A motorcycle helmet is a type of helmet used by motorcycle riders. The primary goal of a motorcycle helmet is motorcycle safety – to protect the rider's head during impact, thus preventing or reducing head injury and saving the rider's life. Some helmets provide additional conveniences, such as ventilation, face shields, ear protection, intercom etc.
Street legal or road going refers to a vehicle such as a car, motorcycle, or light truck that is equipped and licensed for use on public roads, being therefore roadworthy. This will require specific configurations of lighting, signal lights, and safety equipment. Some specialty vehicles that will not be operated on roads therefore do not need all the features of a street-legal vehicle; examples are a vehicle used only off-road that is trailered to its off-road operating area, and a racing car that is used only on closed race tracks and therefore does not need all the features of a street-legal vehicle. As well as motor vehicles, the street-legal distinction applies in some jurisdictions to track bicycles that lack street-legal brakes and lights. Street legality rules can even affect racing helmets, which possess visual fields too narrow for use on an open road without the risk of missing a fast-moving vehicle.
A bicycle helmet is designed to attenuate impacts to the head of a cyclist in falls while minimizing side effects such as interference with peripheral vision. There is ongoing scientific research into the degree of protection offered by bicycle helmets in the event of an accident, and the effects of helmet wearing on cyclist and motor vehicle driver behaviour.
A traffic ticket is a notice issued by a law enforcement official to a motorist or other road user, indicating that the user has violated traffic laws. Traffic tickets generally come in two forms, citing a moving violation, such as exceeding the speed limit, or a non-moving violation, such as a parking violation, with the ticket also being referred to as a parking citation, or parking ticket.
The National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act was enacted in the United States in 1966 to empower the federal government to set and administer new safety standards for motor vehicles and road traffic safety. The Act was the first mandatory federal safety standards for motor vehicles. The Act created the National Highway Safety Bureau. The Act was one of a number of initiatives by the government in response to increasing number of cars and associated fatalities and injuries on the road following a period when the number of people killed on the road had increased 6-fold and the number of vehicles was up 11-fold since 1925. The reduction of the rate of death attributable to motor-vehicle crashes in the United States represents the successful public health response to a great technologic advance of the 20th century—the motorization of America.
Statutory interpretation is the process by which courts interpret and apply legislation. Some amount of interpretation is often necessary when a case involves a statute. Sometimes the words of a statute have a plain and a straightforward meaning. But in many cases, there is some ambiguity or vagueness in the words of the statute that must be resolved by the judge. To find the meanings of statutes, judges use various tools and methods of statutory interpretation, including traditional canons of statutory interpretation, legislative history, and purpose. In common law jurisdictions, the judiciary may apply rules of statutory interpretation both to legislation enacted by the legislature and to delegated legislation such as administrative agency regulations.
A motorized bicycle is a bicycle with an attached motor or engine and transmission used either to power the vehicle unassisted, or to assist with pedalling. Since it always retains both pedals and a discrete connected drive for rider-powered propulsion, the motorized bicycle is in technical terms a true bicycle, albeit a power-assisted one. However, for purposes of governmental licensing and registration requirements, the type may be legally defined as a motor vehicle, motorbike, moped, or a separate class of hybrid vehicle.
State motorcyclists' rights organizations (SMROs) exist in about 32 US states, 25 of which call themselves "ABATE of ," the rest going by various other names. SMROs advocate for a point of view in motorcycling that is, in general, opposed to mandatory helmet laws, required motorcycle safety inspections, mandatory rider training and licensing, and other similar regulation. Instead SMROs favor optional or voluntary motorcycle rider safety education, training, and licensing, and greater public awareness of motorcyclist safety issues. They also favor stronger penalties for car driver infractions such as right of way violations, or when drivers are at fault in accidents that harm motorcycle riders. SMRO activities include lobbying legislatures, letter writing campaigns, and paying for public service announcements and political advertisements. To carry out lobbying at the national level, a coalition of SMRO's created the Motorcycle Riders Foundation (MRF) to lobby in Washington DC. The SMROs and MRF are often allied with the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) on legislative issues.
