OUR VIEW: State should keep rejecting proposals to repeal helmet law

OFF THE WIRE
MICHIGAN:
http://www.themorningsun.com/articles/2010/07/11/opinion/srv0000008800751.txt OUR VIEW: State should keep rejecting proposals to repeal helmet law Published: Sunday, July 11, 2010

It seems that Michigan's motorcycle helmet law - the one requiring riders to wear protective headgear - will remain a political football in the foreseeable future as it has for more than 30 years.

HB 4747, legislation to repeal the helmet law was passed by the Michigan House of Representatives in March, this year. It remains in the hands of the Senate Economic Development and Regulatory Reform Committee. At least five other bills providing for helmet-free riding have been introduced since the current legislative session convened in January 2009.

Such bills have become perennial grist for the legislative mill. Gov. Jennifer Granholm vetoed such measures that reached her desk during the 2005-06 and 2007-08 sessions.

According to the legislative analysis of HB 4747:

Proponents of repealing the helmet requirement argue it is a civil rights issue. "Wearing a helmet, or not wearing one, they say, should be a matter of personal choice and not a legal mandate."

Other arguments for repeal include assertions that helmets are not effective in preventing death or serious injury, and that ending the helmet mandate would not increase vehicle insurance premiums or cost of publicly funded medical care programs.

"They also say that those injured in motorcycle accidents are no more likely to be public burdens as the result of traumatic accidents than the general population."

Supporters of repeal legislation also argue that removing the helmet requirement would increase motorcycle traffic in Michigan and thereby stimulate the state's sagging economy.

On the other side of the issue, advocates for maintaining the helmet requirement have testified that an unhelmeted rider is 40 percent more likely to suffer a fatal head injury and that helmets are 67 percent effective in preventing brain injuries, according to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration statistics.

Additionally, "They say that motorcyclists impose disproportionate costs on the state's no-fault insurance system, particularly the Michigan Catastrophic Claims Association. Hospital officials say that an unhelmeted rider is 37 percent more likely to need ambulance services, be admitted to a hospital as an inpatient, have higher hospital costs, need neurosurgery, intensive care, and rehabilitation, be permanently impaired, and need long-term care."

The analysis further states that, "In discussing similar bills in previous legislative sessions, it was estimated that both the state and local units of government could experience increased operational costs due to increased insurance premiums. The state could also experience additional costs in the Medicaid program."

We observe that higher insurance premiums and fees to feed the Michigan Catastrophic Claims system imposes a burden on every vehicle owner in the state, private and public. Increased Medicaid costs due to a helmet requirement repeal would burden every taxpayer.

Given those cost factors, alone, it appears that repeal of the motorycle helmet mandate would be unwise in the current, and perhaps any, economy.

The no-helmet idea has great appeal to many people who have libertarian impulses and may remain in play as a political football. But it should not get across the goal line as a matter of public policy in the foreseeable future, if ever.