Cooks Parliament to review compulsory motorcycle helmets

Transcript

Cook Islands politicians are renewing a new campaign for compulsory motorcycle helmets, after a spate of deaths on the road there.

Internal Affairs Minister Albert Nicholas used the last session of parliament for the year to call for a select committee to look into the issue.

Mr Nicholas told Koro Vaka'uta the fifth motorcycle death of the year prompted him to act.

ALBERT NICHOLAS:  It's been an issue that I've been wanting to bring up in the past but it's just the spate of road accidents that we've had in recent months concerning mostly our youth on scooters, so I thought that this might be the opportune moment to bring it to the House.  One of our well-respected families in the Cook Islands, one of their sons past, so this is probably the best time to bring it to the House and hopefully gather some momentum or some support towards addressing this serious issue.

KORO VAKA'UTA:  I understand that you were putting forward age restrictions, that sort of thing.  Tell me a little bit about that.

AN:  Well, when the compulsory helmets issue was first brought to the government level many years ago there was actually a protest march in opposition to the proposal of putting those laws in place.  The argument back then was that the average grandma who needs to go to mass on a Sunday morning, cannot be seen going to mass on a Sunday morning on her scooter wearing her helmet.  So probably the best avenue to address this issue, and seeing that most of the cases of the recent deaths on our road are actually our youth so maybe there should be an age limit.  Maybe for example those still at school or if you are under 21, so it doesn't affect our grandparents that go to church on Sundays wearing all their church hats.  Part of my passion behind it too is that my own brother passed away a couple of years ago in a road accident and my cousin two months ago she passed away recently and she was only 16.  So I think it's time for us to seriously look at this and I think it is about time that our general public gets onside and support this as well instead of protesting.

KV:  There were three other deaths earlier this year and they were women aged between 16 and 40 so the danger still exists for even older people as well though doesn't it?

AN:  Yeah.  Those are the finer details of what we need to look at, the age restriction.  If a committee is set up then they are the finer details that they can look at, or we can look at, but I think someone needed to get the ball rolling.  We decided to get the ball rolling now.

KV:  You are confident that the mood has changed, that there is more momentum than there was back in 2008?

AN:  I think so.  With the spate of deaths on our roads in recent years, I think the public understand that there seriously needs to be something.  In the past the assumption was the accidents were due to alcohol-related issue and speed but if you look into a few of the issues recently, alcohol was nowhere attached to some of these accidents.  Even some of them were young school girls on their way home from school.          

The Leader of the Opposition endorsed the call but with with the session only lasting two days, the select committee will have to wait until well into the new year.