Posted on 12/01/2003 7:38:02 AM PST by Holly_P
PRAIRIEVILLE, La. - In the smoky, windowless back room of Gail's Diner on Route 61, eight bikers gathered on a recent Sunday morning for a regular meeting of their motorcycle lobbying group.
A few days earlier, a federal agency had released figures showing the average number of motorcyclists killed in crashes had doubled in Louisiana in the first two years after the state repealed its mandatory helmet law.
The bikers at Gail's - a woman and seven men who roared up wearing denim and do-rags - believe that those numbers will be used as ammunition. "Every regular legislative session, there's been an attempt" to reinstitute a helmet law, said Ollie "Laddie" Elkins, president of the Louisiana branch of American Bikers Active Towards Education (ABATE). "So far, we've managed to beat them in committee."
The regular battle over helmets in Louisiana might just be a look into the future of Pennsylvania, where Gov. Rendell signed a law repealing the state's helmet law in September. The Louisiana debate pits avid bikers on one side against safety officials and doctors frustrated with the number of fallen motorcyclists with head injuries arriving at emergency rooms.
Elkins, his long, gray hair secured in a foot-long braid, said his group expected another challenge next year and feared that Gov.-elect Kathleen Blanco would sign it into law if it passes. A new mandatory helmet law would be just fine with emergency-room physicians, who believe allowing motorcyclists to ride without helmets is creating a public health problem.
They point to a Louisiana safety commission report that estimated that 46 deaths and 73 severe injuries could have been avoided if motorcyclists had worn helmets between 1999 and 2002. The study calculated that those casualties cost the citizens of Louisiana $102 million.
Departing Gov. Mike Foster, a biker himself, signed Louisiana's repeal into law in August 1999, saying it represented a move toward "less government."
"Government ought not tell us what we can do to protect ourselves," he said. "We should have enough sense to protect ourselves."
Under the Louisiana law, bikers 18 and older do not have to wear a helmet as long as they have proof of at least $10,000 in medical insurance coverage.
Pennsylvania now allows experienced motorcyclists over 21 to go "lidless." When the Keystone State's law went into effect Sept. 4, Pennsylvania became the 31st state to allow adult motorcyclists to ride without head protection. New Jersey has had a mandatory helmet law since the 1970s.
It's not yet clear that the Louisiana experience will be duplicated in Pennsylvania, but emergency-room physicians around the commonwealth are keeping a count of motorcycle accident casualties with the possible aim of launching a challenge.
Marilyn Heine, president-elect of the Pennsylvania chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians, said she did not expect any attempt to overturn the law for two years, the time the state House Legislative Budget and Finance Committee has been given to study the effects of the repeal.
Even when its helmet law was in place, Pennsylvania's motorcycle deaths rose 42 percent between 1996 and 2002 - outpacing a 35 percent increase in ridership during that same time. After two decades of steady decline, U.S. motorcycle deaths also are up, by more than 50 percent since 1997.
A motorcyclist is now 26 times more likely to die in a crash than an automobile passenger, with 3,141 killed in 2001. Researchers are still exploring the causes of the sudden rise, and possible culprits include more motorcycles, bigger engines, older riders, increased alcohol consumption, and the repeal of helmet laws.
In a report released at the end of October, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said an average of 26 motorcyclists were killed in Louisiana in the two years before the state's helmet law was changed in 1999, and 55 in the two years after the repeal, a 111 percent increase.
The report, which also said motorcycle deaths increased by 58 percent in Kentucky after the repeal of that state's helmet law, did not specify the cause of deaths or indicate how many of the fatalities were not wearing a helmet.
A report prepared for the Louisiana Highway Safety Commission and issued this year showed that in cases where helmet use was known, bikers not wearing helmets and dying in accidents outnumbered those who did, by 1.6 to 1, after the repeal.
Both reports said the number of registered motorcycles and accidents had jumped in the years after repeal but not at a rate to match the increase in deaths.
"You can make numbers look like anything you want, say anything you want," said Travis "Blackie" Lawless, a St. James Parish motorcycle officer who wears a helmet on the job but does not when he is off-duty unless the weather is bad.
"Not wearing a helmet does not cause an accident," said Lawless, ABATE-Louisiana's vice president. "And just because you have a helmet on does not mean you're going to survive an accident."
