Title: State v. Anderson

State: north-carolina

Issuer: North Carolina Supreme Court

Document:

166 S.E.2d 49 (1969) 275 N.C. 168 STATE of North Carolina v. Kenneth Calvin ANDERSON. No. 7. Supreme Court of North Carolina. March 12, 1969. *50 Thomas Wade Bruton, Atty. Gen., William W. Melvin, Asst. Atty. Gen., T. Buie Costen, Raleigh, Staff Atty., for the State. Douglas, Ravenel, Hardy & Crihfield, Greensboro, for defendant. HIGGINS, Justice. The General Assembly, by Chapter 674, Session Laws of 1967, rewrote Subsection (b) of G.S. § 20-140.2 to read as follows: The Act became effective on January 1, 1968. The defendant was arrested on January 21, 1968 and charged with operating a motorcycle on the public streets of Greensboro without the required protective helmet. Before plea, the defendant moved to quash the indictment upon the ground the statute creating the offense violated his rights under Article I, Section 17, Constitution of North Carolina and under the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. The defendant contended the statute regulated his private conduct without any showing of such public interest or purpose as would promote or contribute to the public health, morals, safety or welfare. He concedes he has no defense to the charge if the General Assembly had the constitutional power to pass the Act under which the charge is laid. If the section of the statute here challenged imposes an unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious restriction on an operator of a motorcycle on the public highway without contributing in any reasonable or substantial way to the safety of travel on the highway, the regulation was outside the police power of the state, and the motion to quash should have been allowed. State v. Brown, 250 N.C. 54, 108 S.E.2d 74; State v. Ballance, 229 N.C. 764, 51 S.E.2d 731, 7 A.L.R.2d 407; State v. Harris, 216 N.C. 746, 6 S.E.2d 854; 128 A.L.R. 658; State v. Brockwell, 209 N.C. 209, 183 S.E. 378. The rule is succinctly stated by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Liggett Co. v. Baldridge, 278 U.S. 105, 49 S. Ct. 57, 73 L.Ed. 204: If the requirement that the operator of a motorcycle on a public highway wear a protective helmet contributes in any real or substantial way to the safety of other travelers, then the regulation is a constitutional exercise of police power by the General Assembly, and the motion to quash was properly denied. State v. Hales, 256 N.C. 27, 122 S.E.2d 768, 90 A. L.R.2d 804; State v. Warren, 252 N.C. 690, 114 S.E.2d 660. In passing upon the constitutional question involved, this Court must assume that acts of the General Assembly are constitutional and within its legislative power until and unless the contrary clearly appears. State v. Brockwell, supra; Strong's N.C. Index 2d, Constitutional Law, Vol. 2, Sec. 6, p. 190. For the reasons hereinafter discussed, we think the requirement that a motorcycle operator wear the required safety helmet bears a real and substantial relationship to public safety. The General Assembly, therefore, had ample authority, under its police power, to enact the section of the statute here challenged and to make its violation a criminal offense. We are fortified in this view by many considerations, among them the fact that a majority of our sister states has enacted a similar statute. Michigan's act was passed in 1948, Georgia's in 1962, and New York's effective January 1, 1967. The others have been enacted since 1966. As this Court said in State v. Whitaker, 228 N.C. 352, 45 S.E.2d 860: The recent passage of so many state statutes requiring motorcycle operators to wear the helmet seems to have been triggered by the Act of Congress approved September 9, 1966 (15 U.S.C.A. § 1381 et seq.) known as "National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966". The preamble to the Act recites: Section 104 provides: Section 103 provides: *52 The National Safety Council has promulgated rules, among them the following: The defendant was indicted in the state court for a violation of state law. The constitutionality of that law is challenged on the ground its passage was beyond the police power of the state. The Act of Congress referred to, and the regulations promulgated under its authority, are clearly applicable to travel in interstate commerce. The same highways carry both interstate and intrastate travel. Uniformity of rules is clearly contemplated and is clearly desirable. The General Assembly no doubt was advertent to the Act of Congress and was well within its constitutional authority in passing the challenged traffic requirement. The constitutionality of acts requiring motorcycle operators to wear helmets has been passed on by a number of courts. Insofar as our investigation has disclosed, only one (unreversed) appellate decision has held the helmet statute unconstitutional. In American Motorcycle Association v. Davids, 158 N.W.2d 72, decided July 23, 1968, the three judges constituting Division 2 of the Court of Appeals of Michigan held the statute unconstitutional, reversing a contrary holding by the trial judge. Division 2 of the Court of Appeals concluded: In Commonwealth v. Howie, 238 N.E.2d 373, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts affirmed a conviction of a motorcycle operator for failure to wear the protective headgear required by the Massachusetts statute, saying: In People v. Carmichael, 56 Misc.2d 388, 288 N.Y.S.2d 931, decided February 29, 1968, Judge Morton construed the New York statute which required the operator of a motorcycle to wear protective headgear. Judge Morton's opinion recites the results of a special study reported by the State Department of Motor Vehicles to the Legislature and considered by it in passing the act requiring motorcycle operators to wear approved protective headgear. Judge Morton held the New York statute constitutional, and reversed a contrary holding by the Special Sessions Court of the Town of Oakfield. The Supreme Court of Rhode Island, in State ex rel. Colvin v. Lombardi, 241 A.2d 625, decided May 8, 1968, passed on the constitutionality of the Rhode Island helmet statute. The Court said: On December 10, 1968 the Supreme Court of Louisiana upheld the constitutionality of the New Orleans city ordinance (passed under its home rule charter) requiring the operator of a motorcycle upon the public streets of New Orleans to wear the prescribed protective headgear [253 La. 285, 217 So. 2d 400]. (This decision reversed a Circuit Court decision rendered in the case of Everhardt v. City of New Orleans, La.App., 208 So. 2d 423.) The Court found the decision of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island in Lombardi, and the Supreme Court of Massachusetts in Howie persuasive. Contra, the decision of Division 2, Michigan Court of Appeals in Davids. Valid reasons exist for requiring motorcycle operators to wear helmets. Motorcycle operators occupy positions of extreme exposure which are not shared by automobile and truck drivers. The latter operate in closed vehicles protected by steel and shatterproof glass. Their vehicles have a minimum of four wheels and operate with more stability than two wheeled motorcycles. Any very slight head or hand injury by gravel, small stones, or other objects thrown backward could easily cause a motorcyclist to veer from his course into the travel lane of other vehicles on the highway, or into the path of pedestrians on or near the highway. The records and briefs in the Court of Appeals and here failed to take note of, or to discuss, the "National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966" or the safety rules promulgated thereunder, although the Act required the Secretary (first of Commerce, later of Transportation) "* * * to advise, assist and cooperate with * * * State and other interested public and private agencies * * * in development of (1) motor vehicle safety standards." It is a permissible inference that, as a part of the State's cooperation, the General Assembly rewrote (b) of G.S. § 20-140.2. We think the opinion of the North Carolina Court of Appeals in this case is supported by sound reason and by abundant authority. The decision is Affirmed.