Passes and Canyons Blog

I wrote an unfavorable piece about U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters that you may recall, about her efforts to divert money earmarked for rider training to promote helmet use and state laws requiring helmet use. Randy Bingner replied to that and I’d like to share our discussion.

Randy’s initial response was this:

I suggest step back from your focus on helmet laws and look at everything Mary Peters is doing for the motorcycling community. It is very difficult to be critical when you look at the big picture.

I was interested and wanted to know more. I sent Randy this reply:

I appreciate your comment on my Mary Peters post. I’ll be completely honest with you and say I don’t know much at all about what she has done or tried to do except what I read in American Motorcyclist. I would be really pleased if you would write a guest post addressing that topic. Something to balance out my frankly more superficial take on the matter. Are you interested?

Here is Randy’s answer:

I have been at the Sturgis rally the past week and just got home. You could Google and find no end to information. Basically, in my opinion, the most telling quote from Mary Peters, and I will paraphrase, is that when highways are designed, constructed, and maintained, the motorcycle should not be an afterthought. I am attaching a recent article I wrote for the back page of another newsletter. The fact that this initiative exists is due in large part to the fact that we have a rider at the head of the USDOT. I am an AMA member, but I do not agree with all positions it takes. Motorcyclists are a comparatively small group when you look at all users of the transportation system. The more we get divided, the easier it will be to lose rights and privileges. I am for freedom of choice. I chose to wear a helmet and leather.

So that’s a starting point. I intend to follow Randy’s suggestion and do some research to learn more about what Mary Peters has done, and I’ll pass that along to you. And I want to thank Randy for offering his take on the matter.

I do want to make one other point, however. I stand by my original argument that taking money from rider training to push for helmet requirements is inappropriate. Helmet usage becomes moot if accidents are avoided in the first place. I think rider training is the most important of the two.

Biker Quote for Today

Ride as if your life depended on it!!

I got the obligatory newspaper clipping from my mother the other day. You know, the one that talks about how motorcycle deaths are up at the same time that some states are relaxing their helmet laws.

Let’s face it, moms are just being moms when they send these things. They would rather you didn’t ride at all because “it’s too dangerous” but if you’re going to ride “you’d better wear your helmet every time.” They also tend to believe strongly that all states should mandate wearing helmets all the time.

I disagree. I do wear my helmets (I have several) a lot of the time. But there are times when I do not, and I would argue that I know more about the risk I am taking than someone who has never been on a motorcycle in their lives. I’m also a registered Libertarian, so obviously I believe the government has no business telling me I have to wear a helmet.

So let’s look at the information this particular article presents. It came from the Gannett News Service so presumably it appeared in a number of papers, maybe yours.

I’ll give them credit, it talks about deaths rising on the basis of per 1,000 riders. So many such articles say simply that deaths are up, but fail to mention that the number of riders is up as well. And if deaths per thousand riders are increasing then that is definitely of concern to us.

My issue is with the interpretations that people put on the statistics. They’re much too simplistic. Helmets are not some miracle cure for motorcycle fatalities. For example, the article states that “About 42 percent of riders killed were not wearing helmets.” What that means then is that 58 percent were wearing helmets — and they were killed anyway. It also implies that some percentage of those helmetless riders who were killed would have been killed even if they had been wearing a helmet. To me that says the cause of the accident should be more the focus than the gear the rider was wearing.

Another factor noted is the increase in the age of the average rider. Decreasing physical dexterity and slower reaction times are listed as the suspects.

Then it goes on to say that “Half of motorcyclists killed between 2002 and 2006 lost control and crashed without colliding with another vehicle.” This is what I’m talking about above. How did these accidents occur? Surely some involved other vehicles that may well have been the cause but were not involved in any contact. But in other cases, what we are talking about is rider error. This calls for better training but, again, has nothing to do with the gear the rider is wearing.

The article goes on to say that southern states have higher death rates, and they attribute that to the longer riding season. More time on the road equals more opportunity for accidents. That makes sense.

Then it talks about how the National Transportation Safety Board has taken the unprecedented action of unanimously recommending that all states mandate helmets at all times. Their justification for this is that “Medical and other costs for unhelmeted riders involved in crashes are staggering.” OK, then how about this: Let’s require all drivers and passengers in cars to wear helmets. There are a heck of a lot more of them getting into accidents and surely the costs are mega-staggering. Race car drivers wear helmets. Why shouldn’t mom and pop and the kiddies? Of course I’m sure they intend to imply that motorcyclists who do wear helmets and get in accidents cost the system nothing. That is what they’re saying, isn’t it?

And then finally, at the very bottom of this 51-inch article, they mention that, oh by the way, the two states with no helmet laws of any kind, Iowa and New Hampshire, have death rates of 3.5 and 3.0 per 1,000 respectively. Meanwhile, for example, Mississippi and Maryland, which require all riders to wear helmets all the time, have death rates of 20 and 12 per 1,000 respectively. Of course these numbers are discounted, and are explained away saying that in New Hampshire the riding season is short and in Iowa the ground is flat and visibility is good.

So thanks for caring Mom, I love you, too. But I’ll continue to make my own decisions and I’ll continue to belong to the American Motorcyclist Association and support their efforts to protect our right to decide.

Biker Quote for Today

Gray-haired riders don’t get that way from pure luck.