The Following is a copy of the article, "The Wild One" published in Forbes
FYI, which effectively articulates many of our best arguments in favor of
Freedom of Choice on helmet use...and best yet, it's printed in a respected,
credible and well-recognized magazine. Copies were distributed recently at
the NCOM Convention in Phoenix, Arizona, and many attendees felt this article
would make an impressive and convincing addition to any state's lobbying
package. Therefore, NCOM will be sending copies to all state motorcycle rights
organizations that are members of the National Coalition of Motorcyclists,
and to others by request (e-mail your name and address to aimncom@aimncom.com).
By Dick Teresi
ABATE, or American Bikers Aiming Toward Education, is a nationwide organization
of helmet-hating Harley riders. Mensa is an international organization of
geniuses and near-geniuses. Its members must score in the top two percent
of the population in an intelligence test.
The Gator Alley chapter of ABATE challenged its neighbors in the Southwest
Florida chapter of Mensa to a whiz-kid test of knowledge. No bikes, no chains,
no colors. Just tough questions, such as “What was established by the
Lateran Treaty of 1929?”
The showdown took place in Bonita Springs, Florida. It was a seesaw battle,
but in the end, the bikers won. To be truthful, Mensa played without the
services of its president, Jeff Avery. On the other hand, the ABATE team
played without Avery also. He disqualified himself, being president of both
clubs. After their loss, the Mensans sat down with their opponents and listened
to arguments for the bikers’ favorite cause: the repeal of motorcycle
helmet laws for bikers over the age of 21. Several Mensans, swayed by the
logical arguments, joined ABATE, even some who were not bikers.
I cite the Mensa-ABATE showdown to demonstrate that not all anti-helmet-law
activists are intellectually challenged, which is the prevailing media consensus.
The TV reporter interviews a helmet-law advocate, a scientist (smart) in
a white lab coat pointing to a hard, spiffy helmet. Then she interviews a
drunken, tattooed biker (dumb) who screams “Helmet laws suck!”
as he falls off his barstool.
It seems intuitive that wearing something hard on your head would help you
survive a motorcycle accident. Many state legislators agree. Twenty-two states
and the District of Columbia now have laws mandating helmet use by adult
motorcyclists. The laws appear to work. A study by the Centers for Disease
Control (CDC) indicates, quite conclusively, that motorcycle deaths per 1
million residents are lower in states with helmet laws.
That sounds good, but we could make the same argument for surfing helmets.
Let’s say Kansas, Nebraska and Wyoming pass laws requiring helmet use
by surfers. California does not. The CDC then does a study, finding that
states with surfer-helmet laws have fewer surfing deaths per 1 million residents
than California does. This would be a ridiculous argument. People don’t
surf in Kansas, and if they did, it would be relatively safe, helmet or no
helmet, there being no ocean.
Similarly, you find a lower density of bikers in helmet-law states. For many
bikers, motorcycling with a helmet is like surfing without an ocean. Compare
Florida, a helmet state, with Iowa, a no-helmet state. Florida has a beautiful,
year-round riding season. Iowa has a long, brutal winter. Yet Iowa has more
than three times the numbers of registered motorcycles per hundred population
as Florida. In California, a onetime biker paradise, registrations dropped
by 22% (138,000 fewer bikes) in the first four years after its legislature
passed a helmet law. Overall, states with no helmet law had 2.6 motorcycle
registrations per 100 population compared to 1.3 in helmet-law states. In
other words, non-helmet states have twice as many bikers.
Let’s go back to those CDC statistics that show helmets prevent deaths.
If we use the same statistics, but count fatality rates per 10,000 registered
motorcycles rather than per all residents, one finds that helmet-law states
actually suffered a HIGHER average fatality rate (3.38 deaths per 10,000)
than non-helmet-law states (3.05 deaths). this is not sufficient evident
to prove that not wearing a helmet is safer, but it demonstrates that helmet
laws do not reduce deaths.
Another way to measure the difference is to look at deaths per 100 accidents.
Not even helmet law advocates suggest that helmets will reduce the number
of motorcycle accidents. The purpose of a helmet is to help the rider survive
an accident. The numbers indicate otherwise. During the seven-year period
from 1987 through 1993, states with no helmet laws or partial laws (for riders
under 21) suffered fewer deaths (2.89) per 100 accidents that those states
with full helmet laws (2.93 deaths).
How can this be true? Is it possible that helmets don’t work? Go to
a motorcycle shop and examine a Department of Transportation-approved helmet.
Look deep into its comforting plush lining, and hidden amidst the soft fuzz
you’ll find a warning label: “Some reasonably foreseeable impacts
may exceed the helmet’s capability to protect against severe injury
or death.”
