by California State Senator Phil Wyman
Two hundred and eighteen years ago, our Founding Fathers brought into being a nation with liberty as its cornerstone. Since then, securing the "blessings of liberty" has been a consistent theme running throughout the American Experience.
Yet, even Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and third President of the United States, recognized that the decay of liberty would be inevitable without an alert, wary public. "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance," he said and, he was right.
Over the last 50 years, good Americans have had to be more vigilant than ever as government on the federal and state level has ballooned and become more centralized. One by one our liberties are picked away.
In 1992, one of the most prevalent examples of our liberties being lost occurred. Assembly Bill 7, by former Assemblyman Dick Floyd, required the wearing of "safety" helmets by motorcycle riders. Year after year, the legislature toyed with this proposal. Fortunately, it always died, thanks mostly to the vigilance of those who revered the freedom of choosing to ride their motorcycles without a helmet.
Throughout all those years, I consistently opposed these helmet bills because I saw them for what they were: an attempt by government to deprive us of our liberty and increase its own power and authority over our lives. Now, I am attempting to roll back this "power grab" by government, albeit in a small way.
On Thursday, February 23, 1994, I introduced Senate Bill 1877 which, if passed, would make the "helmet law" an equipment violation, eligible for correction. In other words, "fix it" tickets would be issued rather than straight citations.
The "Floyd Helmet Law" was considered definitive on this point and legislators both in support and opposition understood that it was to be correctable. Making this a correctable violation was the legislative intent.
However, the Judicial Council of California issued an order in December requiring that, henceforth, it be treated as a "non-correctable" violation. This ruling is a further example of the courts legislating from the bench and simply ignoring the intent of the elected legislature.
My bill would specifically invalidate that ruling. In addition, the California Highway Patrol's position that helmet violations are not correctable under any circumstances, would be nullified.
Further fine tuning of the legislative language of SB 1877 will be necessary. However, I am committed to producing the best product possible to accomplish my goal of alleviating this government intrusion into our lives.
Now, I ask for your support. Rarely have I seen such firm resolve from any organized group as I have from those who opposed the helmet law. It is my very strong belief that the same principled opposition we saw to AB 7 in 1991, will support my SB 1877.
Thomas Jefferson would be proud of us for safeguarding our liberties through "eternal vigilance." Together, our vigilance will prevail.
(As it worked out, ABATE and MMA could not get behind this bill, and it did not pass. Elsewhere you will find a transcript of the meeting wherein it was decided that the California helmet law was not a correctable violation, in spite of the fact the California Legislature wrote it that way!)
DAY IN COURT, "TICKETFIGHTER" STYLE by Geoff Smith
Attitude. That's what it takes. Attitude.
I never expected to ever be found not guilty but that was the judge's decision. The trial was a rehash of the arguments I had tried at arraignment without success; only now the court welcomed the opportunity to be rid of me, and did so by finding me not-guilty even after I admitted I wasn't wearing a helmet and committed the "crime".
It's hard to say what turned the tide in the courtroom. All of a sudden they admitted it was a correctable offense and even accepted a beanie helmet as proof of correction.
Perhaps it was the two complaints to the Judicial Council on Performance and subsequent disqualifying of two judges that refused to listen to me that did it. Or was it the two writs of mandate to the superior court? Perhaps somebody read the 20 motions I filed attacking the jurisdiction of the court and decided I was dangerous. The last judge was even polite when I attempted to subpena Commissioner Hannigan of the CHP to my trial and the attorney general's office had to send someone to quash the subpena. The City Attorney was certainly happy to get rid of me. He didn't know that he was supposed to fight traffic tickets as part of his job. In any case he didn't discount me -- he was the first one to produce his oath of office after I demanded it from everyone.
The Chief of Police got off the easiest. He had the City Attorney to fight for him. Next time it won't be so easy, though. I'm going after his internal affairs file. Perhaps he'll change his mind about listening to CHP bulletins.
If I were to say I felt sorry for the Assistant District Attorney after the trial I would be lying. He was a real weasel and I enjoyed making him look stupid in court. He wanted to get back at me after the judge made him hand over his oath of office to me and chewed his butt out for not dismissing my ticket to begin with. Too bad the judge didn't grant my motion to dismiss on the grounds of malicious prosecution without probable cause. I would have charged the D.A. up the ass for my defense costs.
