Ryan's wrote:
>
> Was just reading my October Fastrack and was wondering if someone could help
> me out. Under the August Minutes it says- MOTION: To approve Solo Events
> Items 1-5 in Appendix A. PASSED. However, in Appendix A, at the bottom of
> Item 1 (lowering minimum passenger age to 8), it has PASSED crossed through
> and Withdrawn added. So, is this motion passed or withdrawn? If withdrawn,
> can it be re-proposed, and if so, how?
I do believe I can help you there, John.
If you'll look just above Appendix A (at the end of the BOD minutes)
you'll see that Item 1 was withdrawn at the request of the SEB and the
SSC to do some more revision to the language. So it was NOT approved
by the BOD.
As a little background, we (the members of the Solo Safety Committee)
did the re-writes you see in Items 1 & 2.
Item 2 was re-written to allow an instructor, not just a
parent/guardian, to ride with a kid who has a learner's permit. The
SEB approved it verbatim.
Item 1 (1.4C) was not re-written to lower the passenger age, as you
suggest. It was re-written to better define who could be a passenger
and under what circumstances. It was also re-written to emphasize
that any child riding as a passenger must have a PROPERLY-FITTING
HELMET in addition to a properly-fitting seatbelt. When we submitted
it to the Solo Events Board, we left the minimum age at twelve. The
SEB changed that to eight and we objected for safety reasons. So it
was withdrawn for further work.
Without going into great detail, there's a tremendous amount of data
available from the National Safety Council, the National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration, and several other organizations
concerning child passenger safety. Plus, many States (including my
own Louisiana) have very specific laws regarding child passenger
safety. Add in front seat passenger air bags, and it gets even more
complicated.
Now that Nationals are over, both the SSC and the SEB plan to re-visit
Item 1 and put it back out for member comment once we're done. If you
or any other team-dot-netters have any suggestions, I'd be more than
happy to present them to the committee.
Hope that helps.
John (Old Fartz & TLS #37) Lieberman
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