Liberty is the right to choose for yourself and not have government dicate your choices.
Granted that people should make the right choices, but without the opportunity to choose, they have no liberty.
My original post, I admit was somewhat vague, but my complaint is with the fact with $100 payment you can have liberty.
One should not have to pay for liberty otherwise the poor will be excluded.
And what about the liberty of people who make the right choices, and suffer from the poor choices of others? The liberty of a drunk driver does not outweigh that of the passengers in the car he hits.
The liberty of a helmetless motorcyclist does not outweigh that of the people who will end up paying to keep him on life support, because we as a nation and a people don't just chuck patients out into the street to die.
The vast majority of Americans support at least some roles of government -- and one of those is providing the nice smooth, paved roads that we use to get from A to B. However bad you think your local roads are (mine are pretty good, but I know it varies), read up on the dirt roads in the early Model-T era.
What the government has the power to build, it has the power to regulate. Leaving emotion aside, if you splatter yourself on the highway, that's going to tie up traffic. That's tangible economic loss from workers and shoppers who aren't getting where they want to be and are instead sitting and fuming in their cars. Cars that are idling and contributing to global warming all the while.
One should not have to pay for liberty otherwise the poor will be excluded.
If you can afford a motorcycle, you can afford another $100 to ride without a helmet. If you don't have $100, I have to wonder what kind of POS bike you have and whether it's a menace to the rest of us on the roads.