Put brakes on efforts to repeal biker helmet laws

USA Today ^ | 7/1/2003

[presidio9]

Archie McGregor, 43, was killed Sunday near Custer, Mont., when his motorcycle veered off the road, vaulted a ditch and rolled. He wasn't wearing a safety helmet. Jennifer Smith, 22, died the previous week, when she was thrown from her motorcycle and slammed into a pole on a country road in North Jay, Maine. She wasn't wearing a helmet, either. Both deaths occurred in states that no longer require adults on motorcycles to wear helmets. Nearly universal in the 1970s, mandatory helmet laws are being repealed by states across the USA, in spite of numerous findings that wearing a helmet significantly reduces the risk of death and serious injury. Only 20 states still require helmets on adults, and Pennsylvania's legislature voted Tuesday to repeal its law.

[Between the Lines]

Would someone like to explain to me how dead people "...drive up insurance premiums, disability payments and unemployment compensation?"

There are less survivors to pay into the insurance pool?

[nothingnew]

heh heh heh...Thanks Again!

FMCDH

[babyface00]

This is a nonsensical dispute. If helemts are suddenly mandated everywhere, do you think insurance premiums are suddenly going to come down?

So you think insurance rates are just pulled out of a hat? They're based on assessed risk. Insurance is a competitive and regulated business. That portion which is due to the cost of covering unhelmeted motorcyclists will come down. If there isn't a cost, then some insurance company will certainly target motorcyclists for clients and offer them lower rates. Certainly that would be the case these days, when most Harley riders (or at least most who can afford a new Harley) are wealthy, middle-aged business-savy men! If there's no risk, then get together with some riding buddies and offer discounted insurance to non-helmet-wearing bikers. After all, if it isn't significantly more dangerous or expensive to insure, you oughta make a mint. It's not a business venture I'd back, that's for cetain.

However, despite that, I still don't think it is appropriate for the government to force wearing helmets through legislation. If there is a higher cost to insure unhelmeted riders, then the insurance industry should charge unhelmeted motorcyclists higher premiums, or refuse claims to the families of unhelmeted riders, or both.

If there's no danger, then competition will bring down the rates. This is one case where the market would have solved the perceived problem long ago, and without the government having to be involved.

[laweeks]

Me: "I don't think it's anybody's business if they wear helmets or not. If they're dumb enough to drive a vehicle with NO safety features, let them.."

You: LET THEM???? What do you mean, "let them." You make it sound like a free citizen has to ask for government permission to exert a right."

Me: Tut tut. I agree that no one needs to allow me or you to ride in or on whatever we want to. But, I thought there was an equal protection clause. If so, get rid of all car safety laws that cannot be imposed on motorcyclists. I don't resent motorcyclists. I resent the fact that auto drivers can get ticketed for so many things that bicylists don't: seatbelts, polution requirements, noise ordinances.

Common sense says that a motorcycist should wear a helmet. Common sense says that a car driver should wear seatbelts. I don't need any law to tell me to do that. But we have a bunch of liberal weinies who just can't wait to "nanny" us to death.

[nothingnew]

oops...your pic got pulled by the ad-mon....oh well, I got to see it for, uhm...uh...a few minutes!

BWAHAHA!

FMCDH

[Lee'sGhost]

Adults should be allowed to chose, but helmets for minors should be mandatory. BUT, adults who don't should not be given free medical after they dash their brains out on a telephone pole and become vegetables.

[Lee'sGhost]

"No helmet?
No gov't assistance. No unpaid bills."

Hear, hear!

Here's a little fact. People ARE free not to have to wear helmets -- if they don't ride on the streets. I learned at an early age that having a drivers license is a priviledge, not a right. How far do people want to take the "freedom" argument? "Freedom from turn signals! Freedom from rear view mirrors! Freedom from safety inspected cars! If you can't drive a hazardous piece of junk that can kill other people you're not free!"

[spunkets]

" I learned at an early age that having a drivers license is a priviledge, not a right.

Turn signals, speed limits, ect. are a valid requirements to facilitate safe and effective traffic. Safety inspected cars and and all other, for your own good rules are not.