What is a “reasonably foreseeable” impact? Any impact around 14
miles per hour or greater. Motorcycle helmets are tested by being dropped
on an anvil from a height of six feet, the equivalent of a 13.66-mph impact.
If you ride at speeds less than 14 mph and are involved only in accidents
involving stationary objects, you’re golden. A typical motorcycle accident,
however, would be a biker traveling at, say, 30 mph, and being struck by
a car making a left turn at, maybe, 15 mph. That’s an effective cumulative
impact of 45 mph. Assume the biker is helmet-clad, and that he is struck
directly on the head. The helmet reduces the blow to an impact of 31.34 mph.
Still enough to kill him. The collisions that helmets cushion effectively
- say, seven-mph motorcycles with seven-mph cars - are not only rare but
eminently avoidable.
Another reason helmets don’t work: An object breaks at its weakest point.
Some helmet advocates argue that while helmets may not reduce the overall
death rate, they prevent death due to head trauma. Jonathan Goldstein, a
professor of economics at Bowdoin College, in Brunswick, Maine, wondered
how this could be. If fatal head traumas were decreasing, then some other
kind of fatal injury must be rising to make up the difference.
Applying his expertise in econometrics to those aforementioned CDC statistics,
Goldstein discovered what was happening. In helmet-law states, there exists
a reciprocal relationship between death due to head trauma and death due
to neck injury. That is, a four-pound helmet might save the head, but the
force is then transferred to the neck. Goldstein found that helmets begin
to increase one’s chances of a fatal neck injury at speeds exceeding
13-mph, about the same impact at which helmets can no longer soak up kinetic
energy. For this reason, Dr. Charles Campbell, a Chicago heart surgeon who
performs more than 300 operations per year and rides his dark-violet, chopped
Harley Softail to work at Michael Reese Hospital, refuses to wear a helmet.
“Your head may be saved,” says Dr. Campbell, “but your neck
will be broken.”
John G. U. Adams, of University College, London, cites another reason not
to wear a helmet. He found that helmet-wearing can lead to excessive risk-taking
due to the unrealistic sense of invulnerability that a motorcyclist feels
when he dons a helmet. False confidence and cheap horsepower are a lethal
combination. I called a local (Massachusetts) Suzuki dealer, and told the
salesman I was a first-time buyer looking for something cheaper than the
standard $15,000 Harley. He said I could buy the GSXR 1300 for only $10,500,
a bike that could hit speeds in excess of 160 miles per hour. He recommended
that I wear a helmet, even in non-helmet-law states. Imagine: a novice on
a 160-mph bike wearing a plastic hat that will reduce any impact by 14 mph.
It’s like having sex with King Kong, but bringing a condom for
safety’s sake.
Why the enthusiasm for helmets? Mike Osborn, chairman of the political action
committee of California ABATE, says insurance companies are big supporters
of helmet laws, citing the “public burden” argument. That is, reckless
bikers sans helmets are raising everyone’s car insurance rates by running
headlong into plate-glass windows and the like, sustaining expensive head
injuries.
Actually, it’s true that bikers indirectly jack up the rates of car
drivers, but not for the reason you might think. Car drivers plow over bikers
at an alarming rate. According to the Second International Congress on Automobile
Safety, the car driver is at fault in more than 70% of all car/motorcycle
collisions. A typical accident occurs when a motorist illegally makes a left
turn into the path of an oncoming motorcycle, turning the biker into an unwitting
hood ornament. In such cases, juries tend to award substantial damages to
the injured biker. Car insurance premiums go up.
Osborn sees a hidden agenda. “They (the insurance companies) want to
get us off the road.” Fewer bikes means fewer claims against car drivers.
Helmet laws do accomplish that goal, as evidenced by falling motorcycle
registrations in helmet-law states. It is interesting to note that carriers
of motorcycle insurance do not complain about their clients. Motorcycle liability
insurance remains cheap. Osborn pays only $125 per year for property damage
and personal injury liability because motorcycles cause little damage to
others.
Keith R. Ball was one of the pioneers of ABATE, its first manager in 1971
and later its national director. What annoys him most is the anecdotal approach
taken by journalists who have a penchant for reporting whenever the victim
of a fatal motorcycle accident was NOT wearing a helmet. When was the last
time you saw a news item mentioning that a dead biker was wearing a helmet?
Which is not to say that Ball opposes helmets. He thinks anyone who rides
in a car should wear one. After all, he points out, head injuries make up
only 20% of serious injuries to motorcyclists, but they account for 90% of
all car injuries. If Ball’s idea catches hold, one day I suspect
you’ll see angry men stepping out of Volvos with odd T-shirts beneath
their tweed jackets. The T-shirts will read: HELMET LAWS SUCK.
