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Well this is my take on the 3/22/01 hearings:
The committee wasted a lot of time pushing the primary seat belt enforcement recommendation. First, there was a press conference featuring a doctor, a victim, a cop, a legislator, a baker and a candlestick maker - but no press. That why it took only half an hour.
But then they made up for it. For the next hour and a half, they called on a different batch of doctors, victims, cops, legislators, bakers and a candlestick maker, all agreeing with each other, and all in support of the primary seat belt enforcement. Every one of them was freely mixing up seat belt use and primary enforcement, as if the two were the same. (That's when a nurse told the committee that you should wear your belt because 95% of men with spinal cord injuries are unable to have an erection.)
Somehow the committee forgot to mention there will be extra zillions of dollars in federal highway funds if this bill passes, probably because such a minor detail could ruin the pretense that all they had in mind was our safety.
By now it was noon when the committee started taking legislators out of turn. All of them opened by saying they will be brief and proceeded to talk at length about their favorite bill, which often happened to be - you guessed it - the primary enforcement of seat belt laws. That and the red light camera bill. They were followed by the regional NHTSA rep, then the AAA rep, then the Mayor's Task Force-on-something-or-another rep.
Finally, past 1 PM, the committee realized there were 45 other bills on the agenda and they didn't have lunch yet. Still, it took 15 minutes to discuss what constitutes a loud muffler and whether or not purple lights for a funeral procession are a good idea. The only bright light came when the committee's Chairman expressed his opposition to fine-doubling in construction zones, which I was happy to support with findings of a 1998 study I happened to have with me. A NMA member spoke up as well.
John and another NMA member talked against lowering speed limits and then it was time for my bill that would increase speed limits. The Committee seemed to be amused by my proposal to let people set speed limits for themselves. Imagine that! On one hand, we allow people on a jury to decide the fate of another human being, but the fact that these very same people are deciding every day that 75 mph on an Interstate is a safe speed, will not be considered. This is a democracy after all!
After this amusing interlude, representatives of different cell phone companies talked about the wonderful features of their identical equipment, and during this portion of a "public" hearing, Chairman Mao seemed to be getting carried away with trying to figure out the best time to trade in his own personal cell phone...
Now, at 2:40, almost 5 hours into it, they called for comments on photo radar. In my testimony, I tried to emphasize the fact at many intersections in the last 6 years the timing of yellow lights has been shortened in order to create an epidemic of red light runners out of people legally entering on yellow. The committee's co-chairman started to explain to me that people who enter on yellow won't have their picture taken - which of course wasn't the point. The 3 remaining legislators - from the original 8 or 10 - were looking at their watches and yawning; apparently the discussion was turning too technical...
Another NMA member testified from his own experience about red light cameras in Maryland. Then I tried to follow up on Chairman's comment that red light cameras were not about money. I was asking him why a red light ticket issued by a camera wouldn't be a moving violation when the same offense would result in a moving violation if written by a cop, and where is all the money going to go, when I got cut off ... Mr. Chairman had enough of me.
It was way past 3 PM and I had to go. As John said, 'It was a hot day in Boston...full of hot air.'
