defeated in court, the NC DOT bureaucrats believe that, by organizing this discriminatory attack on bikers, they will be wearing our resistance efforts thin before the new law comes into effect.   At the end of this post, I have included several incidents that have already been reported to the Helmet Citation Defense Committee of CBA/ABATE.  I believe these reports provide strong evidence supporting these concerns.

These pre-emptive strategies clearly indicate that the truth of the matter is… helmet laws are not about our safety, nor compliance with existing laws; they are about generating money for local law enforcement and court systems.  Even though there is no way for an officer to test a helmet for FMVSS 218 compliance… non-compliant helmet “suspicions” are apparently sufficient “probable cause “ to pull a biker over, collect a little “legal graft”  and search for additional violations.

The language of our current law (GS 20-104.4) requires the Commissioner of the Department of Motor vehicles to prepare some method of communicating approved helmets to the general riding public.  Official communication from the NC DOT has established that the Commissioner does not approve helmets; and, that the NC DOT policy is to ignore the specificity of the language in the current statute. 

The DOT’s failure to provide a “list” for the consumer has been tested in court (NC V Barkley) and NC DOT has been found lacking.  Defendants have been found to be unable to comply with the statute due to the failure of the DMV to provide appropriate identification of compliant helmets. 

For the bureaucrats, this is not about our safety… it is all about winning; defeating the biker trash; and getting motorcycles off NC’s highways.  If they can wear us out before the new law goes into effect, and prevent us from implemetning our new legal strategy, they will win before the battle begins.  We cannot allow that. 

The bureaucrat's next step in keeping us safe, may well be... forcing us to wear full-body armor in the 110 degree heat.  NCHP officers are already required to wear full-face helmets and Kevlar-armored riding suits, regardless of weather conditions.  Why should citizens be allowed more freedoms that public servants?

Preserve your right to ride free.  Stand-up to injustice.  Defeat the Gestapo tactics of the bureaucrats with their own battle tactics.  Wear them out!! 

Here’s how…

1.  Don’t mail your citation in with a check for $100.  Helmet citations under the current law can be defeated in court. 

2.  Don’t pay a fine to purchase new police cruisers and radar guns.  Stand up against this discriminatory extortion of bikers. 

3.  Go to court, and plead not guilty!  We can help you prepare your defense strategy.

It is your right to have a day in court.  If you lose your case, it costs no more than sending in the citation with the fine.  A $100. fine is a $100 fine… regardless of whether you win or lose in court.  If you appear in court the cost remains the same to you, but you tie up the court with hearing the defense of your case, and the court spends money to prosecute your case. 

If enough people stand-up against biker harassment in court, they will have no time to deal with other issues before them.  By spending the courts money in the prosecution of your case, the judicial system ends up spending, rather than gaining, money from helmet citations.  When it ties up the courts time, and cost the court money, they will soon recognize that it is not worth the time and money to write citations for helmet violations.  Then, helmet-citations will stop or be reduced significantly.

If you do nothing, this discriminatory harassment against bikers will continue unabated. 

Instead…

1.  Take your citation to court, and plead “not-guilty”. 

2.  Tie up the court system with countless “defense-of-illegal-citation” cases. 

2.  Make the court spend more money prosecuting, than they make issuing helmet citations. 

4.  Make it expensive and problematic for police officers to harass bikers.

CBA/ABATE has developed the Helmet Citation Defense Committee and we have materials available to assist in your defense in court.    

The CBA/ABATE Helmet Citation Defense Committee can offer you help in preparing your own defense against illegal citations and police harassment.  We cannot go to court for you… we aren’t lawyers.  We are simply bikers who are preparing our own defense materials.  We're willing to share our products with others and, to tutor you in the use of our materials.

Below, are a few examples of the kind of discrimination against bikers that your tax dollars are funding:

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Mike K was cited by a NCH Patrolman between Aberdeen and Laurinburg for failure to wear a helmet of the type approved by the Commissioner.   This is a citation for violating the existing law, " …failure to wear a safety helmet of the type approved by the Commissioner of Motor vehicles."; not the USDOT FMVSS 218 amendment that goes into effect in January 2008:  

Mike reported that he was en-route to the beach heading South on 15-501 between Aberdeen and Laurenberg, when he got pulled.   He reports, the patrolman had obviously had some 'high-performance" training in how to identify non-compliant helmets, because the officer identified his helmet violation while traveling in opposing directions at the posted speed limit of 55 MPH.  At the stop, Mike removed his helmet and placed it on the seat.  The patrolman never even touched his helmet. 

By the time I spoke with Mike, he had already contacted his attorney.  His attorney's paralegal told him that the citation charges were written in the "…same language as the Statute".  He said the NCHP officer told him it was $25 fine and $75. court costs; a total of $100 if he mailed it  to the address on the citation.   

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We also received a report from the owners of "Chopper Toyz" in Morehead City, that five bikers were stopped by local authorities, near Atlantic Beach.  During this stop, four of the five were cited for non-compliant helmets.  The four who received a citation were detained on the scene, by the officer, until the fifth (who was wearing an “officer-approved” DOT helmet) was able to purchase compliant helmets for them from a local shop and return.

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CJ of Southside Customs in Shelby reported that local police (Mooresville Police Dept) apparently set up a sting operation outside a local bike night event in the area.  They stopped everyone leaving the parking lot, and wrote citations for riders not wearing a USDOT FMVSS 218 compliant helmet.  He heard from sources that there were approximately 143 tickets written.

Reports of this incident indicate that anyone who complained or questioned the citations was threatened with impoundment of their motorcycle by the authorities until such time as they could return with a DOT helmet.   The cited individuals were told that they could mail in their tickets with a check for $135.  Just more evidence that this is not about safety... it is about generating income for LEO's and the local court system.

CJ reports that at least 6 people he knows were involved in this revenue generating operation.  When he spoke to an officer later, the cop told him that the County sets Court costs, and that's why it the fines quoted on the scene were more than the legislated $100 fine and court costs.   

He said that an “Officer Johnson” quoted the following fines:  for a non-compliant helmet = $35 - for no helmet = $25.  

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