Can Rising Motorcycle Fatalities Be Blamed on a Lack of Helmet Laws?
Jacob Sullum | August 20, 2008, 1:21pm
The number of fatal motorcycle accidents rose in 2007 for the 10th consecutive year, hitting 5,154, 7 percent higher than the 2006 total. Meanwhile, car fatalities fell by 8 percent and light truck fatalities fell by 3 percent, "pushing the overall death rate [for motor vehicle accidents] to a historic low," The New York Times reports. The share of motor vehicle deaths caused by motorcycle crashes has more than doubled since 1997, from 5 percent to 13 percent. Although advocates of helmet laws will be inclined to blame their repeal in several states for the rising motorcycle fatalities, the chief culprit recently seems to be higher gas prices, which have encouraged people to take advantage of motorcycles' vastly superior fuel efficiency:
Motorcycle ridership appears to be rising even as the total miles for all vehicles drops....The highway safety authorities say that about 75 percent more motorcycles are registered today than 10 years ago. They suspect each motorcycle is ridden more miles, but the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says it does not have a reliable measurement of use.
The lack of such data makes it difficult to tell how much of an increase in fatalities following repeal of a helmet law results from less helmet wearing and how much results from more riding. The Times avers that "ridership has probably become more dangerous mile for mile," but without reliable information on miles ridden, it's impossible to know for sure. Assuming the Times is right, less helmet wearing is not the only explanation:
Safety officials say many of the [newer] riders are middle-age or older men who rode when they were young, gave it up as they raised children and have recently gone back to the bike. "They think they still have the same reflexes," said James Port, the safety agency's deputy administrator.
Motorcycle riding is inherently dangerous. While wearing a helmet reduces the risk of certain injuries, research suggests the overall impact on fatalities is modest. The unimpressive numbers are one reason motorcyclists have been so successful at defending their right to decide what, if anything, to wear on their heads. "We are the only industrialized country in the world where there is an organized effort to weaken or repeal motorcycle helmet laws," complains Russ Rader of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Is that a sign of backwardness or a point of pride?
Neu Mejican | August 20, 2008, 5:26pm | #
Helmets can cause severe neck injuries in an accident that can result in paralysis or death. I have a friend who was paralyzed by his helmet.
You have a friend who attributes his paralysis to his helmet...this is a very different thing.
It would be difficult to know what the results of that accident would have been without the helmet. If the force was great enough to result in a paralyzing spinal injury, the helmet likely saved your friends life by restricting the damage to the lower CNS.
But that is just conjecture...
As for the myth that helmets increase risk of neck injury...it doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
http://aapgrandrounds.aappublications.org/cgi/content/extract/19/5/51?rss=1
or
Helmet Use and Associated Spinal Fractures in Motorcycle Crash Victims.
Original Articles
Journal of Trauma-Injury Infection & Critical Care. 64(1):190-196, January 2008.
Goslar, Pamela W. PhD; Crawford, Neil R. PhD; Petersen, Scott R. MD, FACS; Wilson, Jeffrey R. PhD; Harrington, Timothy MD, FACS
Abstract:
Background: The effect of helmet use on the incidence of cervical and thoracic fractures sustained in motorcycle crashes remains controversial.
Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the incidence of these fractures in helmeted and nonhelmeted crash victims at a single Level I trauma hospital with a well-defined system for evaluating spinal fractures.
Results: Of 422 motorcycle crash victims treated during 3 years, 190 had a traumatic brain injury (TBI) and 75 sustained some form of spinal fracture.
Conclusions: Based on the statistical analysis, there was no relationship between helmet use and cervical or thoracic fractures, after controlling for speed of crash. The protective effect of helmet use in TBI was verified. These findings re-emphasize the need for a well-defined radiologic protocol for spinal injury at centers that evaluate crash victims.
Neu Mejican | August 20, 2008, 8:19pm | #
Kit,
The guy who was paralyzed was a good friend of mine, and his doctors told him that his paralysis was due to the helmet tilting back and hitting his spine. He had a great many injuries, but the spine injury was the one that killed him over the long run. The results of your study don't alter the facts in this case, his helmet paralyzed him.
You heard the doctors say this first hand? Or did your friend tell you that is what his doctors told him? It is possible that his injuries were consistent with this hypothesis, and that it was the one that his doctors believed. But it is really irrelavent to my comments.
