Helmet Use should be a personal choice

[burkbuilds]

Here is another research paper I had to write for English Composition. I went in expecting to make a case for mandatory helmet laws but after all the research I became convinced otherwise. By the way, I do wear a helmet myself, and I would even if it were not mandated but not because I think it is going to save my life, I wear it to keep my head warm in the Winter and to keep those dang big bugs we have around here from hitting me in the face! I've had a few snap my neck back when they hit the faceshield and you can call me a chicken all you want to but I don't want to take that in my face at 55+mph!

Motorcycle Helmet Use Should be a Personal Choice!

During the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, federal highway funds were automatically withheld from states that did not pass mandatory helmet laws. As a result every state, except California, passed mandatory helmet use laws by 1975. When legislation changed so that states were no longer financially penalized for lack of compliance, many states chose to repeal or amend those laws. As a result, only 20 states now require mandatory use for all riders. Three states have no helmet use laws, and the remainder have laws applying only to select groups meeting certain criteria, such as being licensed for less than a year, lacking medical insurance, or being younger than a certain age, usually 18 or 21. A reasonable investigation of the facts will confirm that the government should not mandate motorcycle helmet use. Mandatory helmet laws deprive bikers of their constitutional rights, increase the likelihood of becoming involved in an accident, offer a false sense of security to the rider, and distract from the actual causes of motorcycle traffic fatalities.

According to Jones and Bayer (2007, p. 216) “…the state has a role in protecting vulnerable members of society from misjudgments about motorcycle safety.” They go on to say “…motorcyclists have not been able to make sound safety decisions on their own and that mandatory helmet laws are needed to ensure their own safety.” However, Bikers argue that helmet laws violate the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment, are an infringement on the motorcyclist’s liberty, and an excessive use of the state’s police power. This argument was upheld by the Illinois Supreme Court when they ruled that “…the helmet laws constituted an infringement on motorcyclists’ rights” (Jones, et al. 2007, p. 210). Much of what makes this country great is the willingness of people to take risks for various reasons, some patriotic, some self serving. Where would we be without the great explorers who risked their very lives daily to blaze trails across the continent, settle new frontiers, or go into outer space? What if the Wright brothers had been forbidden to attempt flight because it was too dangerous? If the government tried to protect citizens from all their risky behavior, where would it end? There is no question that motorcycling is more dangerous than riding in a car. Bikers wearing the best protective equipment available still have a much greater risk of serious injury in a crash than occupants riding in an automobile. The important question becomes, who should decide what risks are acceptable, the individual taking them or the state? The implication of helmet advocates is that helmets will keep riders safer and that bikers are not intelligent enough to make the decision to wear one on their own, so they must be forced to wear a helmet for their own safety.

Researchers Houston and Richardson (2004) support that view by insisting that the repeal of Florida’s mandatory helmet law in July of 2000 caused the number of monthly fatalities to increase by 21%. However, a much more extensive study of the statistical evidence by Stolzenberg and D’Alessio (2003) criticized many other studies as being myopic because they looked at extremely small samples to acquire the statistics they quoted, such as the fatality rates using only one hospital’s records, over a three month period, before and after repeal of the law. They also exposed other studies that failed to take into account the significant number of new motorcycle registrations that almost always follow the repeal of helmet laws. Apparently a lot of people just won’t ride if they are forced to wear a helmet. Registrations of new motorcycles typically increase by over 20% each year for several years after the repeal of mandatory helmet laws. Those registrations contribute to the increase in both the number of riders on the road, and the number of miles traveled each year. Stolzenberg, et al. indicated that researchers often focused only on the increase in the number of fatalities per year while neglecting to take into account the increase in ridership and the total increase in miles traveled per year once those laws are repealed. Stolzenberg, et al. studied all the fatal motorcycle accidents in Florida over the period 1986 to the end of 2001 in an attempt to determine the truth relating to helmet use and motorcycle injuries. This study indicated that fatality rates peaked in 1997, were already falling before the law was repealed in 2000, and continued to decline at a similar rate for the remaining two years of the study. Interestingly, the crash rate for riders actually decreased by approximately 21%, and the fatality rate declined by 7% following the repeal of the helmet-use law in Florida. They concluded that the repeal of Florida’s helmet use law had little observable effect on serious injury and fatality rates. They also stated “…that policy makers should probably consider revising or repealing these types of laws” (Stolzenberg and D’Alessio, 2003, p. 147). Even though mandatory helmet laws are usually popular with the general public, that popularity may be based on assumptions that are not supported by the evidence.