All in all I rather enjoyed my day in court. Even though it was actually several days of appearances. The trial was the fruit of my efforts. Everyone knows what they are supposed to be doing now and that's following the law as it is written. Too bad I didn't get to file an appeal. Then I could have sued everyone after I won.
Like I said, attitude is the answer. When you are right and they are wrong, and you are in court, you can prove them wrong . . . eventually.
You just have to have the right attitude.
(Geoff Smith and his partner Kevin Dimmick are the principles in Ticketfighters Paralegal Services and together they are offering high tech computer sofrware to serious Freedom Fighters throughout California. Quig)
HURRAY FOR HOLLYWOOD?
One of the advantages that the tyrants have against the Freedom Fighters, regardless of their respective battles against bureaucratic oppression, is that they have all the money.
The most recent demonstration of the effect of this cash advantage was seen recently on American Journal -- a television news series produced by King Word Productions (not affiliated with Larry King) -- in an expose of the so-called "fake helmet".
What follows is a transcript of a show which was apparently inspired by the "Satellite Newsfeed" that HLDL, through a law suit filed by our National Director Steve Bianco, attempted to stop before it was broadcrast. As reported in the 2nd edition of this newsletter, the judge that made the decision not to prevent the potential damage from the contents of that newsfeed did so on the foundation that the First Amendment of the Constitution protected NHTSA's right to broadcast such balderdash.
The fact that NHTSA, because they are a governmental agency, has no Constitutional Rights is for further discussion at another time. For the purposes of this article, it is enough to identify that the following telecast was born of NHTSA's "protected" newsfeed, and to point to the fact that it was taxpayer money that made this all possible.
The transcript, as it appeared nationally, is as follows:
Glass: Hello. Im Nancy Glass. Welcome to American Journal.
David DaMayo had just celebrated ten years of marriage to his wife Carmen when he was involved in a tragic accident on his motorcycle.
He was wearing a helmet known as a beanie or half-helmet. That's a style popular with avid bikers. Well, some say the beanie is a deadly fashion.
Frank Scarpino has been a police Sergeant for twenty-six years. There isn't much he hasn't seen by now, not much that get's under his skin . . . except stories like this one from Carmen DaMayo.
DaMayo: I have had to learn the hard way. My husband is no longer here, and even though people tell me maybe this is the way it was meant to be, I don't believe that. And, I'm very mad about that . . . very mad.
Glass: She's mad because her husband David DaMayo died in June of head injuries he suffered in a motorcycle accident. Mad because she thinks he'd be alive today it his helmet had stayed on. It did not. (It is important to note that most helmets come off in severe collisions, just like shoes, eye-glasses, and anything else that isn't wrapped around the body or directly attached to something wrapped around the body.)
DaMayo: They had found it (her husband's helmet) about thirty two, thirty-six, feet away from him. And when I was told that he had severe head injuries, obviously he landed on the pavement with nothing on his head.
Glass: After three weeks in a coma, the forty-six year old physical-therapist, Carmen's husband of ten years, slipped away never regaining consciousness.
DaMayo: Can you imagine landing on the pavement with nothing . . . nothing?
Glass: Carmen has filed suit against the company that made the helmet her husband wore. Barbara Banks is her attorney.
Banks: These helmets are unsafe, and they should be taken off the market. (One must assume that this is the basis for Carmen DaMayo's lawsuit, so what else would her attorney say. Besides, how would she know what should or should not be taken off the market. We think lawyers should be taken off the market.)
Glass: Sergeant Scarpino is no stranger to the open road. He's a marked man . . . scarred from years of biking, and occasionally taking a spill.
Scarpino: I have never had a serious head injury . . . (He could have fooled us.) . . . because I wear the best motorcycle helmet that I can possibly afford.
Glass: Five years ago, movie star/tough guy Gary Bussie had a cycle accident that made national news. He crashed without a helmet, and suffered massive head injuries.
Bussie: I came off the bike and went down and I hit the curb. The curb kept my head from going down.
Glass: Miraculously, he survived and today is an advocate of the California helmet law. (Insert your own comments.)
Brownley (DOT spokesman): We know that helmets that are made in compliance with our standard are going to increase your chances of surviving a crash, a fatal crash, by about thirty percent. (How do they know that?) You get no such assurance with a helmet like this . . . (holding up what appears to be some sort of half-shell/beanie) . . . that has thin lining and has that kind of construction.
