RALEIGH – Maybe it’s just a temporary lapse in judgment triggered by sleep deprivation, or a tinge of pity for the South’s least-popular governor, or both, but I find myself agreeing with Mike Easley about the boat-towing bill he vetoed. So does Sen. Tony Rand, a Fayetteville Democrat.
That makes, oh, about eight of us. The bill originally gained the support of all the other state senators and passed the house 108 to 5.
The General Assembly is coming to town Wednesday to consider overriding Easley’s veto of the bill, which would allow motorists, without permits or time restrictions, to pull boats that are wider than the lanes of roadway they are traversing. The Fayetteville Observer explains the particulars in more detail:
It would allow boats up to 9.5-feet wide on 26,000 miles of rural, two-lane highways with lanes narrower than 9.5 feet. It would force drivers towing such boats to cross the center line of roughly 1,000 bridges that are 18 feet wide or narrower.
Permits are now required to tow boats wider than 8.5 feet. It is illegal to tow those boats at night and on weekends and some holidays. The bill would allow boats between 9.5 feet and 10 feet wide to be pulled without a permit during daylight hours. Boats up to 9.5 feet wide could be pulled anytime.
In vetoing the measure, Easley argued that while boaters and coastal businesses might gain from loosening the restrictions, the risk to public safety on public roads outweighs the economic benefits. His conclusion seems persuasive to me. Perhaps North Carolina’s roads are too narrow, but that’s not a problem that can simply be disregarded or worked around. As far as I know, those who own wide boats purchased them when the law clearly forbade transporting the craft on public roads without permitting and other safety precautions. If they don’t like the restrictions, they can find a marina or other storage solution on the water. Similarly, boat manufacturers set up shop in the state knowing the transport rules.
According to Dave Hartgen’s latest report on transportation performance, North Carolina already ranks poorly in traffic fatalities (29th), rural roads with narrow lanes (34th), and deficient bridges (41st). Lawmakers should be focused on policies to improve the situation, not increasing the safety risks on our narrow rural roads and bridges.
I find it ironic, by the way, that many of the state legislators who supported the boat bill, despite the potential risk to public safety, have previously voted for regulatory initiatives such as the Clean Smokestacks Bill and last year’s state energy bill where the scant public health and safety benefits were clearly outweighed by massive economic costs. What sense does it make to vote to save a few boating-related jobs at the coast, at the risk of more traffic accidents, while also voting to destroy thousands of jobs across North Carolina with no reasonable expectation of measurable environmental benefits?
Such lawmaking looks more like response to interest-group pressure than it does leadership. But no doubt the General Assembly will override Easley, the boats will roll, and I’ll try to stay off the backroads at night.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.