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Editorial: Heads without helmets

Bikers fail again to get their way in the Legislature

Friday, November 24, 2000

Only two years after it last failed, the bid to scrap Pennsylvania's motorcycle helmet law has fallen by the wayside. Let's hope that it's road kill.

Having an accident while riding a motorcycle can lead to death or lasting injury; having the same accident while not wearing a helmet stacks the odds even higher. Yet freedom riders keep returning to the Legislature to fight for their "right to choose."

In 1998, the House and Senate passed a bill repealing the helmet requirement, but Gov. Tom Ridge refused to sign it because it lacked a provision that bikers wear eye protection. This week the House, in a rush to end the lame-duck session, approved the latest measure, but the Senate adjourned without acting on it.

Some of the rhetoric in the Capitol was priceless. Despite general opposition by the medical community -- doctors, hospitals and insurers -- a few lawmakers made their best case for heads-without- helmets.

Rep. Teresa Forcier, the Crawford County Republican who sponsored the bill, said, "We have a unique opportunity to restore the right of individual adult motorcyclists. . . . Let's educate, not legislate."

Rep. Darryl Metcalfe, a Cranberry Republican, credited a helmet for saving his life a motorcycle accident, but he still believes bikers should decide for themselves. "This is about liberty," he said. "This is about freedom." This is also about having your cranium and risking it, too.

One day, society might be willing to oblige them if only riders would sign a waiver beforehand ordering treatment, after a catastrophic accident, to be stopped when they've exhausted their medical benefits. After all, why should the public pick up the tab for a motorcyclist's stupidity?

Because the romance of the road is so great, for some motorcyclists feeling the wind cut through their hair is a thrill more valuable, as highway statistics demonstrate, than life itself. Their quest is not apt to stop.

Go helmet-less? You might as well go headless.

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Since the question has arisen as to how ABATE responds to unfavorable newspaper articles, I thought I would forward my letter to the editor so that you can get a flavor for how we attempt to counter this type of press.

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Re: Editorial: "Heads without helmets"

It is obvious the writer of this editorial is totally unfamiliar with his subject and the failure to adequately research it serves only to perpetuate the half- truths associated with the issue.

"Freedom of choice" is not about the thrill of feeling the wind in our hair any more than a young man’s choice to serve in the armed forces of this country during a time of war is about the thrill of being shot at.

The issue is about returning personal responsibility to trained and experienced adult motorcyclists. It is about rejecting the proposition that the government should be allowed to impose upon the personal decisions of free men.

The proponents of government forcing some bureaucrat’s unenlightened vision of a safe and proper lifestyle on the riding public have attempted to misdirect the intent of modifying the helmet law by pontificating in a way that suggests motorcyclists would no longer be allowed to wear a helmet. Legislators in opposition to the modification who ride proclaim they would never ride without a helmet as if the absence of a mandatory law could somehow affect their judgement.

In their protestations they talk about a risk to children and young adults while ignoring the restrictions that would maintain mandatory helmet use for those under 21. They rail on about the risk to new riders on unfamiliar machines while ignoring the fact that the modified law would require a minimum of two years riding experience or the successful completion of a motorcycle safety course. Not one has ever acknowledged the government statistic that indicates 90% of the motorcyclists involved in accidents have never had formal training.

Helmets are not the panacea many claim them to be. Training riders and educating the motoring public to share the road while being aware of motorcycles are among the most effective ways to prevent accidents, injuries and deaths.

At the Capitol, as your editorial pointed out so clearly, the evidence for mandatory helmet use is more often anecdotal than fact. People who have never ridden purport to know more about the pros and cons of helmet use than those of us who have been riding for decades.

The scare tactics, known as the public burden theory, have not proven to be the case in the 30 states allowing adults the right to make their own decisions. Had this legal option cost those states the millions of dollars in public funds and the radical insurance premium increases our opponents rant about, it is unlikely their laws would remain unchanged. The truth is that those dire predictions do not occur. Just as an increase in the national speed limit did not cause the carnage predicted, the modification of helmet laws to allow adults to exercise their personal responsibility has not led to a fulfillment of the doomsayers' prophecies.

If the safety of motorcyclists was truly of concern to our legislators, they would be passing laws to install safer road barriers and prohibit the use of tar and chip paving. They would insist on proper signage to alert riders to road hazards and require motorcycle awareness training as part of the driver licensing process. They would also be demanding the full prosecution of the motorists who, according to DOT figures, are responsible for over 65% of motorcycle fatalities and an even higher percentage of injuries.

ABATE of PA is not opposed to helmet use; we simply reject the government having a role in mandating them. There is credible evidence from more than one source that helmets, while protecting the head in many instances, may also have been responsible for crippling injuries.

We believe responsible adults should be permitted to weigh the potential risks of helmet use and make their own determinations.

Benjamin Franklin stated the case quite eloquently when he said, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

In a society founded on the principles of personal liberty, an editorial ridiculing those who seek to wrest control of their lives from government mandate is inappropriate.