Glass: Mike Brownley works for the Department of Transportation, the Washington agency that keeps a watchful eye on helmet makers, and lately that eye is focused on Florida. It's surprising to learn that the sunshine state passed its helmet law in 1967, so why the problems now?
Scarpino: . . . because of the phenomenon of the fake or novelty helmet . . . the half-beanie . . . has just shown up in the past five or six years.
Glass: The novelty, sometimes called the beanie or lid, we found them in bike shops all over South Florida.
Scarpino: They're not illegal to posses. They are illegal to be used on the public streets in any state that has a helmet law.
Glass: The beanie is a shell of a helmet that fits snugly on the head. It weighs less than two pounds, and has a thin foam lining. In an accident, it's been known to offer this . . . (showing a smashed helmet on a table) . . . kind of protection.
Scarpino: If a man walked up here right now and he had a bat or a stick, and he was going to, despite our efforts, hit us both right in the head; would you rather wear a legitimate motorcycle helmet, or one of those teenie-weenie beanies, or nothin' at all just so show you have the right? (This from a guy who claims to have never suffered a major head injury?)
Banks (DaMayo's attorney): The week-end rider, the businessman who buys a Harley for excitement or joy, doesn't have the right to be sold a helmet and not told that this helmet is unsafe.
Glass: It's the kind of helmet David DaMayo was wearing when he crashed last summer. His beanie is unscratched because it slipped off before impact, another trademark problem. Scarpino blames the hard-core bikers for what he calls the fake helmet. He says they wear them in protest to the helmet law, and the bikers will tell you he's right.
Hirsh: I wouldn't wear a helmet at all . . . if I didn't have to.
Glass: Mike Hirsh, known as Rabbi on the street, has been ticketed for wearing the novelty helmet he still wears today. He says he'll risk more run-ins with the law because larger helmets are too confining, to heavy, and take the joy out of riding.
Hirsh: If I choose not to wear a helmet, and die in an accident, well that's my choice.
Glass: Scarpino says week-end bikers want to look like the real road-hogs, so they buy the leather, the chrome, and eventually the beanie . . . not knowing how dearly it could cost them.
Schultz (Scarpino's partner): In a crash on a motorcycle, if one person is wearing a novelty helmet and one person is wearing a simple bicycle helmet, he would be much better off, and fair better in an accident, with the bicycle helmet than the beanie.
Glass: Patrolman Rick Schultz is a member of Scarpino's team, constantly on the lookout for law-breakers. We were in the car with Schultz all of four minutes when he spotted Billy Mead, from Maryland. (Schultz is shown pulling him over.)
Mead: What did I do wrong now?
Schultz: Well, I'm afraid you have an illegal helmet on your head.
Glass: Billy got by with a warning, since he was from out of state. He was reminded that Maryland has the same helmet laws as Florida. (Actually, "Billy" only got a warning because the Ft. Lauderdale courts told Scarpino and Schultz to stop writing tickets on their illegal helmet theory . . . but, that's another story.)
Mead: They say it's the law, but I've got different rules.
Glass: It's a game of cops and robbers that Scarpino attempts to win. His efforts have helped. Already, the National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration . . . (Actually, that's the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Someone needs to tell Glass to do her home-work.) . . . has recalled helmets made by Chico's of Ft. Lauderdale, and they are investigating more.
For Carmen DaMayo, all investigations come too late. But she remains committed to warning others about what she says her husband never knew.
DaMayo: All they kept saying was keep talking to him. "He's in a coma and he might wake up." "Do everything you can." "Talk to him." I constantly, for two hours every time I went there, talked with him. Seeing him, a big man, a proud big man, that had literally accomplished everything he wanted in life, to see him lying on that bed . . . I can't see anybody else wearing that helmet.
Glass: And surprisingly, despite overwhelming evidence that helmets save thousands of lives every year, they're not mandatory in many states. Only twenty-six states enforce helmet laws.
We repeatedly contacted American Journal in an effort to get them to provide us with the "overwhelming evidence" referred to by Glass, but as of this printing they had not returned any of our calls, or in any other say demonstrated any concerns about this or any of the other inaccuracies contained in their "report."
