• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Motorcycle Mess Requires Legal Redress: GOVERNOR OUGHT TO PAY FINE

Posted on: Friday, 13 January 2006, 12:00 CST

By Scott Herhold, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.

Jan. 13--Here's the first thing Arnold Schwarzenegger should do this morning, before he gets on his exercise machine, before he talks to his chief of staff, before he plans how to spend umpteen billions.

He should get in his car, drive to the West Los Angeles courthouse and pay $281 for not having the right license to drive a motorcycle.

In the wake of the weekend accident that left him with 15 stitches above the lip, it's the only honorable way to preserve his political future.

Sure, the courthouse people won't have any paperwork. Sure, they'll shrug and give him the vacant stare perfected in every bureaucracy.

That's why a governor has a legal staff. Get them to draw up a legal document. Then plead guilty and plunk down a check. Somebody will take care of the paperwork later.

For the governor, it's the only way to terminate a mess. He knows he's guilty. He's said he didn't realize he needed a special license to ride his Hog. So pay up and join the rest of us sinners. It won't break him.

Yes, yes, I know the profiles in courage who run the California Highway Patrol, the Los Angeles police and the Department of Motor Vehicles have offered the governor the kind of excuses that kids who play hooky can only marvel at.

The police explained that they didn't actually witness Schwarzenegger's accident -- and that they couldn't go back and cite him later.

By this thinking, a cop who comes across a drunk who confesses to hitting a grandmother in a crosswalk would have trouble taking him off to jail -- because, after all, the cop didn't witness the crash.

The explanation offered by the California Highway Patrol and the DMV achieved even greater heights of silliness.

Because Schwarzenegger's motorcycle had a sidecar for his son, they claimed, nothing forbade the governor from operating the vehicle with just his standard driver's license. Even though you need a special license to operate a motorcycle without a sidecar.

"Everyone in the DMV who thinks that a motorcycle with a sidecar isn't a motorcycle should take their collective heads out of their exhaust pipe," wrote San Josean Jude Bartlett in a letter to the Mercury News. "Motorcycles are given a unique license plate, not shared by other vehicles. If you add a sidecar to a motorcycle, neither the registration or plate changes."

Put another way: Did anyone see the "Great Escape," the movie in which Steve McQueen takes a motorcycle with sidecar across the fields to escape the Germans? Was that a routine drive?

Schwarzenegger's accident is precisely the kind of case in which someone should exert leadership. Getting a ticket is not going to ruin Arnold. It would refresh and inspire everyone if he said, "I did wrong. Whether the law says it, or not, it's obvious I should have had a motorcycle license."

Instead, the California Highway Patrol comes up with a ridiculous explanation. Are they worried he'll punish them for the ticket? If he's that small-minded, we all ought to know about it.

There's a reason this case resonates with people who are baffled by the governor's plans for $68 billion in bonds. They want to know that he's willing to live by the laws that he applies to everyone else -- that a guy who denies driver's licenses to illegal immigrants is willing to admit he didn't have the right license himself.

That's why the governor needs to get to the West L.A. Courthouse and make his plea. He should do it for the son he carried in that sidecar. He should do it for all of California's kids. He should do it today. Otherwise, he's just another big shot who gives lip service to justice.

Contact Scott Herhold at sherhold@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5877.

-----

Copyright (c) 2006, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

Source: San Jose Mercury News

More News in this Category