Sent in by Bobby Crawford

Helmet Law, Etc.: For Safety's Sake, Why Not Just Ban Motorcycles Altogether?

A. BARTON HINKLE
TIMES-DISPATCH COLUMNIST
Feb 21, 2006

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busy-bodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those that torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. --C.S. Lewis. As this newspaper pointed out in an editorial last week, the defeat of Delegate Bill Janis' attempt to repeal the state's motorcycle-helmet law does not mean, as the more hyperventilating riders of Hondas and Harleys would have it, that Virginians are walk- ing around in chains. A little perspective is in order. The Old Dominion is not Red China or Saudi Arabia; there's no need to stamp "REPEALED" on the Bill of Rights quite yet.

But something else is in order as well, namely a clear understanding of just what the defeat of Janis' proposal implies. Philosophically, the mandatory-helmet law is disheartening.

Let's stipulate that motorcycle helmets save lives, and that wearing a helmet is a good and smart thing to do. Let's also stipulate that helmet laws lengthen lives. In Texas, motorcycle deaths rose 31 percent the year after the state relaxed its helmet law; in Arkansas, deaths rose 21 percent. Traumatic injuries also rose and so perforce did the medical costs associated with treating them.

IT DOES NOT follow, however, that injuries from crashes involving helmetless riders raise insurance rates. Motorcyclists constitute a small fraction of the insured populace; those involved in crashes, a smaller percentage still; and those involved in crashes resulting in head trauma exacerbated by not wearing a helmet an even smaller fraction. As one of the nation's biggest insurance companies put it a few years ago: "Motorcycles account for a very small percentage of our total book of business, and the new helmet law would be unidentifiable in our private passenger loss experience."

Yet the notion that everybody saves money when motorcyclists wear helmets amounts to an article of faith among those who support the helmet law. They make an argument that goes like this: "Why should I pay higher insurance rates because some people want to engage in foolhardy behavior?" The implication of such reasoning is that one person's economic interests trump another person's right to decide what to do with his own life.

Logically extended, it would apply to a host of other behaviors. Applying the principle consistently would require banning smoking -- and perhaps bungee-jumping, contact sports, and for that matter, motorcycle-riding period, which is both unnecessary and vastly more dangerous than driving a car. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says motorcyclists are six times more likely to be injured in an accident, and 32 times more likely to die, than drivers of cars and trucks. Almost nobody needs to ride a motorcycle and, collectively, we all would be better off if nobody chose to.

For that matter, the insurance argument -- consistently applied -- would require the state to mandate that everyone eat a healthy diet and exercise regularly. Obesity ranks alongside smoking as a principal cause of preventable illness and medical expense in the U.S. (Americans already are seeing that consistency at work in the push by some activists for a "Twinkie tax" on unhealthy foods.)

AT BOTTOM, the insurance argument says people should make life choices that maximize collective financial advantage, and contains the assumption that individuals have an obligation to be economic production units for the benefit of others -- that they ought to forgo their own desires and fulfillment in order to contribute to the productivity of the hive. This seems to entail a rather pinched and flinty vision of the pursuit of happiness.

However, some who support the helmet law might not have reasoned it through to such a conclusion, and simply believe individuals should be forbidden to engage in dangerous behavior for their own good. This still suggests the need for a raft of prohibitions against kayaking, skydiving, downhill skiing, and other activities enjoyed by adrenaline junkies including riding motorcycles even with proper protective gear.

It's one thing to argue, exhort, plead, and beg riders to put on their helmets. Such attempts to persuade represent a noble concern for one's fellow man. Mandating helmets, however, represents the opposite. It amounts to a profoundly arrogant disregard for the autonomy of others -- an unwillingness to respect the choices they freely make, even though one might disapprove of them. That respect is essential to any society that values individual choice in meaningful matters. It also is essential to the idea that all persons have equal inherent worth and standing, with no one more lofty than his neighbor.

Advocates of the law might ask what right a cyclist has to take so great a risk as to ride without a helmet. The answer is that the rider's life belongs to him, to risk as he wishes. Friends and family might use the bonds of affection to cajole, but strangers cannot coerce. The rider also might reply that, even if his claim to control his own destiny is not absolute, it is vastly stronger than another person's claim over him. What right does he have to ride without a helmet? Far more right than anyone else has to make him put one on.

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