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riding bare-headed is not as risky as playing Russian roulette with an automatic, the odds over time favor the rider with a proper helmet.
  SO WHY REPEAL the law? For the same reason the state does not monitor individuals' diets or require swimmers to wear life jackets. The state has a duty to protect people from one another - not from themselves. In fact, the state has a duty not to protect people from themselves. It is a case of that which is right (personal autonomy) overruling that which is good (personal safety).
Critics of this position take the view that helmet use does affect other people through higher medical costs. That assertion does not stand up on either practical or philosophical grounds.
As a group, motorcyclists rely less on public funds to pay their medical expenses than patients as a whole. (Biker stereotypes aside, motorcyclists tend to affluence; their median income is more than $44,000.) Nor do injured, helmetless motorcyclists have a visible effect on insurance rates. For one, riders constitute only a small fraction of the motoring public. Injured riders constitute only a fraction of that, and helmetless head-trauma victims constitute only a portion of that fraction. A couple of years ago, in response to a policy-holder's inquiry, the underwriting operations supervisor for one of the country's biggest insurance companies wrote: "Motorcycles account for a very small percentage of our total book of business, and the new helmet law would be unidentifiable in our private passenger loss experience."
Even were the case otherwise, insurers could address the matter by charging motorcycle riders more. Even were that case otherwise, the insurance argument has an insidious premise: People should make their personal choices in ways that will maximize the financial advantage of the collective. The implication of such a notion goes well beyond helmet use to - well, it's hard to say what decisions the premise would not affect. Where one lives, what one does for a living, who or when one marries all have financial consequences. It would be interesting to see legislators explain why it is necessary to

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