The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ("NHTSA") has long been focused on motorcycle accident prevention. The best way to obtain improved rider safety and reduced crash statistics, though, has been the subject of a longstanding debate. A current congressional resolution seeks to add clarity to the matter.

The 1998 Transportation Equity Act contains language that bans the NHTSA from using taxpayer money to lobby state lawmakers regarding motorcycle safety. Prior to the ban, efforts were routinely made to pressure state and local bodies to enact mandatory helmet laws, an attempt that has always been met with resistance in many quarters, including the American Motorcyclist Association ("AMA").

NHTSA Administrator David Strickland recently stated that the agency's primary safety goal remains increased motorcycle helmet use, saying that "anything the Congress does that would support the movement of riders into helmets would be efficacious of safety."

Congress responded with a July 1 resolution introduced by U.S. Rep Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) that confirms continued congressional support of the anti-lobbying ban and defers to "the rights of the states and also the freedom and individual responsibilities that motorcycle riders across the nation enjoy." The resolution urges the NHTSA to focus predominantly on bike crash prevention and rider education rather than lobbying.

Ed Moreland, a Senior Vice President of AMA, strongly supports the government response, stating that the key to increased motorcycle safety is not in mandatory helmet use but, rather, "found in the implementation of strategies that prevent the likelihood of a crash from happening in the first place."

Related Resource: prnewswire.com "Lawmakers Want Federal Traffic Safety Agency to Focus on Motorcycle Crash Prevention" July 1, 2010