Letters: Motorcycle injuries must not cost much

If states and localities were truly suffering financial losses due to injured motorcyclists, as Cindi Scoppe suggests in her Oct 13 column, “Fantasies of the motorcycle ‘freedom’ crowd,” it is not logical to believe that 31 states would continue to allow adult motorcyclists to choose whether or not to wear helmets. It is not as if motorcyclists have the financial backing and political muscle of groups such as the insurance industry and the health-care conglomerates.

According to Ms. Scoppe’s argument, 31 legislatures have the ability to put a tourniquet on a public wound that is hemorrhaging cash, by mandating the use of motorcycle helmets. Yet they are ignoring this easy solution. Perhaps that is because the problem is being greatly exaggerated by those who want legislative action taken on the basis of emotion rather than fact.

Motorcycle safety should not focus on surviving a crash but on avoiding the crash in the first place. State motorcycle safety organizations have been emphasizing training and education for a decade. Perhaps this is why motorcycle fatalities per 100,000 registered motorcycles have dropped 20 percent nationwide since 2005 even though registrations have increased 36 percent. This is despite the fact that not a single state has enacted a mandatory helmet law during that time.

Perhaps much like Mark Twain’s death, the powers of motorcycle helmets have been greatly exaggerated.

This story was originally published November 3, 2015 at 3:11 PM with the headline "Letters: Motorcycle injuries must not cost much."