As for NHTSA, they have seemingly -- at least for the time being -- not generated any further propoganda of this nature, although they do continue to work to encourage the police to cite motorcyclists for wearing helmets which various individuals within their organization do not like.
DEALING WITH PROBLEM COPS by Kevin Dimmick
Have you ever noticed that the same few cops always seem to harass people? That most of your friends seem to have had a run in with the same problem cop that pulled you over and harassed you. That when you go to court that the same cop lies under oath. Unfortunately , this is all too common. This usually occurs because the cop is accustomed to getting overtime to appear in court and is improving his life-style at your expense. This occurs because people do not file internal affairs complaints against cops that lie! Penal Code 832.5 states that any agency which employs peace officers must make a written description of their internal affairs procedures available to the public.
When you go to file your internal affairs complaint do not allow them to intimidate you. If one of the supervisors attempts to intimidate you file another complaint against him. If it is a local agency present the complaint to the chief at the city council meeting and inform him in front of the council that the reason that you brought the complaint to the public meeting is that you feel threatened at the department because of the intimidation. This should get his attention.
Internal affairs complaints are discoverable in court for up to five years. That means that with a motion called a "Pitches motion" you may look at the officers internal affairs file under a defense of "discriminatory prosecution." Unfortunately, most people do not have the knowledge to get into a peace officers personnel records so a simple procedure is needed.
After filing your internal affairs complaint you should file a copy with your local M.R.O. The local can keep an intelligence file on the worst offenders and provide copies of the complaints to be entered into the court record to discredit the officer. The people who filed the complaints can appear in court as witnesses against the officer. Can you imagine the cops face when you call four or five witnesses who testify under oath that the cop is a known liar and that he lied under oath previously at their trial. lt will not take long before these officers start telling the truth or start finding new people to harass.
If you are at trial and the cop lies file another internal affairs complaint. Just because you were found guilty because of a liar does not mean you should allow them to get away with it. Remember he is a servant who works for you although he may find such truth hard to believe. I suppose when you are surrounded by professional liars on a daily basis the truth may be hard to recognize. What we are striving for here is public accountability. We need to insure that our public servants are out catching criminals and not fabricating offenses. This will require courage on their part and some of them will need to find new occupations.
Ticketfighters Paralegal Services is dedicated to teaching people to fight. lt is our belief that through the courts we can take our country back and regain the liberty promised to us by the United States Constitution.
MAKE 'UM WRITE IT DOWN -- "YOU CAN'T WRITE DOWN BULLSHIT!"
One of the key credos of the Helmet Law Defense League is "You can't write down bullshit!"
Steve Bianco, our National Director, has taught me, and others, the importance of putting questions to the authorities in writing, because the answers you get back will come closer to the truth than anything that they will tell you. Although they can always run to "you took that out of context," you never have to face, "I never said that."
Bianco uses this technique in two ways:
Then there is method number 2: When he gets an answer over the phone (remember, no answer is many times as good as an actual response), he will write down the answer they gave him and send it to them by mail or fax and ask them to confirm their answer in writing and return it to him. This is the method I applied in getting the response on the right (page #23) from NHTSA.
NHTSA has been heavily involved in convincing police that they should cite motorcyclists for wearing the beanie-style helmets. We know that they have no jurisdiction over consumers, and they know that they have no jurisdiction over consumers, so we continue to ask questions the answers to which will prove to anyone that cares that they are misusing taxpayers money, and the limited authority, to get police to harass consumers who do not wear helmets they they, whoever they is, do not like.
We have been on NHTSA about this beanie ban ever since the CHP started their ticket writing campaign against beanie (and half-shell) helmet wearers in California, since they seem to be the source of most of the disinformation on the subject. Particularly, we have been bugging them about the discriminatory nature of their attack. Why the beanie?
In early December, 1993, we heard (through the grapevine) that NHTSA was going to avoid the discrimination implications by changing their helmet testing criteria. We heard they were going to test all helmets beginning 1994!
Immediately, we started calling to confirm this. For weeks they avoided answering either by phone or letter. Finally, they got around to asking why we wanted to know. Well, we told them.
We told them that if they were going to test all helmets, we wanted in. Bianco is a plastics engineer, and he says that there are somewhere in excess of 3,000 different resin combinations available from just two sources. We figured out that if NHTSA was actually going to test all helmets, that we would get into the helmet business.
