You can file this one under the “no-brainer” category. Literally.
A new legislative study came out Wednesday that indicates serious head injuries have become more common among Pennsylvania motorcycle riders in the five years since legislators repealed a law mandating helmets.
Oddly enough, the same study indicates that overall motorcycle crash and injury rates have fallen. The mortality rate involved in fatal accidents has pretty much stayed the same.
Let me see if I have this right. We constantly remind our kids – as well as adults – to wear helmets when they are riding our bikes.
Then we say to those who climb on board motorcycles, capable of speeds up to 100 mph and more, that it’s up to them if they want to wear a helmet.
Hey, look, I’m all for personal liberty. But I’m also for common sense. It seems pretty apparent to me that being involved in a motorcycle crash, at those speeds, while not wearing a helmet, is just inviting disaster.
Riders who oppose helmets like to stand by the motto, “Let those that ride decide.”
Unfortunately, in some of those instances, we all end up paying for it in the form of higher insurance and health care costs.
The helmet law should be put back in place. The sooner the better.
A new legislative study came out Wednesday that indicates serious head injuries have become more common among Pennsylvania motorcycle riders in the five years since legislators repealed a law mandating helmets.
Oddly enough, the same study indicates that overall motorcycle crash and injury rates have fallen. The mortality rate involved in fatal accidents has pretty much stayed the same.
Let me see if I have this right. We constantly remind our kids – as well as adults – to wear helmets when they are riding our bikes.
Then we say to those who climb on board motorcycles, capable of speeds up to 100 mph and more, that it’s up to them if they want to wear a helmet.
Hey, look, I’m all for personal liberty. But I’m also for common sense. It seems pretty apparent to me that being involved in a motorcycle crash, at those speeds, while not wearing a helmet, is just inviting disaster.
Riders who oppose helmets like to stand by the motto, “Let those that ride decide.”
Unfortunately, in some of those instances, we all end up paying for it in the form of higher insurance and health care costs.
The helmet law should be put back in place. The sooner the better.
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