Fifty years ago, the Federal government was threatening Illinois with the loss of highway money if it did not enact a mandatory motor cycle helmet law.
Fox River Grove’s Ed Armstrong, a member of A.B.A.T.E., lobbied me in opposition (Armstrong was later elected to the FRG Village Board.)
To demonstrate how little a helmet would protect a person, he filled a helmet with plaster and dropped it from head height. The plaster shattered.
At the time I was the Republican Spokesman on the House Motor Vehicles Committee,
Favoring passage of a mandatory motorcycle helmet law was Governor Dan Walker and Secretary of State Alan Dixon.
We beat the bill in committee not once but twice.
There is a saying i Springfield that nothing comes back to life more often than a bill.
I had been assigned an intern named Tom Frost, a McHenry native.
I assigned him to scour the House calendar every day for bills that might be amended with the mandatory helmet language.
That was back in the days when the Illinois house of Representatives had significant democratic characteristics.
Any member could propose an amendment to any bill and the bill could not be moved from amendment to passage stage before all amendments had been voted upon or withdrawn.
There was no “Mother, may I?” game being played by the Speaker through the Rules Committee.
No attempt was made to make an end run around the Motor Vehicle Committee’s rejection.
The session ran into the weekend that end of June.
On Saturday, the visitor’s parking lot was filled with motorcycles.
A member with a seat near the windows came over and sai, “Your people are here, Cal.”
The show of strength was after it cold have done any good that session, but undoubtedly made an impression of the intensity of A.B.A.T.E.’s opposition.
And Illinois did not lose any highway money.
So, the Federal Department Transportation’s threat turned out to be an idle on in 1974
My guess is that incoming President Donald Trump’s use of Federal money as a lever to influce state and local governmental behavior will be more productive.