One of the reasons popular opinion favors the use of helmets is the false belief about the protective abilities of the helmet itself. Although it may seem logical that a helmet would protect your head in an accident, the actual statistics of the Department Of Transportation (DOT), show almost no difference in the fatality rates of helmeted vs. unhelmeted riders (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 2008). The actual requirements for a helmet to receive DOT certification are not very stringent. The main test requires the helmets to be dropped from a height of six feet onto a solid steel anvil. If the helmets don’t break, they pass the test (Teresi, 1999). This test replicates an impact speed of 13.7 miles per hour. Very few motorcycle accidents happen at low speeds and the ones that do would rarely result in serious injury. Another seldom published statistic is that head injuries account for only 20% of serious injuries in motorcycle accidents. The majority of serious, life threatening injuries are to the chest and abdominal areas of riders (Teresi, 1999). Understanding these facts may lead to the question, “What can be done to improve the safety of motorcycle riders?”

Those wanting to have the greatest impact on motorcycle safety should focus on driver education as the key to reducing serious injuries and fatalities. An overemphasis on protective equipment will never have as much impact as educating bikers about the main contributing factors to accidents: alcohol use, speeding, and a lack of operator training. Teaching bikers to avoid behavior that often leads to accidents is the best course of action to save lives. In fact, focusing on helmet use may actually be undermining the concept of safe driving. Teresi (1999, p. 43) states that “…helmet wearing can lead to excessive risk taking due to an unrealistic sense of invulnerability….” The plain truth is a motorcyclist involved in a high speed accident is unlikely to escape serious injury or fatality. If the goal is to save lives, the focus should be on accident avoidance, not injury prevention.

Helmet law advocates may have the best of intentions, but their insistence that mandatory helmet laws save lives is not supported by the facts and may actually be counterproductive to their stated goal of saving lives. The decision to wear or not wear a helmet should be left to the individual taking the risk, not the government!

References

Houston, D. J., & Richardson, L.E. (2004). Motorcycle safety and the repeal of universal helmet laws. American Journal of Public Health, 97(11), 2063-2069.

Jones, M. M., & Bayer, R. (2007). Paternalism & its discontents. American Journal of Public Health, 97(2), 208-217.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. (2008). Traffic safety facts 2006. DOT-HS-810-818. Retrieved August 25, 2008, from http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/portal/site/nhtsa/ncsa

Stolzenberg, L., & D’Alessio, S. J. (2003). Born to be wild. Evaluation Review 27(2), 131-150.
Teresi, D. (1999). The wild one. Forbes, 163(9), 41-44. Retrieved August 20, 2008, from Academic Search Complete database.

[mrlmd1]