Many countries have enacted electric vehicle laws to regulate the use of electric bicycles. Countries such as the United States and Canada have federal regulations governing the safety requirements and standards of manufacture. Other countries like the signatories of the European Union have agreed to wider-ranging legislation covering use and safety.
Motorcycling is riding a motorcycle. For some people, motorcycling may be the only affordable form of individual motorized transportation, and small-displacement motorcycles are the most common motor vehicle in the most populous countries, including India, China and Indonesia.
Motorcycle training teaches motorcycle riders the skills for riding on public roads. It is the equivalent of driver's education for car drivers. Training beyond basic qualification and licensing is available to those whose duty includes motorcycle riding, such as police, and additional rider courses are offered for street riding refreshers, sport riding, off-road techniques, and developing competitive skills for the motorcycle racetrack.
Speed limits in the United States are set by each state or territory. States have also allowed counties and municipalities to enact typically lower limits. Highway speed limits can range from an urban low of 20 mph (32 km/h) to a rural high of 85 mph (137 km/h). Speed limits are typically posted in increments of five miles per hour (8 km/h). Some states have lower limits for trucks and at night, and occasionally there are minimum speed limits.
The Consumer Safety Act (CPSA) was enacted on October 27th, 1972 by the United States Congress. The act should not be confused with an earlier Senate Joint Resolution 33 of November 20, 1967, which merely established a temporary National Commission on Product Safety (NCPS), and for only 90-days. Section 4 of the 1972 act established the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) as a permanent independent agency of the United States federal government and defined its basic authority. The act gives CPSC the power to develop safety standards and pursue recalls for products that present unreasonable or substantial risks of injury or death to consumers. It also allows CPSC to ban a product if there is no feasible alternative to an outright ban. CPSC has jurisdiction over more than 15,000 different consumer products. The CPSA excludes from jurisdiction those products that expressly lie in another federal agency's jurisdiction, for example food, drugs, cosmetics, medical devices, tobacco products, firearms and ammunition, motor vehicles, pesticides, aircraft, and boats. These products may fall under the purview of agencies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Department of Transportation, the U.S. Environment Protection Agency, and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.
Motorcycling advocacy generally refers to the belief in legal rights of motorcyclists, either as citizens or as motorists, or as motorcyclists per se, and to the efforts made to promote or defend those rights.
Southland Corp. v. Keating, 465 U.S. 1 (1984), is a United States Supreme Court decision concerning arbitration. It was originally brought by 7-Eleven franchisees in California state courts, alleging breach of contract by the chain's then parent corporation. Southland pointed to the arbitration clauses in their franchise agreements and said it required disputes to be resolved that way; the franchisees cited state franchising law voiding any clause in an agreement that required franchisees to waive their rights under that law. A 7-2 majority held that the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) applied to contracts executed under state law.
Australia was the first country to make wearing bicycle helmets mandatory. The majority of early statistical data regarding the effectiveness of bicycle helmets originated from Australia. Their efficacy is still a matter of debate.
Some countries and lower jurisdictions have enacted laws or regulations which require cyclists to wear a helmet in certain circumstances, typically when riding on the road or a road-related area. In some places this requirement applies only to children under a certain age, while in others it applies to cyclists of all ages.
Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting, 563 U.S. 582 (2011), is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that upheld an Arizona state law suspending or revoking business licenses of businesses that hire illegal aliens.
The requirement to wear bicycle helmetsin the United States varies by jurisdiction and by age of the cyclist, for example 21 states and the District of Columbia have statewide mandatory helmet laws for children. 29 US states have no statewide law, and 13 of these states have no such laws in any lower-level jurisdiction either.
Disputes between consumers and businesses that are arbitrated are resolved by an independent neutral arbitrator rather than in court. Although parties can agree to arbitrate a particular dispute after it arises or may agree that the award is non-binding, most consumer arbitrations occur pursuant to a pre-dispute arbitration clause where the arbitrator's award is binding.
