11 States Agree to Motorcycle Curfew-Fiction!

11 States Agree to Motorcycle Curfew-Fiction!

Summary of eRumor:
Eleven states have agreed to implement a motorcycle curfew from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. at the request of the Department of Transportation.
The Truth:
Rumors about a motorcycle curfew are totally false.
They can be traced back to a story published at Associated Media Coverage under the headline, “11 States Agree to Implement And Enforce Motorcycle Curfew.” The Department of Transportation supposedly “placed pressure” on the states to adopt an “ordinance” that restricts motorcycle use from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m., the story reports:

The U.S Department of Transportation who admittedly placed pressure on state representatives to implement the ordinance within their respective states are hopeful that representatives across the country will take notice and agree to implement and enforce the curfew within their states by late 2016.

According to U.S Department Transportation representative Donald McCarthy, the ordinance was born out of a necessity. According to statistics published on the U.D.O.Twebsite, approximately 7,342  motorcyclist fatalities occurred across the country throughout 2015. This is an almost 20% increase to the 6,120 fatalities reported in 2015. The statistics found on the U.D.O.T website indicate that roughly 47% of motorcyclist fatalities in both 2014 and 2015 reportedly occurred during the hours of 10:30 PM – 4:45 AM.

Little is known about Associated Media Coverage. The site had only published a handful of stories when the report about a motorcycle curfew went viral in March 2016. The site doesn’t identify itself as satire or fake news, but the story is pretty easy to prove false.
First, state legislatures don’t adopt ordinances, as the story claims. Only city or town governments adopt ordinances. State governments adopt statutes. That’s the first clue that this story is bogus.
Second, there’s nothing about a new motorcycle curfew posted on the Department of Transportations website, and there surely would be if the story was true.
Third, the motorcycle lobby hasn’t raised a ruckus over the so-called motorcycle curfew, and neither have rider groups.
Given the fact that this story gets key details of the lawmaking process wrong (ordinances vs. statutes), and that there’s no other mention of a so-called motorcycle curfew anywhere on the web outside of this story, we’re calling this one false.