FYI - The helmets are tested from a 6' drop because that is how far you will fall when you hit the pavement with your head, to try and protect you from injury. They are not designed for and are not certified for hitting a wall or tree or any other object at 30-40-50-60-70mph or whatever. Stating that that equates to a 13.7 mph crash and that slow speed crashes rarely result in serious injury is totally misleading and not the point. Would you like to fall over sideways from a head height of 6' and hit the concrete with your bare head, or would you rather have a helmet on and try and protect you from a fractured skull, concussion or other serious brain injury? Helmets protect your head in a FALL, and a full face helmet, from severe road rash or tissue loss when sliding on the road. If for no other reason, a helmet and face shield will protect you from getting hit in the face by flying debris, much better than with just sunglasses or goggles on. It makes sense to use it, the benefits have been demonstrated in other studies other than the ones you have referred to. Like you said, most of the fatalities are from chest and abdominal injuries, so helmets/no helmets have little effect on the overall mortality rate. But they do have an effect on head and facial injury rates which you don't address. And fatality rates are not the only end point - why don't you compare brain injury rates or reconstructive plastic surgery rates in helmets vs. non-helmets? You can glean what you want from any report, some are misdirected or poorly executed, many are biased in some way to prove their preconceived conclusions. I really don't want to rehash this all again, but many "bikers" think their "freedom" is violated if they have to wear a helmet, after all, they ride the bike enjoying "freedom", and don't want a sissy helmet interfering with the macho-ness of their motorcycle. It's part of the rebellious nature and culture surrounding motorcycles that makes some people resist the helmet to this degree. The "it's my choice" argument to me sounds stupid.
Why do many people go ATGATT? There no laws mandating armored jackets or wearing gloves or boots. It's because it makes sense, that's why, and the benefit has been demonstrated. There was a problem and it was fairly easy to solve.
In other cases, the statistical studies have proven a benefit to the laws that have been enacted, with the same arguments you present above. For example:
Why were seatbelts in cars and trucks mandated to be used all over the country? Is that not also a freedom of choice question? Doesn't that also deprive a driver of his constitutional rights not to wear one? (That whole argument, to me, still. is stupid). It doesn't cost anything, it's part of the conditions to drive.
If the benefit has been demonstrated in reducing death and injury, then in that instance the individual can give up a tiny bit of his perceived "rights" for the common good, even his own good. Why did they put airbags in all cars today? Again, it makes sense because the benefit has been demonstrated.

You wrote that the crash rate in Florida decreased after the helmet law was repealed - do you honestly think there is a direct correlation between those two events? Like it had nothing to do with having to pass an MSF course prior to getting a license or better training for bikers? What did it have to do with no helmets? Better visibility, cooler heads, less weight on your neck? It is one of those true/true/unrelated scenarios, but someone links the 2 events together in order to prove their point.
Again, don't believe everything in print, look at the study, analyze it, the motive, the methods, the results, and draw your own conclusions.

I appreciate your writing, but I don't agree with your conclusions for a variety of reasons.


I know this will start the whole helmet/no helmet dialog here again, so here we go. :whistle:

[Easy Rider]

Originally Posted by mrlmd1

I know this will start the whole helmet/no helmet dialog here again, so here we go. :whistle:

Or we could go in an slightly different direction:

I think everyone should have a right to be stupid.
Excessive safety legislation interferes with Darwin's theory of natural selection. :shocked:

Having said that, I put seat belts in my first car, a 1957 Chevy and I never start a vehicle without fastening the buckle. I do, however, not always wear my helmet when I go out for a leisurely ride to the store and back.....and I live in a state where I can make that choice.

If we are going to start a debate, how about we make it about "Nanny" government in general. That should be MUCH more interesting than limiting it to just helmets. :popcorn:

[adrianinflorida]

Florida's law is pretty fair, you want to ride without a helmet? Then you need to be 21 or over and carry medical insurance ($100,000, iirc)

[burkbuilds]

