Washington DC, Aiming to Protect Riders’ Melons, NTSB Seeks Stricter Motorcycle Helmet Laws,

OFF THE WIRE
http://www.fairwarning.org/2010/11/aiming-to-protect-riders-melons-ntsb-seeks-stricter-motorcycle-helmet-laws/

Aiming to Protect Riders’ Melons, NTSB Seeks Stricter Motorcycle Helmet Laws By Patrick Corcoran on November 2010
After years of rising motorcycle deaths, the National Transportation Safety Board called for adoption of universal helmet laws, which are lacking in most states.
“Too many lives are lost in motorcycle accidents,”said Christopher A. Hart, vice chairman of the NTSB. “It’s a public health issue.” As a result, the NTSB placed stricter helmet laws on its “most-wanted list,” which includes the agency’s top priorities.
Despite a trend of plummeting automobile fatalities, the death toll from motorcycle crashes rose for nearly a dozen years through 2008. It finally dropped in 2009, when 4,462 people were killed, nearly two-thirds of whom were not wearing a helmet when they crashed.
State governments are responsible for writing their own helmet laws, and the NTSB does not have the power to compel statehouses to change them. But the act of putting the changes sought on the most-wanted list reflects a greater amount of public pressure, and the agency plans to continue using its “bully pulpit” to call for stricter laws, The Washington Post reports.
Today, 20 states and the District of Columbia require helmets for all motorcycle drivers and passengers. Three states have no helmet rules whatsoever, while the rest are somewhere in between, such as only requiring helmets for children.
Helmet laws have been subject to a decades-long tug-of-war between safety advocates and libertarian opponents of the laws. While states write their own laws, they are not exempt from federal pressure; in 1967 Congress’ threat to withhold highway funding for states that lacked universal helmet laws led to surge in strict requirements.
The lobbying backlash to this declaration eventually led to Congress to reverse course nine years later, and in 2005, Congress barred state legislatures from using federal money to promote motorcycle laws.