Helmet Laws
Looks like the legislators are trying to allow people to ride motorcycles without helmets:
Riders who are at least 25, have private health insurance and pass a safety course would no longer be required to wear helmets under the bill. Twenty-seven other states have such a law.
The riders would have to pay $15 for a special designation on their driver’s licenses. It would cover administrative costs, and $10 would go to the state’s traumatic brain injury fund, said the sponsor, Sen. Tim Burchett, R-Knoxville.
I pretty much oppose helmet laws (and seatbelt laws) because it is, after all, my right to make decisions for myself, even if those decisions are irretrievably stupid.
March 31st, 2004 at 10:22 am
I once watched a debate on “helmet laws” and although I tend to oppose putting such paternalism into law, proponents made two fiscal arguments that sounded good at first:
It would reduce insurance costs.
It would save the state’s taxpayers millions in medical costs for uninsured motorcycle accident victims.
Opponents then reminded us that seat belt laws were also supposed to reduce insurance costs, and asked: “How many of you saw auto insurance costs decrease, or stay the same, or even rise at a slower rate after seat belt laws were passed?” Thus was that argument shown to be bogus.
Opponents also asked if proponents would be amenable to accepting this provision as part of a helmet law:
One year later a compliance survey would be taken, and based upon the results state taxes would be automatically cut by the amount of the millions that the state supposedly saved in reduced medical costs for uninsured accident victims.
When proponents refused to accept this proposal, we realized that the taxes saved argument was bogus as well.
March 31st, 2004 at 10:26 am
The government’s good intentions often don’t pan out into anything fruitful.
March 31st, 2004 at 10:36 am
My condition — and here’s one place I’ll force a condition on someone — would be that they have to be automatic organ donors. You smash on the pavement without a helmet, your pumps and filters are up for grabs.
March 31st, 2004 at 10:39 am
The “reduce insurance premiums” argument is the slipperiest of slopes. If you’re going that route, you would logically just outlaw motorcycles completely.
March 31st, 2004 at 10:40 am
and cars, and dogs, and trampolines, and bath tubs, and tile floors, and …..
March 31st, 2004 at 10:45 am
Drove a motorcycle without a helmet in FL a couple years ago. Felt really strange, watching the pavement whiz by below. Made it to Mickie D’s, ate, and went straight back to the garage. Maybe it’s something you get used to, but my head wants padding if there’s any chance of pavement contact.
March 31st, 2004 at 10:48 am
I believe the government should stay out of people’s affairs as much as possible. That’s a principle I get behind in most policy matters. But helmet laws save lives, and the price of freedom is brain goo on the highway.
Helmet laws are paternalistic. But sometimes stupid people make really bad, childish decisions, even if they are adults who should be able to take care of themselves.
I’ve been down a couple times, and I have a souvenir helmet with a nasty black gouge in the chin bar, right where I smile. I’m too pretty to wreck my grin, so I’m a big fan of helmets.
We live in a world where our decisions affect others, where the choices we make have an impact on society. I don’t have a problem with society making effective rules about how collective resources (like roads and emergency services) get used.
On the whole, society is better off with helmet laws. To you it’s a freedom issue. To me it’s a safety issue and an emotional one– I think about all the guys I know with souvenir helmets, and I’m glad they don’t have souvenir skulls.
I waffle on this issue. In my more libertarian moods, I say, “Let ’em die”. In my most compassionate moments, that attitude disgusts me.
Ride safe.
March 31st, 2004 at 11:10 am
There are a number of angles on this one…the first is the health insurers themselves. I doubt that they would want to accept the liability from someone who doesn’t wear their helmet and gets into an accident, but will most likely be forced to. In that case, everyone ends up paying for that persons stupidity by higher health insurance premiums.
As to reduced premiums and what not, I know that Ontario, Canada was one of the first jurisdictions to introduce seat belt laws and the first year results in reduction in fatalities was dramatic. I would imagine that states that introduce or pull seatbelt or helmet laws at this stage of the game would have a less dramatic effect simply because a lot of people wear seatbelts and helmets no matter what the law might say.
March 31st, 2004 at 11:16 am
I don’t think helmets should be mandatory, since that decision effects nobody by the motorcycle driver. I’m somewhat conflicted on the seatbelt law though. On one hand I don’t like the idea of the government forcing people to use seatbelts.
On the other hand, when your decision not to wear a seatbelt means that in an accident I have to deal with a hundred plus pound object flying through my windshield at 50 miles an hour, it’s hard for me to buy the argument that I’m not affected by the decision.
March 31st, 2004 at 5:36 pm
My take on helmet and seat belt laws: Should be mandatory for minors, and optional for adults. If, however, an adult is seriously injured in an accident and was not wearing a helmet or seat belt, that adult’s right (or the right of his or her heris) to sue is severely restricted.
If I hit you and it’s my fault I hit you, and you’re not wearing a helmet, and you’re seriously injured but wouldn’t have been if you had been wearing a helmet, my liability is limited to the damages that would have been incurred had you been wearing a helmet.
March 31st, 2004 at 5:52 pm
I like Tgirsh’s solution. While I agree in principle with the slogan “let those who ride, decide,” I cringe every time I see someone ride by without a helmet, which almost never happens in Kalifornia but seems to be the norm everywhere else. I think it’s a pretty safe bet that if I hadn’t been wearing a helmet myself last December, my current blog entries would be even more retarded than they are now.
March 31st, 2004 at 10:43 pm
Motorcycle accidents affect more than the rider. Society loses in this case where head injury can be prevented. You and I pay the bills whether outright or through increased insurance premiums when people mess themselves up.
There’s also a reason we call them “Donor Cycles” in the ER. That’s all.
April 1st, 2004 at 12:01 am
BM: you’re advancing two mutually inconsistent theories. One is that motorcyclists without helmets survive and become wards of the state, the other is that motorcyclists without helmets die quickly and provide life-saving organs to more worthy candidates in need. Which is it?
As for me, I totally reject any economic based decision on mandating vs. not mandating. For all I know, riding without a helmet could generate a net savings to taxpayers, by causing riders to die instantly rather than just barely survive because they had a helmet on. That doesn’t mean it’s OK for the state to prohibit people from wearing helmets.