 
Posted: June 17, 2012
The Helmet Debate Burns Hot Again in 2012
By Dean "D-Day" Bartosh
The fight over motorcycle helmets has been an
ongoing debate for decades. And now certain
government agencies are using recent unfortunate
accidents to turn up the heat again. While
agencies such as the Center for Disease Control,
the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration, and the state Department of
Transportation with its Motorcycle Safety Program
continue to quote motorcycle accident and fatality
statistics, how they arrive at those statistics
should be under serious scrutiny.
According to Greg Patzer, manager of the Wisconsin
Motorcycle Safety Program, part of the state
Department of Transportation, 92% of those killed
in motorcycle crashes last year in Wisconsin were
not wearing helmets. But can Mr. Patzer tell us if
any of those motorcyclists would have been saved
if they had been wearing a helmet? Would it have
saved the motorcyclist who got run over by a
semi-truck? Probably not. Would it have saved the
motorcyclist who went off the road and slammed his
body into a tree thereby dying from massive
internal body cavity bleeding? Absolutely not.
Nine of the Wisconsin fatalities last year were
even caused when the motorcycle stuck an animal
including a cow and a horse. I don't think a
helmet would have saved a person's body
trauma after slamming into a horse. One rider was
killed when a tree fell on him. Wrapping this
guy's whole body in bubble wrap
wouldn't have saved him. 92% is a pretty
impressive statistic, but, without knowing the
circumstances of the accident, his information is
useless. In a recent interview with Mr. Patzer,
the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel stated that
"The number of fatal crashes sometimes
climbs when there's a warm Spring and motorcycling
gets off to an early start. Other years, it just
seems like bad luck when a high number of riders
are killed - often through no fault of their
own." It sounds like Mr. Patzer
doesn't really know what causes motorcycle
fatalities yet continues to arbitrarily name
non-helmet usage as the culprit.
Federal agencies such as the CDC, the NTSB and the
NHTSA have also joined the mandatory helmet ranks.
The NHTSA cites that motorcycle fatalities have
risen during the period of 1997 to 2010 from 2,116
fatalities to 4,502 fatalities. That's very
true, on the surface. But what they fail to
mention is how motorcycle registrations surged
during the same time period and how the percentage
of motorcycle fatalities basically stayed the
same. There were 2,116 fatalities in 1997 for
3,826,000 motorcycles registered. In 2010, there
were 4,502 fatalities for 8,368,000 motorcycles
registered. That's a fatality rate of 0.05%
in both cases. It's a fatality rate of much
less than 1% which hasn't changed.
Futhermore, motorcycle fatalities actually dropped
in 2009 by 16% and have stayed relatively flat in
2010 and 2011.
But how can that be?! With more and more states
dropping their mandatory helmet laws, the
motorcycle fatality rate should be going through
the roof according to their assertions! In fact,
they rely heavily on "estimates" which
they liberally sprinkle throughout their arguments
of how helmets might have saved more lives. They
fail to provide any hard evidence that helmets
actually make a difference in lowering motorcycle
fatalities.
The CDC says, nationwide, more than $3 billion in
economic costs were saved due to helmet use in
2010, based on medical expenses and lost work
productivity from motorcycle deaths and injuries.
If our state motorcycle safety program can't
even confirm the life saving capabilities of
helmets, then how does the CDC assign a national
dollar amount to a statistic that
"might" be true? The CDC's
recent involvement illustrates the failure of the
NTSB, NHTSA and Fed DOT to address fatalities via
education which allowed the CDC to enter the fray,
further illustrating the need for these
organizations to get out of the business.
So if helmets aren't proven to lower
motorcycle fatalities, what's the secret?
The answer to this issue is driver education and
motorcycle awareness. We need to quit trying to
make crashing safer and actually lower the number
of crashes. Only through driver education and
motorcycle awareness campaigns that are instituted
by organizations such as ABATE of Wisconsin can we
educate the general public to be safer on the road
and be more aware of their surroundings while
driving. These programs have proven to be
effective in reaching new automobile drivers early
before they start developing bad driving habits
and bringing motorcycle awareness to the general
public. New federal helmet mandates and road-side
checkpoints do nothing but siphon already scarce
dollars from the programs that actually make a
difference not to mention gobbling up precious
man-hours from local law enforcement when they
could be spending their time on more important
issues.
So where do our government agencies sit on the
matters of driver education and motorcycle
awareness? The DOT refuses to spend money on
motorcycle awareness, safety and education, and the
government refuses to allocate the money it
collects from increased registration fees back to
the motorcycle safety programs. The Wisconsin DOT
refuses to use the digital signage that is already
in place on the roadways to bring motorcycle
awareness to the general driving public yet
hundreds of thousands of dollars has been funneled
to the state Motorcycle Safety Program to
construct a trailer to haul to motorcycle events
to encourage riders to take a riders education
course. Is it any wonder if fatalities increase?!
I believe that our State and Federal DOT's refusal
to get involved and step up to run PSA's,
billboards, awareness campaigns and related
education funding has led to this problem we are
seeing nationally. If our government agencies were
serious about reducing motorcycle fatalities, they
would stop trying to make crashes safer and attack
the root causes for the accidents in the first
place. As motorcyclists, our safety and motorcycle
awareness is the priority. Shouldn't the
government agencies in charge of our roadways make
it their priority as well?
Dean "D-Day" Bartosh
ABATE of Wisconsin
Director of Public Relations
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