MONTANA:Few argue that helmet use has obvious safety benefits, but riders resist mandate

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Few argue that helmet use has obvious safety benefits, but riders resist mandate



Few argue that helmet use has obvious safety benefits, but riders resist mandate LORNA THACKERAY Of The Gazette Staff The Billings Gazette | Posted: Monday, October 18, 2010 12:00 am | (32) Comments

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LARRY MAYER/Gazette Staff Terry Jessee shows the dents and scrapes on the helmets he and his wife were wearing in a crash Aug. 14. Jessee said he believes that the helmets saved them from serious injury or death.

Safety message seems to be sinking in On Oct. 3, a 61-year-old Conrad man failed negotiate a sharp curve on Rodgers Pass east of Lincoln and became Montana’s 23rd motorcycle fatality this year.

Last year, motorcycle crashes killed 25 people in Montana. In 2008, the worst year ever for fatal motorcycle crashes, 38 people died, said Jim Lynch, director of Montana’s Department of Transportation.

The downward trend is encouraging, Lynch said. “A lot of people are making efforts to make it safer to drive on our highways,” he said.

Among them are people at DOT and those who teach and participate in motorcycle safety courses offered all over the state though Montana State University-Northern, he said. New riders are learning the skills they need to operate safely and experienced ones are getting refresher courses to sharpen their skills.

Col. Mike Tooley, chief of the Montana Highway Patrol, feels good about the improved safety record, too.

“What we’re seeing is an overall change

Full Story More Related: Free Wheelin' Terry Jessee’s helmet took a beating each time his head hit the road on the afternoon of Aug. 14 when he laid his Harley-Davidson motorcycle down trying to avoid a bicyclist who had suddenly turned in front of him on Story Road.

“I have an impression of rolling down the pavement like a pencil,” he said. “There were two clunks when my head hit the pavement and I felt them both. I remember thinking as I was rolling, ‘I’m going to be OK.’ ”

His wife, Cynthia, riding on the back, was also thrown from the Harley before tumbling to the edge of the pavement.

“When I stopped rolling, I hopped up and she’s lying on the side of the road not moving,” he said. “I’ve never been that scared in my life.”

The 57-year-old man on the bicycle was unresponsive when Jessee punched 911 into his cell phone.

Everyone escaped with non-life-threatening injuries — just an array of scratches, cuts and large and colorful bruises. Cynthia suffered the most. She had a broken bone in her wrist.

But it could have been a very different outcome, insists Jessee, who keeps as a reminder the dented and scraped helmet that cushioned his fall and the roll across the pavement. Each of those dents and scrapes could have left a deadly impression on a bare head.

“Except for that helmet, I wouldn’t be here,” he said during a recent interview. “I really do believe that I would be dead or still in the hospital.”

Without her helmet, his wife would have landed on her face, he said. The helmet and visor prevented not only injury but also disfigurement.

In 40 years of riding, Jessee said, he’s been down three times — once without a helmet on a soft-dirt landing. He escaped with a concussion. In the two other incidents, helmets took the brunt of crashes that could have killed or disabled him, he said.

Jessee swears by his helmet, as do thousands of other Montanans who never start their engines without a DOT-approved helmet protecting their heads. But like a lot of others, he has mixed feelings about whether Montana should have a law requiring motorcyclists to wear them.

“I’m not certain if I’m interested in a mandatory helmet law,” he said. “If it’s mandatory for motorcycles, what about skiers? What about skateboarders? You can’t protect people from everything.

“The other side of it is: If you don’t wear a helmet, should the rest of us have to pay for your medical care? My attitude is if you don’t wear a helmet and you get hurt, you go home and die. That’s harsh, but if you want to absorb the risk of not wearing a helmet, you absorb the whole risk and don’t make the rest of us absorb the cost.”

Montana law requires that operators and passengers under the age of 18 wear headgear that meets state standards. Adults can ride with the wind in their hair and grasshoppers in their teeth. Judging by information gathered last year in Montana, a lot of motorcyclists don’t wear them. Just 12.3 percent of motorcyclists involved in crashes in 2009 wore helmets. None of three people who died in motorcycle accidents in Yellowstone County in 2009 had head gear.

Every state has struggled with the question of mandatory helmet laws. Just 20 states require all riders to have helmets, while most of the rest require helmets for specific population segments like riders under the age of 18. Illinois, Iowa and New Hampshire do not have helmet requirements.

The debate often comes down to a question of personal freedom balanced against the cost of caring for motorcyclists who sustain head injuries.

There are crashes that would not be survivable regardless of helmet use, and there are occasional stories where a driver claims that wearing a helmet caused an injury. But overwhelming statistical information shows that helmets do save lives and prevent serious injury.

According to numbers from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in 2008, “an unhelmeted motorcyclist is 40 percent more likely to suffer a fatal head injury and 15 percent more likely to suffer a nonfatal injury than a helmeted motorcyclist involved in a crash.”

NHTSA also said that helmets reduce the likelihood of crash fatality by 37 percent and that helmets are 67 percent effective in preventing brain injuries. Those without helmets are three times more likely to suffer brain injuries.

The same study said that when Florida repealed its universal ride motorcycle helmet law in 2002, deaths increased 24 percent over expectations and hospital admissions went up 40 percent for motorcyclists involved in crashes. Similar increases in fatalities were reported in Arkansas (21 percent) and Texas (31 percent) in the year after those states weakened their universal helmet laws.

NHTSA’s report also said that costs to treat head injuries as a primary diagnosis more than doubled to $22 million. Hospital discharge data showed that 63 percent of motorcycle head injury patients had private insurance, 16 percent paid the bill themselves and the remaining 21 percent were paid for by charitable and public resources.

The report estimates that helmet use saved $19.5 billion in economic costs between 1984 and 2002, and that an additional $14.8 billion could have been saved if everyone on a motorcycle had worn a helmet.

In 2007, the National Transportation Safety Board recommended that all states adopt universal helmet-use laws, but resistance is strong in many states, including Montana.

Billings motorcyclist Dick Russell, a stickler for safety, always wears a helmet and all recommended safety gear. He’s taken motorcycle safety courses through Montana State University-Northern to augment his 40 years of experience.

About 20 years ago, he bounced his head on the pavement in a motorcycle crash that cracked his helmet.

“That probably could have had a way different outcome without it,” he said.

But Russell, like many Montanans, remains ambivalent about putting mandatory helmet use in the law.

“If I had to vote on it, I would probably vote no,” he said. “Do I think it’s smarter to wear a helmet? Probably yes.”