Hats off

Washoe County Sen. Don Gustavson’s bill to repeal Nevada’s motorcycle helmet requirement for adults has been approved by the Senate Transportation Committee, the first time the oft-introduced bill has gotten a vote of the full house since the 1970s. The bill is now in the Senate Finance Committee for further scrutiny.

If the bill makes it out of the Senate—a majority of the Senate is sponsoring or cosponsoring it—Assembly Transportation Committee Kelvin Atkinson is expected to kill the bill by denying it, and the members of his committee, a vote.

The closest the bill has ever come to passage was when the legislature did pass it in 1977, and Gov. Mike O’Callaghan vetoed it. At that time, the veto made Nevada the only Western state that had retained its helmet law.