One Brick Short

It’s not part of the stimulus package, but it’s stimulated me this morning: The Guvmint don’t want your youngin to ride no stinkin’ mo-sickle.

That’s right. If your kid is younger than 12 years old, he or she won’t roosting in the dirt on his own, tiny, motorbike. The federales are yanking the bikes off the market because the engines contain too much lead for a child.

The Associated Press reports that a new national limit on lead in children’s products,  which has toy makers scrambling for new testing methods and retailers for storage space for inventory they’re not sure they can sell, also is forcing motorcycle dealers to pull dirt bikes off showroom floors.

The feds last Tuesday made it illegal to sell off-road machines geared for children younger than 12 because parts in them contain lead at levels greater than 600 parts per million. Most motor vehicles have such parts.

Of course, if your child is sucking on a carburetor or chewing on a clutch basket, you’ve probably got more serious issues. Tell Little Johnnie to take that motorcycle out of his mouth and eat his peas.

About 100,000 of the bikes sold last year for $1,500 or more. You can buy them in town at Jarman’s Sportcycles or Moto-Virginia and in Waynesboro at Wayne’s Cycle Shop. Well, you can’t get them. In fact, you won’t be able to get new equipment or repair what you have.

Industry leaders, according to the AP, say some 13,000 dealers are now stuck with $100 million worth of inventory that may end up worthless.

Blame it on the Chinese: Congress tightened lead limits on children’s products last summer after a series of discoveries of dangerous lead levels in toys. The law won’t be enforced for a year, but retailers can’t sell the products, so it’s pretty much in force anyway.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission is considering an exemption request from dirt bike and motocross equipment manufacturers

“We’re hoping that they see their way to a difference between a children’s necklace and a motor part that has very little chance of being ingested by a child,“ Tim Patnode, spokesman for American Honda, told the AP.

One violation of the law carries a fine of $1,825 and penalties could run to $1.8 million with repeated offenses.

The ban applies to used and new small off-road machines — and the parts to service them. Even the agency administering the ban understands it might be counterproductive. Funny thing is, the kids can hop onto adult-sized ATVs and motorbikes, something that the protection agency has investigated and found dangerous.

Go, Guvmint, go.