GRAND RAPIDS, MI — Mike Olinger tries to avoid being hung up on safety arguments when debating Michigan’s relatively new motorcycle helmet law because, he contends, there is no winning side.
For Olinger, a Gun Lake resident and board member of the Michigan group that earlier this year secured a win in amending the state’s motorcycle helmet mandate, personal freedom trumps all.
“You can’t win that safety argument one way or the other, but I can win the freedom argument,” said Olinger, speaking as a board member of the Michigan chapter of American Bikers Aiming Toward Education, or ABATE.
Still, analysis of Michigan State Police motorcycle crash statistics in a three-county West Michigan region for the six months following the changed law paints a daunting picture.
The law, signed by Gov. Rick Snyder in April, allows motorcyclists aged 21 and older to forego wearing a helmet. The riders must have two years’ riding experience or take a safety course, purchase an extra $20,000 in insurance and carry the requisite motorcycle endorsement on their driver’s license.
MLive pored over crash data for Kent, Ottawa and Allegan counties, and concluded motorcyclists who do not wear helmets suffer incapacitating injury at a markedly higher rate than helmeted riders.
The trend mirrors the findings of an MLive analysis conducted three months after the law was changed.
Critics of the amended law point to MLive’s findings as evidence Michigan lawmakers should have kept the law intact. The West Michigan figures mirror a statewide trend, which found motorcyclists still overwhelmingly choose to wear helmets.
Across the three-county area, 352 crashes involving nearly 380 riders, drivers and passengers alike, were reported by police agencies between April 13 and Oct. 13 this year.
Among MLive’s findings are unhelmeted motorcyclists suffered injury at higher rates, both incapacitating and otherwise, and had higher death rates. Unhelmeted motorcyclists also were more likely to be at-fault in a crash than those who wore helmets.
The average age of all motorcyclists involved in crashes throughout West Michigan was around 42 years old. The average age of unhelmeted riders was the same.
The findings, particularly the higher injury rates, were no surprise to West Michigan police agencies.
“If you were to run full force, as hard as you can, into a cement wall with a helmet on, and then run full force, as fast as you could, into a cement wall with no helmet on, what’s going to hurt worst?” asked Lt. Chris McIntire, commander of the Michigan State Police post in Rockford, north of Grand Rapids.
Across the three counties, 267 motorcyclists involved in crashes wore helmets, and 85 did not, according to the state police data.
Of those, 20 percent of unhelmeted riders suffered incapacitating injury, versus 16 percent of helmeted riders. Thirty-seven percent of helmeted riders sustained non-incapacitating injuries, over 34 percent of helmeted riders.
What’s more, 4 percent of unhelmeted riders died of
their injuries. Two percent of helmeted riders died, the data show.
The issue is far more complex, though, than a data-laden spreadsheet can tell, critics and proponents of the new helmet law agreed.
Reporting errors, for instance, can skew data, with some agencies faultily reporting whether a motorcyclist was wearing a seatbelt. Such data was not included in MLive’s analysis.
Elsewhere, Olinger and ABATE question the injury classifications used by police, who said they are the same for all injury-causing crashes, motorcycle or not. A motorist is either possibly injured or not injured, or they suffered an incapacitating or non-incapacitating injury.
“I would bet they would find that most of the deaths are probably from blunt force trauma from the injury to your body, not head injury,” Olinger said.
Police conceded it would require a drilled-down analysis of crash reports to deduce the actual degree of injury suffered by a motorcyclist involved in a crash.
Grand Rapids police Sgt. Allen Noles, who oversees traffic incidents, said an incapacitating injury, for example, could be a broken leg or arm, or any harm that necessitates a trip to the hospital.
It could be “I broke my finger and I need to go get it braced up,” Noles said. “It could be all the way over to serious head injury and they didn’t die. It’s kind of hard to judge.”
That does not, however, detract from the fact that officers who weekly handled motorcycle crashes over the summer noticed higher rates of injury among unhelmeted riders, McIntire said.
“If I don’t educate the public to that point, then I’m being irresponsible as a police officer,” he said. “I obviously have to respect that the law was repealed. But it’s my job I think to educate the public as far as what they should or should not do.”
Olinger also pointed to arguments prior to the law’s amendment that insurance rates would rise as a result of more debilitating injuries among motorcyclists.
He dismissed such claims, noting the requirement that eligible motorcyclists purchase $20,000 extra in insurance was the linchpin that ensured the law would change.
“Not one state that has amended their state law to allow adult choice for helmets, not one state has seen an increase in their insurance rates because of motorcycle injuries,” Olinger claimed. “Not a single one.”
Even that argument, though, is awash with problems. Police are unable to determine at the scene of a crash whether a motorcyclist bears the $20,000 addition, Noles said.
With no surefire way to check, Noles said there is no telling whether that part of the law is effective.
“I don’t know what the possibilities are” to make the insurance and other reporting requirements more clear, Noles sad. “It’s tough to enforce.”
http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2012/12/motorcycle_crash_data_shed_lig.html
The issue is far more complex, though, than a data-laden spreadsheet can tell, critics and proponents of the new helmet law agreed.
Reporting errors, for instance, can skew data, with some agencies faultily reporting whether a motorcyclist was wearing a seatbelt. Such data was not included in MLive’s analysis.
Elsewhere, Olinger and ABATE question the injury classifications used by police, who said they are the same for all injury-causing crashes, motorcycle or not. A motorist is either possibly injured or not injured, or they suffered an incapacitating or non-incapacitating injury.
“I would bet they would find that most of the deaths are probably from blunt force trauma from the injury to your body, not head injury,” Olinger said.
Police conceded it would require a drilled-down analysis of crash reports to deduce the actual degree of injury suffered by a motorcyclist involved in a crash.
Grand Rapids police Sgt. Allen Noles, who oversees traffic incidents, said an incapacitating injury, for example, could be a broken leg or arm, or any harm that necessitates a trip to the hospital.
It could be “I broke my finger and I need to go get it braced up,” Noles said. “It could be all the way over to serious head injury and they didn’t die. It’s kind of hard to judge.”
That does not, however, detract from the fact that officers who weekly handled motorcycle crashes over the summer noticed higher rates of injury among unhelmeted riders, McIntire said.
“If I don’t educate the public to that point, then I’m being irresponsible as a police officer,” he said. “I obviously have to respect that the law was repealed. But it’s my job I think to educate the public as far as what they should or should not do.”
Olinger also pointed to arguments prior to the law’s amendment that insurance rates would rise as a result of more debilitating injuries among motorcyclists.
He dismissed such claims, noting the requirement that eligible motorcyclists purchase $20,000 extra in insurance was the linchpin that ensured the law would change.
“Not one state that has amended their state law to allow adult choice for helmets, not one state has seen an increase in their insurance rates because of motorcycle injuries,” Olinger claimed. “Not a single one.”
Even that argument, though, is awash with problems. Police are unable to determine at the scene of a crash whether a motorcyclist bears the $20,000 addition, Noles said.
With no surefire way to check, Noles said there is no telling whether that part of the law is effective.
“I don’t know what the possibilities are” to make the insurance and other reporting requirements more clear, Noles sad. “It’s tough to enforce.”
http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2012/12/motorcycle_crash_data_shed_lig.html
