Raleigh – Gov. Mike Easley made good on a lingering veto threat Sunday when he rejected a bill which would have eased towing restrictions for North Carolina boaters.
“I sincerely believe that this bill puts families at a risk on the highways and would result in death or serious injury,” Easley said in a statement announcing the action.
The rejected legislation would have allowed boaters to pull boats up to 10 feet wide during daylight hours on any day of the week and to tow watercraft up to 9 1/2 feet wide at night.
Current state law forbids towing boats exceeding 8 1/2 feet wide at night, on Sundays and from noon the day prior to a holiday until noon the day after.
Daylight towing will still be allowed Monday through Saturday, except holidays, with a special permit that can be purchased from the state. Boats wider than 8 1/2 feet and up to 10 feet wide will require special flagging and boats wider than 10 feet will also require special wide load banners front and rear.
In pushing for the legislation this summer, lawmakers had said the current law jeopardized North Carolina’s ability to host competitive fishing tournaments and severely limited North Carolina boaters’ ability to take weekend trips.
The governor had until midnight on Sunday to veto or sign into law legislation that lawmakers had approved before adjourning July 18. If Easley did not take action on the bills – including the boat towing measure – they would have become law.
The veto should come as no surprise to lawmakers.
In July, top Easley aide Franklin Freeman told House and Senate lawmakers that the governor thought the measure was unsafe.
Easley echoed that Sunday, saying North Carolina has 60,000 miles of two-lane roads which are too narrow to accommodate 9 1/2-foot-wide boats safely. That means those watercraft would run over the center line and into oncoming traffic, he said.
“Further, if two 9 1/2-foot boats were to meet on an 18-foot strip of road or bridge it would be physically impossible to escape a collision,” Easley said in his statement.
With Easley’s veto, the bill is returned to the General Assembly and the legislators who passed it so overwhelmingly must decide whether to accept Easley’s veto or reconvene to attempt to override it. Easley urged lawmakers to wait until next year to revise the law so there is ample time to study the consequences of the legislation.
The Senate passed the bill 43-0 and the House concurred 108-5. Overriding the governor’s veto requires a 3/5 majority of the House and Senate members present.
A spokesman for House Speaker Joe Hackney said Sunday evening that legislative leaders have not yet decided if they will call the members back to Raleigh to try to override the veto.
Bill sponsor Rep. Arthur Williams, D-Beaufort, said he’s confident there are enough supporters to override the veto, should the General Assembly come back to Raleigh.
Williams challenged Easley’s claims that the measure is unsafe, saying that the wider boats would be resting on the same sized trailers and that an extra five or six inches on each side would not jeopardize motorists’ safety.
“They’ve been running those boats up and down the highways of North Carolina since 1982,” Williams said. “They haven’t had a lot of accidents.”
Most of the boats that would be affected by this legislation only exceed the 8 1/2 foot width by a few inches. Many boat manufacturers build their more popular models to 8 1/2 feet wide and the trailer guides are all that exceed the current allowable width. The larger recreational trailer boats that meet and surpass the 9 1/2 foot width requested by the lawmakers are definately in the minority.
Easley, who is nearing the end of his second term as governor, is the only governor to use the veto authority. This is the 9th time Easley has vetoed a bill.
The General Assembly has never overridden a veto in the 11 years since it granted North Carolina governors the power to reject legislation.
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