Last September, Brooklyn, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, passed the first ordinance in the country banning cell phone use while driving. Since then, the Philadelphia suburb Hilltown, Penn., enacted a similar ban on the use of hand-held cell phones. But the link between cell phones and crash risk continues to grow, and 300 municipalities are considering such ordinances. In 1997, The New England Journal of Medicine reported that motorists who use cell phones are four times more likely to crash, and equated their use with drunk driving. In a three-year study of Oklahoma crash data, researchers linked cell phone use with a ninefold increase in fatalities.
Japan is the only country in the world to prohibit tandem riding.
R.I.P. RIP One of the best known and well respected scooter tramps of our time, Rip of Easyriders magazine, has taken a detour onto Heaven's highway. Rip's Run'' columns. Ride on, Rip. This year's NCOM Convention in San Francisco will be dedicated to Rip. Rip was honored with the Silver Spoke Award for Media at last year's NCOM Convention in Phoenix.