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Is A Federal Or State Helmet Mandate Coming In 2008?

Posted on Aug 27, 2009

Posted 9/18/2007

Recent signs have made it apparent that there will be a renewed push to enact mandatory helmet laws in 2008. Anyone who is paying attention cannot miss the continued media coverage of serious motorcycle accidents in the newspapers. Serious injury or fatal motorcycle accidents almost always include whether the person was wearing a helmet or not. What isn’t reported usually is the cause of death. If there was a head injury present and no helmet worn, that was the extent of the coverage. In most serious crashes, there is extensive blunt trauma present. That means there were numerous injuries, any one of which could have resulted in death. Unless a full autopsy is performed to find these internal injuries, to say or hint that a helmet would have changed the outcome is pure speculation and bad journalism. In cases when no helmet is worn and there are no head injuries, the media never reports this fact.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has been forbidden to lobby for helmet laws, but it appears another bureaucratic agency is stepping in to attempt to shape public opinion. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has come forward with some recommendations which mirror antiquated theories and speculation on safer crashes through helmet use. The Band-Aid approach of solving this problem by recommending universal helmet laws is no surprise to those in the motorcycle right’s community. To some in the right’s community, it may be the misstep they have been waiting for. The NTSB recommends that everyone should wear a DOT FMVSS 218 compliant helmet while riding a motorcycle. But who can tell us what a helmet is? In California, Richard Quigley has been asking this question for over 15 years, “What can we do to comply, with certainty, with California’s helmet law?” Apparently, the California Highway Patrol left that up to NHTSA, and NHTSA seems to think that the CHP can answer that question. Now comes the NTSB recommending that everyone wear a FMVSS 218 compliant helmet. Is it possible the NTSB can clear something up that has bogged down the courts in California for years? Is there any question now on why helmet tickets should be challenged?