Why don't they make wearing helmets on motorcycles a law?

Question

They are doing that for seat-belts right now. Why not for motorcycles?

Answer 1

The government already has overstepped its bounds by mandating seat belt use.

If you want to live under a totalitarian government, move to California.

Answer 2

in lots of places like canada and some states in the US it is a law. I live in ottawa ontario and if you're caught without a helmet you will get your motorcycle liscense suspended or even taken away for good. I have a dirtbike and i always wear my helmet so i dont run into a cop and get my bike taken away!

Answer 3

There is a (not serious) claim that the seat belt law persuades people that they can safely drive faster and therefore have faster accidents and that a truer deterrent would be to attach a spike to the steering wheel, for bikers, instead of wearing a helmet, you might wear a 2 ft pole attached to your jaw, so that any minor spill would break your neck.

Even granting that all accidents are different, I cannot conceive of a situation where crashing without a helmet is less dangerous than crashing with one, it is certainly impossible (unless you have done the same thing twice with exactly the same results both with and without a helmet and are writing from beyond the grave) to claim that wearing one would definitely have caused your death.

>the helmet filled with water and he drowned

Conceding that I don't know, and that you cannot release (if only for the sake of the feelings of his relatives), the details.

If he hadn't worn a helmet he would have survived the trip into the ditch?

Having survived it, would he, although being unprotected, have recovered consciousness or been able to lift his head out of the water?

"the helmet filled with water and he drowned" – they aren't airtight or even watertight – water finds the lowest possible level it can't flow upwards, how could not wearing a helmet have helped?

Answer 4

In Rhode Island you must wear a helmet for the first year your riding a motorcycle then after that it's entirely up to the rider.....it varies from state to state but it ultimately comes to the rider if they feel confident enough to ride a motorcycle helmet or not.

Answer 5

it is the law in california

look @ before and after pictures of the actor gary bussie.

reason enough for me to wear one

i did even before it was the law

Answer 6

It is the Law in some States , I think they need to make it the Law of the Land that Everybody should have to be able to pass a physical fitness test Once a year  

Answer 7

Because we are supposedly free people living in a land where our ancestors fought and died so that we could make our own choices.

No, it is about rights and freedom.  It is also dangerous and foolish to ride a motorcycle at all, that will be one of the next freedoms to be taken away for our own good.  I choose to wear a full face helmet most of the time.  But it is my choice as an adult who lives in a free country to make.  Sorry freedom includes the right to be stupid.

Answer 8

it is the Law in missouri. and if you don't like it not being a law in ohio, partition the lawmakers to change it.

Answer 9

Why don't car and truck drivers wear helmets? Think of all the lives that would be saved.

Answer 10

It's a law in a lot of places.

My question is though, "are you perfect?"

Could I follow you around all day and week long and think of ways to tell you how to live your life?

Why not?

Oh I see, I'm stupid and you are smarter, therefore you know what's best for me.

You aren't a fascist, your just arrogant, conceded, and pompous. You want to tell everyone how stupid they are but it's ridiculous to ponder the thought of anyone telling you how to live your life...

Why do you keep posting this c**p here?

Sara, just above is real piece of work. She doesn't do anything wrong at all does she? What if Sara caused someone to get hurt and couldn't afford to pay for her mistake? Should that person die because we shouldn't have to pay for the mistake that perfect Sara made?

Please check the rules on medicaid and how assets are obtained before you go blowing your big mouth off about how taxpayers like you pay Sara...

The real stupidity about this whole thing is how some people falsely imagine that helmets actually save lives. It's a fact that they cause more problems then they are worth. But of course researching the issue is too much work and it's so easy to just blurt out an unqualified opinion like many of these people do...

Answer 11

Because motorcyclists fight the enactment of such laws. I personally would be dead if I had been wearing a helmet when I wrecked. each accident is different. most Riders agree, that it should be their choice, not a law.I was on a jury, where we had to determine the cause of death of a motorcyclist, he ran into a ditch with a full faced helmet on .the helmet filled with water and he drowned. odds are that doesn't happen often.For every rider,you'll get a different reason why they wear or don't wear a helmet. what they will agree on is that they don't need a law to tell them they have to have it.The law is slowly taking away our liberties, and the less we fight it the more they will take.  

Answer 12

Why not make it illegal to pick your nose, get an abortion, drink Kool-Aid after midnight, use alcohol, decide who to vote for,  oh h**l, lets just go for total fascism!

