In The Chair: President
The Senate agreed to the title of the bill.
Senator McBroom asked and was granted unanimous consent to make a statement and moved that the statement be printed in the Journal.
The motion prevailed.
Senator McBroom’s statement is as follows:
This bill, along with the other two that I’ve introduced, came about due to a young man in my district who has some significant disabilities as well as, you could say, are some unusual body—this bill and the others that are going with it are a product of some work I’ve done with a young man in my district who is part of the local R.I.C.C and other special needs access groups. He himself has a number of special needs, including body shape development of his head that are not typical and it makes it impossible or very painful for him to wear a helmet. And as he’s been out riding his ORV, which he is capable of doing and able to do safely, he can’t wear a helmet without being in very significant pain. And he got a ticket for riding with no helmet. So he came to me and asked that if somebody could get a doctor’s prescription to not have to wear a seatbelt, couldn’t he get a doctor’s prescription to not wear a helmet. And so that’s the genesis of these bills today and the bill that we just voted on is one that the doctors asked for to protect them from the liability issues.
Interestingly, despite over three decades of allowing doctors to write prescriptions away from seatbelts, there was no liability protection, so that bill included those protections for doctors on both seatbelts and helmets and the other two bills are specific to the usage of helmets for people who get a prescription. They’d have to carry it with them and be able to present it to an officer whether they are on a snowmobile or an ORV. So I certainly appreciate your support.
The following bill was read a third time:
Senate Bill No. 211, entitled
A bill to amend 1994 PA 451, entitled “Natural resources and environmental protection act,” by amending section 82123 (MCL 324.82123), as added by 1995 PA 58.
The question being on the passage of the bill,
The bill was passed, a majority of the members serving voting therefor, as follows: