US Government ponders helmet laws

Nineteen American states already have mandatory crash helmet regulations for motorcyclists. Twenty-seven states have a minimum age requirement for non-helmet riding. Two states have age/insurance requirements. And two states leave riders to make up their own minds.

But a federal task force, we understand, is currently examining the status quo and looking to see not how they can save lives, but how they can save money.

That appears to be at the hub of the matter.

The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta is charged with the responsibility for protecting public safety and getting the most bang out of the American buck. To that end, with US health bills soaring and the nation still struggling towards sustained financial recovery, the relatively few number of bikers (and we did say "relatively") killed and maimed are now being examined on the accounting books by the financial doctors.

Various American riders’ rights groups have consistently expressed the view that helmet wearing should remain a matter for individual choice. HELMETS YES, COMPULSION NO is the time honoured battle cry. All, or at least most, such groups advocate the voluntary wearing of lids, but they explicitly want the government to stay well clear of introducing laws at federal level.

These lid-law threats have come and gone over the years, and so far, state law has prevailed. But it's conceivable that the position might change radically in the light of current economic realities, perhaps exacerbated by President Obama's (expensive) health care reform plans that are currently causing huge controversy in the US.

As corny as it sounds (and these quotes always sound a little corny), President Abraham Lincoln apparently once said: "America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."

Consequently, we like to think that Lincoln would have come down squarely against any laws that curtail personal freedom. Except, of course, that times change, and contexts change, and it might well be that a modern-day Lincoln would take a more pragmatic view and accept that the wider social interest demands some kind of federal response to the disproportionate number of bikers killed in the USA (and elsewhere in the world).

We certainly don't see it that way. We're 100 percent in favour of choice when it comes to the matter of personal safety. And remember, the argument that advocates the mandatory wearing of crash helmets ultimately leads to the logical conclusion that motorcycles should be banned completely.

It's worth mentioning too that a report on the Visordown website presents some (possibly unintentionally) misleading statistics that warrant a closer look.

"In states without helmet laws [it reads], 79 percent of the motorcyclists killed weren't wearing helmets, compared to 12 percent in states that require all riders to wear helmets."

Well, the numbers might be true, but they aren't necessarily the truth. If more riders in one state habitually ride without lids, you would EXPECT to see more killed without lids even though the death rate overall is not necessarily any higher.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that the deceased riders died BECAUSE they were lid-less. You might as well say that 79 percent of beard-less riders were killed in one state, compared to only 12 percent in a state where beards are more common. But that doesn't mean that the lack of beards had any role to play in their deaths.

It's simply playing with numbers, folks, and all done with mathematical smoke and mirrors.

▲ Above: Sump Classic bike news June 2012 carried a related story on US helmet use. Click the image to take a closer look.

Of course, a truer picture might well show that the lack of helmet use does INDEED lead to increased fatalities (although we've seen compelling numbers from both camps). Or it might be the other way around. But that isn't really the argument. The argument is simply the right to CHOOSE how to live and what personal risks you're prepared to take whilst living that life.

The statistics alone never give the complete picture. Keep that in mind as you make up your mind.

Meanwhile, here at Sump we're such cowards that we wear lids even when hanging wallpaper, and we choose to wear them whenever we feel it's appropriate (which means practically always).

You should choose for yourself, too, and keep the governments of the world well out of it. Lincoln himself might well have said, "Beards yes. Compulsion no."

Amen to that, Abe.

www.americanmotorcyclist.com
www.abateofaz.org
www.boltusa.org

— Sam 7

Vincent: World's Fastest Production Motorcycle

[for details, click here]