Answer 13

For some people it's a freedom issue. They want the freedom to feel the wind in their hair. I think my hospital should have the freedom to refuse expensive or long-term treatment to uninsured motorcyclists who come in with a head injury secondary to not wearing a helmet. Why should the hospital and the taxpayers have to pay hundreds of thousands for your "freedom"?

edit:

I'll go all in and call bull**** on chrlkres' answer. I do know a lot about medicaid and medicare. I know what the delay on payment to hospitals is (6 months to 1 year), I know what the payment ratio is (about 30% of charges billed). Thank those fine folks for your astronomic insurance bill. And for all of those arguments that "helmets cause more injuries than they prevent", I've seen plenty of injuries caused by a lack of helmets in the last 10 years of EMS and the operating room. Haven't seen a single injury caused by the presence of a helmet.  So go ahead and post all those reputable sources of research of yours, chrlkres. Are they from The Mayo Clinic, or Johns Hopkins maybe?

I'm certainly not perfect, so I carry liability insurance. I just don't think long-term healthcare is a free right, and people who want to risk their lives should have the fiscal ability to deal with the fallout. It's all about "freedom", right? Should motorcyclists who say no one has the the right to tell them what to do, have the right to tell healthcare providers what to do? (Hospitals end up eating the costs of most initial treatment, not the government.)

Answer 14

Ben Franklin said it best..

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety".

Answer 15

To Chrlkres, who likes to talk about research and calling people stupid.. FACT: A federal study on helmet laws which used Florida as a source of study because their abolishment was the most recent at the time. The federal government discovered that in the study state,  Motorcycle deaths increased by 81% in Florida the three years following them abolishing their helmet law compared to the three years prior.

The annual motorcycle fatality rate rose from 172 to 311..nearly DOUBLE.

In fact, in 1995 the federal government stopped with holding highway money from states without helmet laws, and started a trend of states abolishing them...the number of states without helmet laws rose from 3 to 30, and in that same period of time motorcycle deaths ROSE from 5.6 deaths per 10,000 registered motorcycle, to 7.3 per 10,000 registered motorcycles (I used per 10,000 to take away the argument of "well there are more deaths because there are more motorcycles")

More over, in the study state of Florida...61% of the 933 motorcyclists killed the three years following the abolishment of the helmet law WERE NOT wearing a helmet. And of those 561 deaths, 58% of the deaths were determined to be caused by head injuries, And of the 372 deaths of helmeted riders, 11% were diagnosed with a head injury as the cause of death.

FACT: in the study state.. 325 non helmeted riders died as the result of a head injury over the three year period following the abolishment of the helmet law, 40 helmeted riders died as the result of a head injury in that same three year period.

FACT: given the study, it was determined without arguement, undoubtably... there were 933 deaths in the study state the 3 years following the abolishment of the helmet law, 608 would have died of their injuries regardless of the helmet law, however... wearing a helmet would have saved 325 lives.

And, during the 3 year study, not one of the 933 causes of deaths, was listed as an injury that resulted from the use of a helmet.

The study also seems to combat opponents of the helmet laws theory that helmets cause death because they restrict vision, 61% of the fatalities in the 3 year period were not wearing helmets and could see just fine. Added to that is the fact that of the 933 deaths, over half simply lost control of their motorcycle and never impacted another vehical.

Now, "Mr research it",  if you want to say you should have the right to choose, and helmet laws are a violation of your freedom...thats fine, but don't say their is nothing to suggest that helmet laws save lives, because EVERY study the federal government has conducted, tends to prove otherwise.

Oh, and NEVER say that its not costing people money..because over that same period of time the study found, that head injury hospital admissions rose by 80%, and the cost to treat head injuries from motorcycle crashes rose from 21million, to 50 million the 30 months following Florida abolishing their helmet law. I won't make the "tax payer" arguement that the other poster made, but what I will say is that you can bet that 29 million dollar rise in what the insurance companies paid out, affected the insurance rates for EVERYBODY who has a motor vehical insured in Florida!!!

Answer 16

it IS a law

Answer 17

It is a law in some state, it is here. Other states choose to give people the choice as to whether they wear one or not. Its funny because those same states require seat belts but not helmets. I personally believe you have taken leave of your senses if you dont use either of those, but I dont think the government should be able to make you as long as you are over 18. If you have kids and dont make them use seatbelts or helmets, ya oughta get your butt kicked at the least but the law should come down hard on you.  

Answer 18

Just wear a good helmet, and don't worry about whether it's law or not.

Answer 19

where it is not a law you should sign a waiver so the rest of us don't pay for your ignorance in our premiums