The kinematical parameters of the local field RR Lyrae population
and the zero-point of the log $P-\langle M_K\rangle$ relation for these
variables are inferred by applying the statistical parallax
(maximum-likeli-hood) technique to a sample of 182 RR Lyraes with
known periods, radial-velocities, metallicities, K-band
photometry, and absolute proper motions on the ICRS system.
Hipparcos, Tycho-2, SPM, UCAC, NPM1, and the Four-Million Star
Catalog (Volchkov et al. 1992) were used as
the sources of proper motions; the proper motions of the last two
catalogs are reduced to the Hipparcos (ICRS) system (Dambis &
Rastorguev 2001). The K-band magnitudes were adopted from
the list of Fernley et al. (1998) and
supplemented by the data of the 2MASS Second Incremental Data
Release. The parameters of the velocity distribution are found to
be: ($U_0 = -10 \pm 10$, $V_0 = -51 \pm 8$, $W_0 = -14 \pm
5)$ km s-1; ($\sigma_U = 62 \pm 10$, $\sigma_V = 45 \pm 8$,
$\sigma_W = 28 \pm 6$) km s-1: and ($U_0 = -23 \pm 13$, $V_0 = -213 \pm 12$, $W_0 = -5 \pm 8$) km s-1; ($\sigma_U = 157 \pm 12$, $\sigma_V = 98 \pm 8$, $\sigma_W = 91 \pm 7$) km s-1 for the thick-disk (41 stars) and
halo (141 stars) objects, respectively. The zero-point of the
infrared PL relation of Jones et al. (1992)
(based on the results obtained using the Baade-Wesselink method)
is confirmed: we find $\langle M_K\rangle = -2.33 \cdot \log P_{\rm F}-0.82 \pm
0.12$ compared to $\langle M_K\rangle = -2.33 \cdot \log P_{\rm F}-0.88$ as
inferred by Jones et al. (1992). A conversion of
the resulting log $P-\langle M_K\rangle $ relation to V-band luminosities
yields the metallicity-luminosity relation $\langle M_V\rangle = +1.04 + 0.14
\cdot [$Fe/H$] \pm 0.11$. Our results imply a solar Galactocentric distance of $R_0 = 7.6 \pm 0.4$ kpc and an LMC distance modulus of $DM_{\rm LMC} = 18.18 \pm 0.12$ (cluster RR Lyraes) or $DM_{\rm LMC} = 18.11 \pm 0.12$ (field RR Lyraes), thereby favoring
the so-called short distance scale.