After reading Snopes for years, knowing who funds them and fact checking their sources and opinions, I take anything they say with a grain of salt. With that said, I called my MVA in Maryland and no one there knows anything of a "law" preventing minors from being passengers.
That means, kids can still be do whatever they want on the back of bikes, with little care for their or other's safety.

 

......... dam straight !

 

Jeez, really?

Yeah, hell, let's pass more laws in the name of safety.

Close to 50 years ago I started riding on the back of motorcycles. I was 5 years old. Within four years I was "piloting" motorcycles myself. Jeez, I don't know how I ever survived the intervening half decade without government intervention?

Or, possibly, my early introduction to the sport may have caused me to develop "special skills" that not only helped me survive those formative years on the back of motorcycles, but also helped me create deeply rooted skills enabling me to survive a half decade of riding motorcycles all by my self?

Nope, I must have just been lucky. Without a Government safety program taking away my rights to ride bikes (motorcycles), until the same Government provides the correct (Government) training necessary, there is almost no way I could have survived this experience.

Jeez I am very glad that my kids grew up in the 21st century. In this era they will be assured of government safety programs that will keep them alive until they can die of more natural causes.

Pity they won't be able to enjoy the freedoms that I did growing up, but I'm sure they will enjoy their single ride on the back of a motorcycle with a federally certified rider on a Federally certified closed course.

OK, yeah, whatever....

 

I got to the second paragraph and knew it was BS. The AMA issues pro competition licenses to 16 year olds. No way they would work to develop those regs. Also, even if it were Federal Law the states would have to pass statutes to be able to enforce it.