We told NHTSA that we were planning to make three helmet models each day, 10 helmets of each model, and that we needed confirmation of their plans, or a purchase order, so that we could get the bank to fund our new helmet company.
In addition, we told them that we would be willing to negotiate with them to ship them eight of each model (they need eight for their complete testing procedure) -- twenty four helmets a day -- at a reduced price of $350 each rather than the $600 retail price we would normally be asking.
Well, needless to say, they did not like the implications of that (they must have figured out that Bianco and I had already picked out the yacht we were going to buy at some point during the first year). As it worked out, however, NHTSA decided instead to respond to my letter of inquiry with the four-pager. Some of the stuff contained in their response is verrrrrrry interesting.
The point is, whether it's at a counter dealing with a clerk, or one of the more proficient jerks who has his own desk; make say what they say in writing . . . then you own them.
WHAT YOUR NANNY STATE HAS TO SELL YOU by Assemblyman Ray Haynes, November 1993
California has many serious problems to which the Legislature should be directing its attention: the job climate, educational quality, and violent crime. Yet, the State Legislature has spent valuable time during this yearıs session processing what have been dubbed "nanny bills."
The ideas, on the surface, in "Nanny bills" are generally good, sound, and reasonable. For example, consider the mandatory seatbelt law California passed a few years ago. Any person can see that it is better to be restrained than to go flying into the windshield in an accident. But we don't need a law to tell us that, and we certainly don't need our law enforcement officers spending their time pulling people over for not wearing seatbelts when there are far more dangerous traffic violations occurring and serious crimes being committed.
Proponents of the law argued that saving lives makes the law worthwhile and so it was passed. However, my ten months in the Legislature causes me to consider that this and other "nanny laws" are put in place because of the revenue (taxes) the fines generate. Do not think me against saving lives, but do understand that if someone is not interested in saving their own life, the state cannot do it for them no matter how many laws it passes.
Nonetheless, many in the Legislature persist in believing that they can legislate common-sense behavior. Three bills in particular stick out in my mind this year.
First, Assemblywoman Jackie Speier proposed, and Governor Pete Wilson signed into law, a bill to prohibit keeping and using baby walkers in child day care facilities. The bill also includes baby walkers in the Federal Hazardous Substances Act. The bill was introduced after a few infants, who had been left unattended in such walkers, were injured. Good parents and child care providers know that infants should never be left unattended -- in or out of a walker. Parents who properly investigate child care facilities will know whether the center at which they are leaving their child practices the same safety standards as they do at home. If the parents are not satisfied with the center's safety record or practices, they will not leave their child there. For the legislature to place baby walkers on a hazardous substance list and ban their use in otherwise safe and reliable day care facilities is poor use of taxpayer money.
Second, Assemblyman Louis Caldera won legislative approval for his bill, AB 22613, which requires people under the age of 18 who ride bicycles on streets, bike paths, or public property to wear approved helmets. Police can fine non-helmet wearers $25 for each violation. Again, parents who care about the safety of their children will make it a house rule to wear safety gear; the state need not stomp into each home and order parents to tell their children to wear helmets. It won't work. Assemblyman Ross Johnson made an excellent argument against the bill: If the goal of the bill is to prevent injuries sustained in bicycle accidents, then why not simply ban bicycles? This is absurd -- which is, of course, the point. We cannot legislate away all risk in life, nor can we force all parents to keep their children safe no matter how much we wish all parents would.
Third.- Assemblyman Jack O'Connell has proposed AB 1550 to require manufacturers of antifreeze to put a bittering agent in the liquid. The idea is that children will not drink the antifreeze because the bettering agent will make the taste unpalatable. Children should not be able to get their hands on antifreeze in the first place; all potential poisons -- automotive supplies, household cleaners, medicines should be kept locked away, out of a child's reach. To force manufacturers to incur the extra costs of adding a new ingredient because some parents are incapable of acting responsibly is ridiculous.
Not leaving a baby unattended in a walker, wearing a bicycle helmet and not drinking antifreeze are all good things, but should state officials and law enforcement officers be spending their time and your money making noncompliance a criminal offense? If we really need a nanny, we should elect Mary Poppins Governor. Besides, the increased bureaucrats necessary to administer the compliance forms will eat up any new revenue generated by the fines levied against offenders.