Mrlmd1: You have several excellent points. I was not able to address all of them in this paper for a variety of reasons. One major reason, if it went over 1000 words the professor started deducting points, and I wanted an A not an argument.
Point of the paper was not that a helmet didn't offer you some protection in a wreck, it was a paper about FATALITIES, and I stand by the statistical evidence that shows no major differences in fatality rates, one reason for this is that, yes, there is a certain percentage drop in fatalities from head injuries when wearing a helmet, but there is an equal percentage of increase from broken necks of those wearing a helmet, so it's a statistical wash. Do you prefer to die from head injuries, which might take a few days, or quickly from having your neck snapped by the extra force generated by wearing a helmet? Either way, you die, so the point is, wearing a helmet doesn't give you a better chance of survival, it only changes the way you die.
As I stated in the paragraph previous to the paper, I do wear a helmet for different reasons, but I no longer think it's going to save me in a bad crash.
I also agree with you that mandatory seat belt laws are a violation of personal choice, but that wasn't the point of my paper, which tried to stay on subject.
I also agree with you that protective gear does give you a benefit in non fatal wrecks, less hide off your body if nothing else, but I sure hope no one goes out and mandates that we HAVE to wear everything made in body armor, or we can't ride.
The number one cause of death in automobile accidents IS head injury, do you think we should pass laws mandating that everyone riding or driving a car should wear a helmet? Those car drivers are just too stupid to realize how dangerous it is to drive a car without wearing a helmet, they are more concerned with how they look in their cars than for their own safety! They should be forced to wear helmets for their own protection and that of the families that they will leave behind if they don't wear them! (Sound familiar?)

[patrick_777]

Originally Posted by Easy Rider

If we are going to start a debate, how about we make it about "Nanny" government in general. That should be MUCH more interesting than limiting it to just helmets. :popcorn:

...And a good topic for the Hot Topics forum.

[mrlmd1]

The increase in broken neck fatalities from wearing a helmet is something I have never heard of before and is probably more related to the magnitude of the trauma from excessive speed and force rather than the weight of the helmet. Helmets themselves don't cause neck injuries, they may prevent some of the massive trauma to the skull so the neck bears the brunt of it. Maybe if that victim had no helmet, he would have died of a smashed head, so that kind of a statistic is meaningless. With the kind if trauma you sustain with those kind of injuries, you're dead from any number of causes, take your pick.
The head injuries from car accidents is why air bags and restraints are mandatory and there are side air bags also in some cars, as an option in others, but most people don't want too pay extra for those.
I don't want to perpetuate this discussion as it can go on forever - I just wanted to point out that statistical studies can be manipulated, are often biased to prove the point they set out to prove, can be misleading, can have false conclusions, and have to be carefully analyzed and taken with a grain of salt. Even if there was a law about helmets, or seat belts, or anything else, some people will disregard it anyway and do what they want, it's their choice to take the increased risk and they must bear the consequences. Unfortunately, the rest of us may have to bear the cost.

Soapbox alert! (Don't say I didn't warn you)

Okay, I can't resist putting in my two cents.

You know how people say that motorcycle riding is a matter of how much risk people are willing to take (I've seen many say it on here)? Well, if that's true for individuals, it is also true for governments (not just with motorcycle riding, but with many things - seat belts, gun ownership, having insurance, etc., etc.).

The government (local, state, and federal) has to calculate the cost of "risk" to the society. No one would argue that the government has a right to tell you what style pants to wear (no risk to society), but how about wearing seat belts? Unquestionably, the laws mandating seat belt use have saved tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of lives. However you feel about your individual choice whether or not to wear a seat belt, it must be weighed against the larger interests of society. And this example does not even factor in the cost of hospitalization, etc. involved in injuries/deaths to those in traffic accidents who may have gone uninjured/less injured if they had been wearing seat belts.

I know it's a cliche, but the government is us, or those who we give up our sovereignty to in order to represent us. I know that's difficult to see sometimes, but if we don't like "the government", we get regular chances to vote them out (admittedly, bureaucracies are a different matter). And if we get really pissed about our government, we can have a revolution, which we have done before. My point is, "the government" makes laws like mandatory seat belt use because it has a responsibility to weigh risk for the larger society. Just like many of you wear more gear than you used to, for example, our government also views this risk differently at different times.

