Governor Mike Easley said Aug. 25 he would reconvene the legislature to consider a bill that would allow boat trailers less than 10-feet in width to be towed on the state’s highways at night, weekends and holidays.
During the short session of the legislature, the N.C. House passed HB 2167 by a 108-5 margin and the Senate approved the bill 43-0, but Easley waited almost to the end of a 30-day grace period before announcing his veto.
Written by Rep. Art Williams (D-Beaufort/Pitt), HB 2167 basically reinforces a long-standing tradition that recreational fishing boats aren’t commercial vehicles. During the past year, members of the N.C. Highway Patrol’s Motor Carriers Enforcement Unit had been stopping drivers towing boat trailers wider than 8 1/2 feet and ticketing those drivers if they didn’t have proper extra-wide towing permits and licenses. Previously, boaters were not stopped and ticketed because their watercrafts weren’t considered commercial vehicles. The NCHP basically claimed boat owners were towing commercial vehicles that required over-wide licenses and driving permits.
Critics of the policy noted it would harm N.C.’s boating industry, tourism and coastal economies at towns that hosted saltwater fishing tournaments. Other critics noted the NCHP could ticket anyone, anywhere, who trailered a boat wider than 8 1/2 feet.
Williams’ bill would allow any boat or boat trailer with an outside width of less than 120 inches (10 feet) to be towed without a permit. Boat-and-trailer combinations wider than 10 feet would require permits.
Also, towing a boat or boat trailer up to 9 1/2 -feet wide could take place any day of the week, including weekends and holidays, and may take place at night.
Easley and the NCHP said they were trying to protect schoolchildren by keeping 9 1/2-foot trailers off the roads and avoiding collisions with school buses. Critics quickly pointed out that by prohibiting towing of large boat trailers on weekends, at night and holidays, current law forces boat owners to tow during daylight hours, exactly when school buses are on the roads.
Also in explaining his veto, Easley said he considered such wide boats to be unsafe on rural, unlit roads. Critics quickly responded only 7 of 280 towing accidents (2.5 percent) the last two years involved over-wide trailers. There were 230,000 total vehicle accidents on N.C. roads the last two years, so the 280 boat-towing accidents accounted for .0012 of them. Most boat owners also drive on wide, four-lane roads, not narrow two-lane rural roads.
State law required Easley to reconvene the legislature if a majority of polled of state representatives and senators requested to meet again in Raleigh. Rep. Joe Hackney (D-Orange), the Speaker of the House, had House members polled and a sufficient number asked to return to the legislature to apparently override Easley’s veto.
The legislature will reconvene at 11 a.m. Aug. 27.
Easley had to call the legislature back, or his veto would not have been able to stand. It will stand, if lawmakers decide to reverse their previous near-unanimous votes.
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