"If you can't drive a hazardous piece of junk that can kill other people you're not free!"

The qualification hazardous, is overrated.

"How far do people want to take the "freedom" argument?"

You're either Free, or you're not. "

[Dogrobber]

Unlike you, I have not had my life saved by a helmet.

Unlike other "free spirited" bikers, I am more than willing to learn from your experience (and the sad experience of others now deceased) and use a helmet while I ride, regardless of the state's laws where I am riding. If it was not for the costs that I will have to bear I would be happy to thin the gene pool a little and remove those that will not learn from others experience.

Ride safe, ride long and wearing protective gear (helmet and body armor).

[Lee'sGhost]

"You're either Free, or you're not. "

By your explanation then no generation in America has been free.

[Dan from Michigan]

The helmet law should end. These insurance lobbies need to be given the finger.

[archy]

That's one reason 49 states have mandatory seat-belt-use laws for adults.

Wow! What state still lets adults make choices for themselves? I might want to move there if they are as freedom-loving as this little tid-bid makes them appear!

We're working on another one, too. And interestingly, are drafting a proposed state law that would make compliance with federal extortion a state *official misconduct* offense, carrying a minimal misdemeanor criminal penalty, but resulting in the loss of the state office or position of the extortion-compliant public servant.

The feds use of the threat of withholding federalm gasoline tax funds collected by the states evaporates pretty quickly in the face of state responses to quit collecting those taxes, or, should the taxes be collected prior to shipment delivery into the state, with deferral of maintenance on pet federal projects like interstate highways until the extortion ends.

-archy-/-

[archy]

Most of the clowns who ride bare headed don't have insurance anyway. The answer is to stop offering charity treatment to uninsured bikers

Good idea. And for 4-wheeled drivers who fail to wear helmets and padded protective gear inside their cars as well. After all, if it saves the life of even one child, it'll be worth it.

And, of course, if the appropriate passenger safety equipment isn't available for all inside the vehicle, they can't be allowed to ride inside. Too dangerous!

-archy-/-

[killjoy]

Unlike other "free spirited" bikers, I am more than willing to learn from your experience (and the sad experience of others now deceased) and use a helmet while I ride, regardless of the state's laws where I am riding. If it was not for the costs that I will have to bear I would be happy to thin the gene pool a little and remove those that will not learn from others experience.

Everyone I know who rides wears a helmet, jacket (FieldSheer/Joe Rocket/Vanson), gloves and other gear. None of it is required since we live in Florida. Even most squids wear helmets. The only ones I regularly see without them are the guys on harleys.

[AdA$tra]

What we need is a nationawide 30 mph speed limit, strictly enforced.

I already experience that on the way back to work just now. 21 MPH tops and she slowed down at EACH intersection for about twenty-eight blocks. If they didn't have a veteran's tag I would have lit 'em up and blown around them.

[archy]

Further, I'll dress appropriately for riding. Doing both saved my life when I was just 16. I was riding a Yamaha YDS2 (boy I wish I had one now)

You're too old now. You grew up.

Get a nice station wagon, maybe one with pretty vinyl wood-grain paneling. Or maybe a nice mini-van.

[AdA$tra]

By your explanation then no generation in America has been free.

A little bit less free every day it seems.

[Lee'sGhost]

"A little bit less free every day it seems."

I agree. But I still maintain that people are free to ride w/o if they so choose, just not on the highways (in most states).

[MineralMan]

"Further, I'll dress appropriately for riding. Doing both saved my life when I was just 16. I was riding a Yamaha YDS2 (boy I wish I had one now)

You're too old now. You grew up.

"

Nah. I still ride. I just wish I had that revolutionary bike from 1962 again. It was huge fun, made a nice noise, and ate Trimph 500s in short runs. For a 250cc bike, it was super fast for its time.

Best part of it was that it was a two-stroke, and they didn't have oil injection back then. The mix was 24:1, and the bike put out this wonderful blue haze while it made the prettiest noise I've ever heard from a bike.

There aren't many around any more. Like all the early Japanese bikes, they weren't really designed to last for years.

[Richard Kimball]

This article was brought to you by the motorcycle helmet manufacturer's association.