Change it if you like: You have a friend
who whose doctors attribute
s his paralysis to his helmet...this is a very different thing.
Again, the paralysis occurred in the context of an incident which put significant forces to play on your friend's body. It may be true the that lever that resulted in the particular injury that paralyzed your friend was provided by the helmet he was wearing. However, as I said above, we don't know what the results of the accident would have been without the helmet. My guess is that he would have been injured more severely and may not have survived the accident at all due to the brain injuries that would have occurred.
But that is just conjecture.
The weight of a full face helmet has to place additional stress on the neck in a fall.
Yes. However, careful research (cited studies and others) has been done. It finds that this additional stress does not significantly raise your risk of a neck injury. If you are using the impression that this additional weight increases your risk as a reason not to wear a helmet, you are making your choice based on an inaccurate assessment of risk.
Don't believe the hype.
Probably put out by the insurance companies.
Because it disagrees with you general impression of the problem it is biased science?
As has been mentioned above, the issue of whether helmets reduce your risk of serious injury (they do) or death (again, they do) is not directly linked to whether or not a helmet law is justified. If you believe that people have a right to take on that additional risk, and additionally have the right to place a burden on their family or society when that risk manifests, then there is no justification for the law.
Reasonable people will disagree.
But to claim that wearing a helmet increases your risks of serious injury or death is counter factual. Anecdotal evidence aside.
I am sorry that your friend was injured, but his injury doesn't change the facts. Helmets do not increase your risk of a neck injury.
Paul Rako | August 21, 2008, 10:06am | #
Well, it might be propaganda from all those Abate meetings I attended, but it is my understanding that if your head hits anything solid while going faster than 13 mph, you're dead, no questions asked. I wear a seatbelt because in a car you are guaranteed to hit your head in most accidents. I wear a helmet when I ride my bicycle since I am usually doing under 13 mph and interestingly, a bike helmet is far lighter and more comfortable. If California did not force me to wear a helmet on my motorcycle I would not wear it. After riding most every day for 30 years, I think I have a pretty good assessment of the risk trade-offs involved. For the rice-rocket crowd that thinks the streets are a racetrack, they are right to wear a helmet, and I suggest that they are the idiots, not me. So are the people that ride in tennis shoes and shorts. I always wear gloves when I ride since every time I have come off a bike my hands take a beating. But you can visualize and learn how to come off a bike to not bash your head on the pavement, and you can ride at a pace and style so you don't find cars pulling out in front of you or stopping too suddenly. Another factor in my decision to eschew helmets is because of an arthritic spur in my neck that causes extreme pain if I wear a big heavy helmet. I prefer the carbon fiber yarmulke models. To me a motorcycle is not some toy to whip around and get my kicks on, it is a tool that I use for efficient transportation. The one time I ended up in a hospital was from getting hit from behind while sitting at at red light. If I broke my collar bone without the helmet I can't image how much worse it would have been with one, and yes, the car driver got off, the cop saying that I stopped for a green light.
OK, so to all those people that tell me I have to wear a helmet to reduce my risk despite the neck pain, let me ask you: do you wear a rubber when you have sex with your wife? I mean, unless you are trying to have a kid she still might give you aids or herpes or some of those wart things. Why would you not suffer the small expense and minor inconvenience of wearing a rubber to reduce that risk to nothing? Oh, you say you know your wife will NEVER give you anything? Well that is wrong, as well as me saying I will NEVER be worse off without a helmet, but both our choices are justified by our rational perception of the risks. And believe me, I hope you are offended by my suggesting that we regulate your sex life because when the pin-head student-council dorks I went to high school with grow up and pass a motorcycle dress code for crying out loud, they deserve to get the snot kicked out of them just like when they sent Bob Raus home for wearing paisley pants back in 1969.
I once had a boss that called me an idiot for not wearing a helmet. Then a month later he told me how he almost got clobbered by the boom of his yacht as it tacked into the wind. He said it knocked him head-first into the cockpit. I told him that he was an idiot to not wear a helmet. Yeah, that job didn't last long.
So you helmet lovers, as Sam Kinnison used to say, "put a helmet on that soldier", your wife will appreciate it.
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