Subj: AIM/NCOM E-NEWS SERVICE: Forbes FYI, "The Wild One"
Date: 5/17/99 2:44:19 PM Eastern Daylight Time
TO ALL CONCERNED MOTORCYCLISTS: 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED]).
FORBES FYI, May 1999 "What's What"
The Wild One
Wear a motorcycle helmet if you like, but this writer makes a case for ridin'
bare.
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.