Last, should it be an individual choice as to whether or not you have auto insurance, for example? I'm glad the government mandates that, because I just know the asshole who runs a red light and slams into my car won't "choose" to have it, and that will impact my ability to recover from the injuries, get physical therapy, etc. We are going to argue about what the government has a "right" to mandate, and we always will (which is fine, that's part of the process). Hell, I can't get four members of my family to agree on where to go for dinner.

Thanks for your patience if you got this far,

Keith

[burkbuilds]

I see your point, my point is, the actual statistics don't prove that helmets save lives. I have read them and studied them intensely, instead of just taking the word of someone who wrote an article with the preconceived idea that helmets do save lives, and then tells us that the statistics back that up, which they do NOT! So, if helmets do NOT save lives, then why should the government force anyone to wear one? I think you are assuming that the statistics confirm that they do save lives, go read them, the statistics are on the web free for you and me to read, so go read the actual statistics and see what they actually show instead of what somebody tells you they show! Most of the articles saying that the statistics show helmets save lives pull one set of stats from one chart and one from a totally unrelated chart (apples to oranges) and then say the statistics prove such and such. If you look at how many million miles traveled verses fatalities or number of bikes on the road verses fatalities then you have apples to apples comparisons, but most of these guys who quote the stats will take a stat where one year (made up numbers here) 100 people died in motorcycle crashes in Florida, then they passed mandatory helmet laws and only 78 people died the next year so it dropped 22%. However, they fail to mention that when helmet laws are passed, ridership, registration and million miles traveled stats drop by over 20% too. So, if 20%+ fewer bikes are registered, driven and driven less, then yes guess what, an equal number of fatalities occur. Then they come along and say, but when Florida repealed the mandatory helmet laws fatalities went up 22%, but they fail to mention that when helmet laws are repealed, guess what, registrations,sales of new bikes, and million miles traveled each year all go up by over 20%. So it is a wash statistically. The mandatory helmet laws just make a lot of people decide not to ride, so if your goal is to get rid of motorcycle riders on the road, then keep passing mandatory helmet laws, because a lot of people just refuse to ride if they have to wear a helmet. But statistically speaking, for an equal number of bikes on the road and miles traveled by those bikes the fatality rate is flat whether you wear helmets or not. If you want to save bikers lives then convince them of the three things that do contribute most to fatalities in motorcycle accidents, 1. Alcohol (over 60% of biker fatalities involve an elevated blood alcohol level in the biker that was killed!) 2. Excessive speed and 3. Unlicense (thus usually untrained) bikers, people who only have a license to drive a car, probably never took a safety course and certainly never even passed their states requirements to get a motorcycle license. Wearing a helmet or not isn't even in the top 5! Go read the statistics yourself!

[alanmcorcoran]

Originally Posted by patrick_777

...And a good topic for the Hot Topics forum.

:plus1:

For the record, I wear one, but don't care if everyone else wears one or not. I do think that the whole "personal choice" thing is one of those things where some folks want to have it both ways: they want to have a personal choice about wearing a helmet (which I am all for) but they also expect society to take care of them if something bad happens and they can't take care of themselves. I don't think the states with no helmet laws is going leave helmetless riders to die in the street. Similarly, they are going to try and cut you out of your pole wrapped vehicle with the Jaws of Life whether you wear a seat belt or not. It's this expectation that "America is a rich society" and there will be safety nets, that lead the legislators to pass laws "for our own good." I think Easy mentioned the nanny state, and that's where it starts.

I also wear a helmet on a bicycle (not mandatory if you are over 18 in California) and skiing (not mandatory anywhere.) I respect people who say they don't wear a helmet because they don't want to wear one or they don't like to wear one, but I have a hard time with the argument that helmets are somehow a bad thing. Someone else on here likened them to condoms, which I think is a decent analogy - nobody really wants to wear those, they don't work ALL of the time, but they DO work most of the time.

Maybe a good tradeoff is, you don't have to wear a helmet, but if you crash and die, you are automatically an organ donor. Seems like a win-win to me.