Passes & Canyons Blog

Obviously these guys don’t care what happens to their organs if they die. Right?

I had a boss once whose favorite term for motorcycles was “murder cycles.” She hated them and believed that anyone who rode one would surely end up dead beside the road. Thirty-five years later, she is dead, of natural causes, and I’m still very much alive and very much still riding motorcycles.

Other people like to refer to motorcyclists who ride without helmets as “organ donors.” Both of these pejoratives are based primarily on ignorance but hey, we who ride are used to provoking ignorant people to dispel any doubt about who they are.

But sometimes we encounter someone who wants to take things a little too far. This is the case at the moment in Connecticut where a state senator, with the convenient name of Martin Looney, has proposed a bill mandating that anyone who dies in a motorcycle crash without a helmet is deemed to be offering their organs for transplant. Here’s the text of the bill:

AN ACT ESTABLISHING A REBUTTABLE PRESUMPTION THAT PERSONS KILLED IN A MOTORCYCLE ACCIDENT WHILE RIDING WITHOUT A HELMET WISH TO DONATE THEIR ORGANS.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General
Assembly convened:
That the general statutes be amended to establish a rebuttable presumption that a person who is killed in a motorcycle accident while
riding the motorcycle without a helmet wishes to donate their organs.
Statement of Purpose:
To improve public health.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all in favor of people donating their organs once they have no further use for them, but seriously? Why single out motorcyclists not wearing helmets? Why not a bill saying that all people who die prematurely, unless previously stated, shall be deemed organ donors. Or at least accompanying the unhelmeted motorcyclists with car drivers and passengers who aren’t wearing seat belts?

The American Motorcyclist Association issued a protest, saying:

“The bill shows callous disregard for the motorcycling public,” said AMA Government Relations Director Mike Sayre. “Organ donation is a noble cause that regularly saves lives around the country, but the decision to become a donor is a deeply personal one — one that this legislation would take away from motorcyclists.”

“Not only is this bill insulting to motorcyclists,” Sayre added, “but it also violates the religious liberty of those whose faith prohibits posthumous organ donation, and is clearly an unconstitutional violation of bodily autonomy for any American.”

How likely is this bill to pass? Who knows. Probably it won’t. But when the AMA contacted the senator’s office to inquire about the bill and spoke to one of his staffers, this was the upshot:

The staffer stated that their position was that if motorcyclists put their lives at risk by riding helmetless, they assume those riders don’t care where their organs end up.

Ignorance.

Biker Quote for Today

If you party like you ride, make sure to wear a helmet.

If I had followed my ex-boss’s recommendation I would have missed out on this glorious day–and a whole lot of others.

In a much earlier lifetime I was a newspaper editor and I reported directly to the publisher, in this case, Vi June. Vi and I got along extremely well . . . until we didn’t. I’m not going to go into all the details but suffice it to say, she gave me an order I felt was unacceptable and I quit.

During the surprisingly (to me) long period it took me to find a new job I had a very rough go of it. My spirits were as low as they have ever been but in the midst of it all I made a bold move. I borrowed money from my parents (I sure didn’t have any money myself at that point) and bought my first motorcycle, my 1980 Honda CB750 Custom. Talk about a boost to my spirits!

At some point I concluded it would perhaps be helpful if I could show prospective employers a letter of recommendation from Vi, plus I wanted to ask her some questions about the issue that led to my resignation. We agreed to meet for lunch. Her answers to my questions were totally unsatisfactory and while she did agree to give me a letter of recommendation, when it arrived it appeared she had typed it out herself (yes, on a typewriter–this was a few years ago) and it had errors of spelling and a weird spot in the middle of a line of text where the text dropped down about one half a line below the rest of the text in that line. In short it was not at all something I would consider showing to a prospective employer.

During our lunch we talked about other things and one thing I mentioned to her was that I had bought a motorcycle. She shuddered and told me that they were wicked, nasty, dangerous things, and that she called them “murdercycles.” Needless to say, I was not moved. My motorcycle riding career was in its barest infancy and I’ve done one heck of a lot of riding since then. And you know what? I’m still alive and healthy. Meanwhile, she’s dead at this point.

This all came back to me recently when I saw an article about how the number of organ donors rises during motorcycle rallies. Yeah, we’ve all heard the “joke” about how the other name for motorcyclist is organ donor. In this one article (there are several out there), titled “Study Finds That Number Of Organ Donors Rises 21% During Motorcycle Rallies,” contained these statements:

“Because the timing of these rallies is plausibly unrelated to demand for organs and because we found no such effect for non-motor vehicle-related donor deaths, our findings are likely due to an increase in motorcycle use in areas where large rallies are held,” wrote the study’s authors in JAMA Internal Medicine.

The researchers looked at data from the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients from 2005 to 2021. They focused on areas where the following seven motorcycle rallies were held: Atlantic Beach Bikefest in South Carolina, the Bikes, Blues & BBQ in Arkansas, Daytona Bike Week in Florida, Laconia Motorcycle Week in New Hampshire, Myrtle Beach Bike Week Spring Rally in South Carolina, the Republic of Texas Biker Rally in Austin, and the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota.

“These findings are not surprising given the high mortality associated with motorcycle accidents,” the authors wrote. “The findings of [this study] provide a reminder to practice safety while practicing high-risk activities and to consider opting-in to become an organ donor to help save lives.”

I’m in no position to question the data used here, or the conclusion. I guess it’s a reasonably logical action and reaction. But you and I don’t need to contribute to these statistics. We know what it takes: Ride like your life depended on it. Ride like you’re invisible. Don’t drink and ride. I for one look forward to having as many more years than Vi June did as I possibly can. And I plan to be riding in every one of them.

Biker Quote for Today

Keep bikers safe. Don’t show your boobs till we have come to a complete stop.