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AG: Drag racing bill needs refinement
A House bill to legalize drag racing in the CNMI needs refinement, according to CNMI Attorney’s General Office.
House Bill 19-103, which would vest the Department of Public Safety with the duty to establish fees, rules, and regulations for legal drag racing on “private and public property, is “too broad,” according to CNMI Attorney General Edward Manibusan in a letter to the House Committee on Judiciary and Government Operations.
Manibusan said the bill gives virtual unbridled discretion to DPS to establish drag racing.
Without providing defined policy objectives, reasonable restrictions and limits, there is the real possibly that the bill would encourage the haphazard development of drag racing in the CNMI, which may prove harmful to public safety and welfare, he said.
“The bill should have an outright prohibition against drag racing on any public highway or streets,” Manibusan said.
“There have been horrific traffic accidents involving drag racing on the Commonwealth’s public highways that have claimed precious human lives,” Manibusan added in his Nov. 19 letter.
Further, the AG said, if drag racing were to be legalized it must be directed to a legal racing area but “not any public highway or street.”
In this case, DPS should be the lead agency to provide safe operations based on existing programs like Beat the Heat, Racers Against Street Racing, or the National Hot Rod Association, Manibusan said.
“Only with proper and well-defined safety measures and restrictions in place can the Commonwealth benefit from legal drag racing,” the AG states in his letter.
