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Special Feature From RoadBike December/January 2006
The Right To Choose By George Blumberg
On August 10, President Bush signed into law a huge transportation spending bill, a $286.4 billion piece of legislation designed to fund federal highways and other transportation projects. Depending on whom you speak to, the bill is either a balanced piece of legislation, or it’s loaded down with $26 billion in pork barrel projects. And despite several provisions related to motorcyclists’ rights and safety, one item never made it into the transportation bill for the president’s signature: a proposed amendment calling for a universal motorcycle helmet use law.
Digging into the pork barrel of over 6,300 special projects, you come up with gems such as a $223 million, mile-long bridge in Alaska to link the 50 residents of Gravina Island to the mainland. However, among the more worthy projects are those affecting motorcyclists, including a $3 million grant allocation for the study of motorcycle crashes. The grants will be administered from the Oklahoma Transportation Center, located at Oklahoma State University. Sen. James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) helped influence the legislation’s passage (oink?), while Rep. Sam Graves (R-Missouri) introduced the motorcycle study language into the bill. Notably, according to Tom Lindsay of the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA), the last comprehensive study on motorcycle crashes was the Hurt Report, published in 1981.
Lindsay also noted that the transportation bill maintains motorcycle access to HOV lanes and specifies that local governments will continue to be prohibited from excluding motorcycles from roads maintained with federal funds. In addition, $25 million will be made available to states for motorcycle safety training and awareness programs. But there’s no mention of helmet use laws. The Lost Amendment
Highway funds were first linked to helmet use in 1966, when states enacted universal helmet laws. Over time, state governments reacted to the pressure of lobbying groups by repealing or modifying those laws (see table, page 62). Today, universal helmet laws make helmet use mandatory for all motorcyclists in 20 states and the District of Columbia. Twenty-six states have modified helmet laws that require helmets only for riders under a certain age, while four states — Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, and New Hampshire — have no helmet law at all. In support of the amendment, Lautenberg cited recent DOT motorcycle crash statistics: 3,927 motorcyclists killed in 2004, “…an almost two-fold increase from 10 years ago,” he said. But he linked the increased number of deaths to the number of riders not wearing helmets, rather than to the significant increase in the overall number of motorcyclists on the road. And while his office couldn’t specify the number of deaths or injuries specifically attributed to not using helmets, Lautenberg still stressed that “repealing helmet laws has led to more deaths.” By contrast, the AMA’s official position is that helmet use should not be mandated — and the AMA is 265,000 members strong, a lobbying force to be reckoned with. “We believe adult riders should have a choice on how they ride,” says Lindsay. “Our clear position is to encourage the use of helmets, other protective gear, and rider education, among other things, to increase skills and reduce crashes and injuries. A helmet or jacket doesn’t prevent accidents, and we don’t concede that crashes are inevitable. If accidents are reduced, so will injuries be reduced.” While the AMA agrees that 3,927 deaths is an alarming figure, it states, “There’s no research to determine the cause of these crashes.” Roots Of Debate The politics of the past have seen universal helmet laws enacted and repealed in many states. “It all started with the Highway Safety Act of 1966, which generated the universal helmet law in 1967,” explains Russ Rader, spokesman for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. “States were required to adopt universal helmet laws, or else lose a portion of their highway funds. So, by 1975, 47 states and DC had universal helmet laws.” Then, in 1975, Congress revised the Highway Safety Act, removing the connection between universal helmet laws and construction funds. “Many states reacted by either repealing their universal helmet laws or amending them to cover only riders below a certain age,” says Rader. “By 1980, only 19 states plus DC had universal helmet laws.” In 1991, a General Accounting Office report concluded that helmets were effective safety devices. Thus ensued the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991, providing incentive grants to states with universal motorcycle helmet and vehicle safety belt laws. By 1995, 26 states had universal helmet laws; but then Congress repealed the incentive grants, and efforts to repeal helmet laws rose in many states. Jeff Hennie, vice president of government relations for the Motorcycle Riders Foundation, a national motorcycle rights organization, notes, “Today, in every state that has a helmet law, there is some sort of legislation or action to try to overturn it.” No state illustrates the divisiveness over motorcycle helmet laws more clearly than Illinois, which repealed its universal helmet law in 1970. On May 