The Helmet Debate Burns Hot Again in 2012

June 17, 2012 - PRLog -- 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 know 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