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http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20100621/NEWS10/6210312/1007/news05/Motorcycle-wrecks-renew-calls-for-Iowa-helmet-law
Motorcycle wrecks renew calls for Iowa helmet law
By JASON CLAYWORTH • jclayworth@dmreg.com • June 21, 2010
Iowa has a deadly traffic safety loophole kept open for decades by powerful lobbyists that allows children - some barely toddlers - to legally ride without motorcycle helmets, some legislators, state officials and a national safety advocate say.
"We can stick a child on the back of a motorcycle with no helmet or protection, and yet you can't have a child in the car without a safety seat," said Rep. Doris Kelley, D-Waterloo.
Iowa, Illinois and New Hampshire are the only states without helmet laws, even to protect the youngest residents, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Since 2007, at least one child under 14 and another 17 under the age of 24 have died in motorcycle crashes in the state, according to the Iowa Department of Transportation.
The voices of critics like Kelly are being renewed following a wave of recent Iowa motorcycle crashes that have resulted in multiple injuries and deaths. Such accidents have killed at least 13 people so far this year and left others injured, including one Ankeny man whose leg was severed upon impact.
Although the recent crashes have not involved children, those who support instituting a helmet law in Iowa say it's only a matter of time before a youngster is killed or critically wounded.
Some of the blame, they say, is upon Iowa lawmakers. A powerful special interest group overwhelmed the Legislature almost 35 years ago to rescind a helmet law that was less than a year old, citing personal liberties as their main point of opposition. That group, ABATE of Iowa, has successfully squelched proposed legislation - even very loose versions of the law - ever since.
Phil McCormick, state coordinator for ABATE of Iowa, said education - not legislation - is the best method for preventing motorcycle injuries and deaths.
"We feel it's a freedom of choice," McCormick said.
The choice for children should also be left to parents, McCormick said. "That's a parent's responsibility. We don't need government telling people how to raise their children."
Motorcycle riders such as Keith Boylan of Des Moines agree that helmets should not be required for any rider. Helmets not only restrict a driver's peripheral vision, they are extremely hot, said Boylan and some of his friends attending a "bike night" event in Des Moines last week.
"I'm definitely glad our legislators realize we are adults and we're capable of taking care of ourselves and don't need them looking over us," Boylan said. He doesn't usually wear a helmet even though he has had friends killed on motorcycles and he has also been in several accidents.
Kelley introduced a bill to prohibit all children under 6 from being allowed to ride on motorcycles after she discovered a family member was frequently transporting her grandchild on a motorbike.
Kelley's bill and another proposed by Sen. Jeff Danielson, D-Cedar Falls - which sought to prohibit anyone under 18 from riding without a helmet - failed to pass the initial stages of legislation during each of the past two years.
Kelley and Danielson both said the immediate opposition from lobbyists and members of ABATE was surprising.
"I understand the personal freedom argument, but as it relates to kids I just think we have an obligation to protect their future," Danielson said.
The opposition from groups like ABATE is seen nationally, said Jackie Gillan, vice president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety. Her group has fought the repeal of helmet laws in multiple states in recent years, including Missouri.
Gillan's group argues that all riders - regardless of age - should be legally required to wear a helmet. The argument of personal freedom is tainted because it affects others, she said. Taxpayers often pay for health care or other long-term disability costs after a motorcyclist is injured, she said.
Iowa had a helmet law for less than a year, from Sept. 1, 1975, to July 1, 1976. Fatality rates per 10,000 motorcycle registrations were 40 percent lower during that time than for the same period one year earlier, state data show.
However, state officials caution that the data cannot be compared with statistical reliability because of many contributing factors such as weather and the randomness of when and where a crash may occur.
Nonetheless, national safety officials generally accept that helmets save lives and prevent serious injury. Motorcyclists who crash without a helmet are three times more likely to have brain injuries than those wearing a helmet, according to information from the National Transportation Safety Board.
"Every time you get on a bike, you're taking a chance. That's all there is to it," said Bill Hyde, a Des Moines resident who survived a motorcycle crash earlier this month that broke his left leg and left major areas of his body with deep road burns.
Motorcyclist Joel Hess of Des Moines died in the same accident after being thrown from his bike and struck by a semitrailer truck.
Despite the accident, Hyde still believes adults should have a choice about helmets or other safety gear. But, for children, lawmakers should take swift action, he said.
"Children should always have a helmet and protective gear on," Hyde said. "For adults, we're supposed to have sense enough to do it on our own."
Helmets are 37 percent effective at preventing death in motorcycle accidents and 67 percent effective at preventing brain injuries, according to the Brain Injury Association of America. The group estimated that, nationally, helmets saved 1,829 people in 2008 and that an additional 823 people would have been saved had they worn helmets.
Charles City resident Gaylen Hicok is an advocate for helmet use and believes Iowa should have a law that applies to everyone, not just children.
Hicok's motorcycle slid out of control last year on a patch of sand along a street in Waterloo. His head slammed into a curb, and he broke his neck.
Hicok believes the helmet he was wearing saved his life. A separate accident years before in which his son fell from an all-terrain vehicle but escaped major injury because of a helmet made him a firm believer that nobody should leave their yard on a motorcycle without head protection, he said.
"The consensus is I should have been dead; and since I wasn't dead, I should have been paralyzed ... . I was neither. I've got a 100 percent recovery," Hicok said.
More than 80 percent of people killed while riding motorcycles in Iowa in the past five years were not using helmets, state records show.
Motorcycle crashes account for about 2 percent of all reported Iowa crashes but account for 14 percent of all crash fatalities and 12 percent of serious injuries in the state, according to the Iowa Department of Transportation.
Statistically, those numbers are considered disproportionate. Partly as a result, the Iowa Comprehensive Highway Safety Plan - a collaboration of groups and state transportation and safety agencies - lists restoring a motorcycle-helmet law as one of its top five safety-policy strategies.
However, because of the opposition, it's unlikely that Iowa will take such steps to require helmets, said Toni Kerkove, the motorcycle rider education administrator for Iowa's Transportation Department. Instead, the state continues to stress education courses.
"If you keep continually getting beaten down, then you look for another angle," Kerkove said.