11 of this year, Illinois senators Richard Durbin and Barack Obama, both Democrats, split on the issue. Durbin voted for the Lautenberg universal helmet amendment, and Obama voted against it. Sen. Durbin’s office responded in a written statement: “In the debate between motorcyclists who tell me to mind my own business and emergency room doctors who beg me to do something to reduce the carnage, I try to find the common ground between personal freedom and safety. In my opinion, the Lautenberg amendment struck that balance and would have raised awareness about the importance of motorcycle helmets, and would have provided states with federal funds to expand safety programs.” Sen. Obama’s office responded by stating, “He opposed the amendment on the floor of the Senate because it would have cost Illinois $35 million in highway funds.” The Players Respond Ed Moreland, the AMA’s Washington lobbyist, was instrumental in getting the Motorcycle Crash Study passed as part of the Transportation Bill. “It’s simple,” he says. “Government officials showed they genuinely want to reduce crashes and deaths by funding a causation study. We need to determine the factors contributing to crashes and to safety.” “A helmet never prevented an accident,” says MRF’s Hennie. “Education makes better riders. We’re all for education of car drivers about motorcycles, and of motorcyclists on how to improve their skills.” He continues, “The bigger picture is that the federal government shouldn’t be pushing state legislatures around, telling them what laws they must have or they’ll lose part of their funding.” Does he think that mandated helmet use is any different than mandated automobile seatbelt use? “Motorcyclists make up only 3 percent of road traffic,” says Hennie. “It’s a small minority compared with automobiles and goes back to human freedoms and civil liberties.” “A crash study is fine,” says Alan Williams, recently retired after 32 years as chief scientist with the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, and now a consultant for it. “But that shouldn’t deflect the research on helmets, which is very clear. They work and are effective.” The institute cites National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) figures showing that helmets reduce the risk of fatal head injury by 40 percent and the risk of death by 37 percent. Other studies show that non-helmeted motorcyclists are three times more likely to suffer traumatic brain injuries in a crash than helmeted riders, while an NHTSA study shows that average inpatient hospital charges for non-helmeted motorcycle crash victims are 8 percent higher than those for helmeted riders. “Nobody wants to crash, but, frankly, if you do, you should be wearing a helmet. The motorcycle lobbyists will never come out and say in plain English that a helmet helps.” Williams continues, “There have been lots of studies that conclude that when a state repeals a helmet law, the death and injury rates go up. And in an adjacent state where the helmet law is maintained, the death rate remains constant.” He says that since the value of wearing a helmet can’t be disputed, the real point of contention is individual freedom. “Motorcyclists are a powerful, sophisticated lobby,” he says. “They’re just saying, ‘We’re only hurting ourselves; leave us alone’.” One consequence of uneven helmet laws among states is the selling of small, cheap (under $10), plastic beanie-type helmets that offer virtually no protection and sometimes carry a phony DOT approval label. Some bikers don these lids when they ride into a state with a helmet law, as a means of nominal compliance. “Heck,” says Williams, “I’ve even seen people at borders coming into helmet-optional states take off their helmets and put on bandanas. They surely don’t help at all.” Cheryl Pearre is legislative coordinator for A Brotherhood Aimed Toward Education (ABATE) of Illinois, a grassroots motorcyclist rights organization with 12,000 members. The ABATE concept, which has chapters in every state, was started in 1971 as A Brotherhood Against Totalitarian Enactments, a reaction to mandates that linked federal funds to the adoption of state helmet laws. When asked if helmets contribute to safety, she sidestepped and said, “We feel that it’s a state- and individual-rights issue for motorcyclists to wear helmets. We believe safety education is the key to reducing fatalities.” The organization runs motorcycle safety education programs in several states. Does Dubya have a position on the issue? We can only speculate, though we’ve noticed that he’s now up on two wheels, having switched his exercise routine from jogging to mountain biking (easier on the knees). Whenever there’s a Dubya bicycle photo op, he’s wearing a helmet. And in a well-publicized fall from his bicycle at the Crawford ranch, where he suffered some minor abrasions, he was wearing not only a helmet, but also a mouth guard. Given the ongoing battles among lobbyists, legislators, and their constituents, maybe mouth guards should be universally required for politicians. RB Getting Involved If you’re looking for ways to join the debate or simply catch up on current events, these organizations offer tons of up-to-date information and links to many local, state, and national resources for riders. ABATE of Illinois American Motorcyclist Association Bikers Rights Online Motorcycle Riders Foundation |
