“I disagree completely when government says that because of the number of head injuries from accidents with motorcycles that (a person) should be forced to wear a helmet,” declarethed Ronaldo Maximus many years ago. “I happen to think he’s stupid if he rides a motorcycle without a helmet, but that’s one of our sacred rights – to be stupid.”
There’s only one flaw I can find in Reagan’s logic: It might not be so stupid to ride a motorcycle without a helmet after all.
The best argument against mandatory helmet laws is individual choice and freedom. Let those who ride decide. After all, this is the United States of America; supposedly the freest nation on the planet. But the personal liberty argument falls on deaf ears when it comes to mommy-knows-best nanny-staters. They’re gonna protect us from ourselves whether we like it not.
Here’s the problem: While helmets often can prevent having your skull cracked open, resulting in a major grey-matter spill on the sidewalk, the added weight of a government-mandated motorcycle helmet makes it more likely that you’ll break your neck. Some choice.
The fact is motorcycle fatalities average 12% in all states whether helmets are mandated or not. Nevertheless, the mommy-knows-best crowd continues to advance the fallacious argument that folks injured in motorcycle accidents become a “public burden” for taxpayers. You know, like illegal aliens.
Sorry. Cheap shot.
Nevertheless, Helmet Law Facts by Warren Woodward completely blows this argument away:
“According to the National Center for Health Statistics,” writes Woodward, “approximately 1.16% of total U.S. Health costs are attributable to motor vehicle accidents, and the costs associated with the treatment of motorcyclist injuries account for less that 0.001% of total U.S. health care costs. Only a portion of that less-than-0.001% cost is attributable to un-helmeted motorcyclists, and the majority of that cost is paid by privately purchased health insurance. What remains, spread across the taxpayer base – which includes millions of taxpaying motorcyclists – is insignificant.”
In addition, some 80 percent of all highway head fatalities occur in automobile accidents, despite the use of seat belts, which helps explain why most brain trauma deaths are in cars. So if safety and minimizing taxpayer exposure are the objectives, why aren’t we mandating helmet use in passenger cars, hmmm?
Here’s why: Because wearing a helmet restricts vision and impairs hearing, making it more difficult to hear a police siren or screeching brakes or a mother-in-law in the back yelling at you to slow down.
Would somebody please square this circle for me? If helmets make it more likely for an automobile driver to be in an accident, how does forcing a motorcyclist to wear one help prevent him or her from being in an accident?
Nevada Assemblyman Don Gustavson (R-Reno) has introduced a bi-partisan bill (AB 300) to repeal the state’s mommy-knows-best helmet law. Gustavson’s bill would allow helmet choice for motorcyclists 21 years or older who have completed an approved motorcycle safety course and have at least one year of motorcycle driving experience under their belt.
Standing in the bill’s way will be Nevada State Sen. Dennis Nolan (RINO-Las Vegas). Not only does Nolan oppose repeal of the helmet law, he’s the prime mover-and-shaker behind the use of revenue-producing red-light cameras, making failure to wear a seat belt a primary offense, a national ID card, tax hikes up the wazoo, and requiring children to use booster seats until they go to college or get married, whichever comes first.
There is no reason for any self-respecting, freedom-loving American to support these mandatory helmet laws. If the objective, as the nanny-staters would have us believe, is to make everyone safer rather than control our lives, why not just ban motorcycles (and bicycles and skateboards) altogether and lower the highway speed limit for automobiles to 25 mph?
Yikes! Better not give them any ideas.
Posted on March 19th, 2009 by chuckmuth
Filed under: Uncategorized
>>>Helmet Law Facts by Warren Woodward completely blows this argument away<<<
Perhaps for rational people, it will have no effect on “nanny state” liberasl. After all reams of similar stastics didn’t even slow the feds down when they were passing the rediculous Assault Weapons Ban.
Dear Mr Muth,
I served my country in mid 80’s and for good reason. I love my country and the fact that I have the freedom to make my own decisions, reguardless of the issue. With that being said, I HIGHLY support the AB300 Bill. Sometimes I ride with, sometimes without a helmet. Whether I ride in or out of state, it should ALWAYS be MY choice.
Thank You, Bud Jacobsen
The reason I wore a helmet during my 30+ years of riding had more to do with hard headed bugs and the closure rate of rocks thrown at me by semi wheels than anything else. All my helmets had road scars I was glad my head did not have to endure. I do not agree with the state mandate. I think people should be free to choose. If women can choose to do as they wish with a life growing inside them, if the media can choose to equate a self-loading firearm to a fully automatic assault weapon, if a sitting President can choose to whine like a baby needing a diaper change about things not being his fault rather than leading the country; who cares whether or not someone riding a motorcycle is wearing a helmet? Only the people who want to control every individual in the country by enslaving them. In pre-saxon times if you had a sword or long knife called a Seax (Sea-Axe), you were a freeman, If you did not you were a slave. Only freemen were allowed to own weapons. Slaves were not. The fewer choices we have, the fewer weapons we have, the more we become enslaved. Who is your master? Congress or you?
Why all this emphasis on facts and statistics? Don’t you know that only feelings count? Specifically, the nanny-state liberal do-gooders feelings, certainly not yours. So if helmet laws make them feel good, who are we to object?