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Efforts to Pass Helmet Laws Intensify - USA Today |
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GirlGeek |
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Apr 4, 07 - 5:01 AM |
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girlgeekdel@aol.com |
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http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-03-motorcycle-helmet-laws_N.htm |
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Efforts to pass new helmet laws intensify
By Thomas Frank, USA TODAY
Lawmakers and safety advocates in eight states are pushing for new motorcycle helmet laws in a new trend sparked by soaring motorcyclist fatalities and last year's crash of NFL star Ben Roethlisberger.
The effort to require helmets marks a more controversial approach to motorcycle safety than previous efforts stressing rider training and motorist education.
Proposed helmet laws have been strongly opposed by rider groups such as American Bikers Aimed Toward Education (ABATE), which say wearing a helmet should be a rider's choice. Those groups have helped push 27 states since 1975 to weaken helmet laws by applying them only to young riders.
Now "the balance is shifting," said Melissa Savage, a transportation analyst at the National Conference of State Legislatures.
"States are beginning to be concerned about the number of people killed in motorcycle crashes," said Barbara Harsha, head of the Governors Highway Safety Association, which supports helmet laws.
Motorcycle fatalities soared from 2,116 in 1997 to 4,553 in 2005 as other roadway deaths declined. Motorcycle riding also grew, but the fatality rate nearly doubled from 1997 to 2004, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
The agency says helmets are "the most effective safety gear" for motorcyclists. But helmet use dropped from 71% in 2000 to 51% in 2006, NHTSA says, adding that helmets saved 1,546 lives in 2005.
Harsha said the push for tighter laws also is inspired by Roethlisberger, the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback who broke facial bones when his motorcycle collided with a car last June. Roethlisberger wasn't wearing a helmet.
A helmet bill in the Hawaii House calls Roethlisberger's crash "a grim reminder of how important a helmet is."
Helmet-law proponents say it's a tough fight — bills have been defeated in five of the states: Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Oklahoma. After he introduced Delaware's first mandatory-helmet bill in more than 20 years on March 14, state Rep. Gary Simpson got e-mails from people vowing to campaign against his re-election. "It's a very strong lobby," Simpson said.
Colorado state Rep. Diane Primavera expects her helmet bill to be defeated but vowed to try next year. She said her measure drew attention to Colorado's status as one of three states with no helmet law. Twenty-seven states require helmets for riders under a certain age, usually 18 or 21. Twenty require them for all riders.
Paul Williams, state coordinator of the Helena, Mont., ABATE chapter, who this winter helped defeat his state's first helmet proposal in a decade, said helmet laws are inevitable. "I hate to say it, but I think it will eventually pass," said Williams. "In this country, we're slowly losing our rights for choice."
Pro-helmet lobby has been scarce
Tim Hardy still seethes. He seethes at the driver who knocked his son off his motorcycle, at the police who he says weakly investigated the fatal crash, and at a motorcyclist group "that didn't want to help us."
Nine months after Miguel Hardy, 24, shattered his skull after flying off a Harley-Davidson near his Phoenix home, Tim Hardy refuses to blame an Arizona law that let his son ride helmet-free.
"If riders don't feel they need one, they shouldn't be told they have to wear one," said Hardy, an Austin motorcyclist who wears a helmet. "I mean, we are in the U.S. I served 20 years in the military for our rights."
Hardy's sentiment is amplified by a passionate army of motorcyclists who have helped repeal helmet laws and constrain federal regulators while enraging safety advocates. "Legislators and everybody are just scared to death of them," said Harry Hurt, head of the Helmet Protection Research Lab in California.
The motorcyclists' high-profile campaign, which has led 27 states to weaken helmet laws since 1975, was coupled with lesser-known lobbying to weaken federal influence on helmets, said Barbara Harsha, executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association, which favors helmet laws.
Motorcyclists pushed Congress to bar the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) from lobbying as state legislatures considered repealing helmet laws in the late 1990s. The law blocked NHTSA from giving legislators a video about helmets, Harsha said.
In 2005, when Congress allocated states $25 million for motorcycle safety, motorcyclists helped ensure the grants cannot be spent on promoting helmets, Harsha said.
"They're very well organized," Harsha said of the main rider groups — the American Motorcyclist Association, the Motorcycle Riders Foundation and American Bikers Aimed Toward Education (ABATE), which has state chapters. "There isn't a pro-helmet lobby."
NHTSA tabled a proposed 2003 safety study of motorcyclist attitudes and behavior after rider groups and motorcyclists said a survey of riders would be inaccurate. Motorcyclist complaints also led NHTSA to drop a phrase from a 2001 safety plan that called motorcycle riding "the most hazardous means of travel."
"We object strenuously to the sensationalistic spin placed," the riders foundation wrote.
Many motorcyclists oppose helmet laws because "the very nature of riding a motorcycle is a feeling of freedom," said Paul Williams of the Helena, Mont., ABATE chapter. "People who ride motorcycles tend to be a lot more sensitive about losing their freedoms."
Pro football star Ben Roethelisberger wasn't wearing a helmet when he collided with a car on a Pittsburgh street last year.
The latest result of helmet-law opposition has been to stall a landmark study that motorcyclists themselves say would save lives.
Motorcyclist groups have long sought an in-depth analysis of why riders are killed. Researchers would rush to the scene of motorcycle crashes to determine why they occurred. By finding the main causes, the study would urge safety improvements in anything from training to motorcycle design.
The study was the top priority of a broad motorcycle-safety plan written in 2000 by safety experts, motorcyclists and NHTSA.
When lawmakers in Congress proposed in 2005 that the Department of Transportation conduct and fund the study, the American Motorcyclist Association objected.
"We don't want DOT to do the study," association lobbyist Edward Moreland said in a recent interview. "They want to focus on protective equipment" such as helmets. The association wanted "an independent third party" to run the study, Moreland said.
Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., rewrote the bill to force the DOT to hire the Oklahoma Transportation Center. Inhofe "felt it was the right institution for the project," his spokesman Ryan Thompson said.
Inhofe's change forced the transportation center to find about $2 million on its own to help pay for the study. Without that money, the DOT will not give the center $2 million in federal funds, DOT spokesman Doug Hecox said.
Samir Ahmed, who would lead the study at the Oklahoma center, said he never asked to do the research and didn't know his organization was chosen until the study was approved in August 2005. The chances of the study being done are "at best 50%" because the center cannot find money to pay for the research, Ahmed said.
Ahmed blamed the motorcycle industry, which pledged to pay the matching funds last year but has given no money. "I have been in contact with the industry for almost 10 months to try to get them to pay their share but all that we hear are good words," Ahmed said. "They are just wasting time."
Ahmed said the money for the study is "trivial" compared to motorcycle company profits. Harley-Davidson, which makes half the motorcycles sold in the USA, recently reported a record $1 billion profit on $5.8 billion sales in 2006.
Tim Buche, president of the Motorcycle Safety Foundation, made up of motorcycle manufacturers, said, "The industry has committed to matching" the federal money. Buche is talking to motorcycle companies "to reassess the current position" partly because Ahmed is asking for $700,000 more to pay for additional research beyond the $2.1 million the foundation originally expected to pay.
Mostly, motorcycle companies want to list conditions the study must follow to be valid. "It's imperative to have a study we can trust," Buche said. The industry will pay "as long as those other considerations are met."
Do you ride a motorcycle? Share your helmet experiences, whether they've led you to be for or against helmet laws. Also, if you don't ride a motorcycle, give us your opinion. How do you think helmet laws compare to seatbelt laws? |
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