‘The Case for Helmets’ for Motorcyclists

An attempt is being made to link the lack of a helmet law with the prohibitive health care costs to California taxpayers for unhelmeted brain-dead survivors of serious accidents. If saving money is the issue, there will be no savings whatever--the same number of accidents will occur, and the seriously injured survivors will still require the same, if not more, public funds for care if they are uninsured.

If the intent of AB 36 was to truly institute programs to save motorcyclists’ lives, and not just to promote the abridgement of the rights of all motorcyclists, many more meaningful approaches could be tried:

Department of Motor Vehicle education of both automobile and motorcycle operators as to their respective driving responsibilities; encouragement of motorcycle safety courses; tougher (perhaps tiered) licensing requirements; voluntary helmet use promotion; educational programs to discourage motorcyclists’ drinking and driving (not unlike automobile statistics, approximately one-half of motorcycle fatalities involve the use of alcohol!), and perhaps minimum, affordable, state-administered catastrophic medical insurance, funded partially by license or registration surcharges.

JOHN PALIWODA

Woodland Hills