Myrtle Beach refunds helmet fines to bikers

[DOUBLE "O"]

The checks are in the mail.

Myrtle Beach has sent refunds to those who paid fines when they received
tickets for not wearing motorcycle helmets, and a second set of checks
went out this week for
interest on the fines.

The city paid $13,964 in fine refunds for 141 tickets issued while the
helmet law was in effect from February 2009 to this summer, when the
state Supreme Court declared the law invalid.

City spokesman Mark Kruea said the city also sent an additional $869 in
interest, figured at 7.25 percent and depending on how long ago the
city collected the fines.

"The interest checks were between 50 cents and $10.50," he said.

Including mailing the checks, the city spent nearly $16,000 issuing the
refunds and interest payments.

Councilman Randal Wallace, who was the only council member to vote
against the helmet law, said he is glad the city can move forward now.

"It was just one tool in the whole basket of stuff we were trying to do
about the rallies," he said. "I didn't agree with it, but on the big
scale,
nothing has changed about how the city is going to deal with these
events. We still intend to keep control of the city in the month of
May."

He said he figured the city would have written more tickets than just
141.

"I would encourage people to wear helmets. We didn't have a single
fatality in city limits while the law was in place," Wallace said. "But I
don't think it's government's place to tell
them they have to."

The state's high court ruling came in response to two lawsuits heard in
February alleging that the city had superseded state law by implementing
a local helmet law and that the
helmet law was unconstitutional.

The court ruled that the state had already completely answered the
question of who must wear helmets - riders younger than 21 - and that
the city's law was not in keeping with
the state's Uniform Traffic Act.

Also, the court said, the city had already invalidated the law itself
when it repealed the administrative hearing court created to take care
of the tickets issued
for helmet law violations, which were then considered administrative
infractions.

City leaders have said they are not worried about losing the bike helmet
law, because the city has other tools to meet its goal of gaining
control over the May motorcycle rallies that, at their
peak, drew an estimated 500,000 people to the area.

In 2008, the city passed a package of 14 new laws and amendments,
including the helmet law, designed to push the Harley-Davidson Spring
Cruisin' the
Coast rally and Atlantic Beach Bikefest outside Myrtle Beach city
limits. The city had faced years of complaints from locals and non-biker
visitors about noise, excess garbage, reckless driving and lewd
behavior.

Three other city ordinances passed as part of that package were also
ruled invalid by the Supreme Court. Those dealt with parties in public
parking lots, a juvenile curfew and convenience-store
security. The city has since made violating those ordinances a
misdemeanor instead of an infraction, which the court said would make
them valid.

Kruea said the city is going to issue refunds for any tickets given
under those three ordinances before their violations became
misdemeanors, too. He did not know how many tickets had been
issued or how much the refunds would be, but said he would have numbers
later this week.

He said those refunds will be "substantially less" than what the city
spent issuing helmet-ticket refunds.

[albert conner,jr.]

If all you're know that there are no helmet law to this if you are over the ages limits. That's a south Carolina state law that have been past since the law been past. The only way this law can be charged is the people that rides motor bikes change it, not the government or any one but the rides.it's a state law.we as motor bikes did this like that. If someone say diviful is lie. I was part of this signing that got this pasts. The south Carolina motor cycle association. The have voting..!!!!.

[albert conner,jr.]

Add to this you're to over 21 of ages to not wear that head gear.next time Sue them for that for making up their own law as they go, just because we, them or us are black!!!. The law read as 21and over you may and have the rights not to or do!!! Read the law!!.