The Louisiana study said a possible key factor in that state is that most bikers in Louisiana apparently have not taken a safety course needed to get the license endorsement to operate a motorcycle. Bikers without a motorcycle endorsement account for 62 percent of the fatalities in Louisiana, the report said.
Lawless and Elkins, a retired chemical-plant worker, agreed that many bikers do not have the safety skills needed to ride motorcycles.
"If [a biker] doesn't know his limitations, he is setting himself up for failure," Lawless said.
Still, the study said, "there is convincing evidence that a decline in helmet use is the most important factor contributing to death and severe injury."
Jim Aiken, an emergency-room doctor at New Orleans' Charity Hospital, could not agree more.
He said with certain injuries there is a "golden hour," during which emergency doctors can stabilize a patient and set the stage for recovery - but not with head injuries.
"Head injuries are a distinct form of injury," said Aiken, who also oversees doctors in Louisiana State University's emergency medicine residency program. "Once we get them, the damage is done. Brain injuries are immediate. There is no golden hour. There's a golden minute."
People who suffer head injuries in crashes but survive "often are left with a lingering health issues that are an enormous burden to society," the doctor said.
"Few realize what a horrible, horrible life it can be to be incapacitated," said Aiken, also a member of the American College of Emergency Physicians. "Being confined can be very painful not only to yourself but to your family as well."
He said the $10,000 in insurance coverage bikers are required to carry to ride helmetless would come nowhere near covering the cost of a lifetime of care, which often falls to the state.
But to the bikers, getting out on the highway on a Harley unencumbered with a helmet is a freedom issue, one with risk but a matter of choice.
"When it's your time, it's your time," said David Metige, a biker who also is a police officer. "I want to do something I enjoy. It's a feeling you can't match. A lot of people don't understand that."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contact staff writer Joseph Gambardello at 856-779-3868 or jgambardello@phillynews.com.
In most cases no one should get something without paying for it. However, what if the injury was caused by someone else's negligence (as is often the case with motorcycles)? If you do not wear a seat belt and your car is negligently hit by someone else, does that relieve them of responsibility for the accident and any injury you suffer?
There are many who don't ride who also don't want to hear this. Awareness of the conditions around you is very important in keeping you safe. I ride in fear of all those big ol' blocks of steel around me; i.e. cars.
I don't know and that is not the point. If someone causes injury to you through negligence, it should be their responsibility to pay for the results of that negligence (through insurance or whatever).
That hasn't changed in 30 years. No helmet can protect from basal skull fractures at 60MPH, and helmets may, in fact, help cause them.
In the meantime, the motorcycling community has been stressing rider safety, especially drivers' education for motorcyclists.
You don't need a helmet if you are never in an accident. Awareness and technical proficiency are the key to riding safely and defensively. A helmet is a burden, a distraction, blinders and earmuffs, all rolled into one.
If you want it, fine, but let those who ride decide.
I agree with the demographic consideration that those who can now afford that large displacement cruiser are sometimes of the mentality that they can handle it if they can write the check, and that they are getting killed (often with helmets on)as a result.
Reaction times suffer with age and only extreme proficiency will overcome that. (Doing exactly the right thing at the right time, even if the initial reaction is a little late.) Like any technical skill, riding suffers with disuse, so whatcha did when means little if a few years have passed since.
I might be writing with a pencil in my teeth, if at all, had I had a helmet on.
Precisely the crap we have been trying to fight.
Let's get this straight. If you prevent the crash, you have prevented injury. What is so difficult to understand here?
If people on a shooting range practised muzzzle discipline like most cagers drive, the shooting sports would have died out long ago.
Add an inch less clearance and the snaps common on Bell style open-face helmets then, and I'd be looking at the world much differently, if at all. The helmet would have rotated my face into the pavement, if it just didn't keep going and break my neck.
Cause of the accident? (no one has been talking about that!) Improper braking technique for road conditions.
Gunnrmike
02 XLH 883 Hugger
03 FXSTDI Deuce
You can't get blood from a stone and you may not be able to get anything from some drivers if they do not have the resources. This is the point about helmets. Why should I pay for medical treatment and maybe even care for life for severly injured bikers who do not wear helmets? Fault is not an issue here. If one or both parties cannot pay any judgement against them, who does? Taxpayers do. If the chances of reducing injuries that are disabling are significantly elevated, then bikers should have to show proof of financial resources for medical treatment and care or wear a helmet.
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