Bikers Who Love that 'Wind-in-My-Hair Feeling' Still Hoping for Legislative Relief

When I was 18 and a freshman at Northeastern, my sister-in-law, Sue, was a recent graduate of the Mt. Auburn Hospital school of nursing (Cambridge) and working as an operating room nurse at that hospital. 

One day she asked me to promise I would never ride a motorcycle.  I asked why.

“Because,” she said, “I’ve already seen too many people in the O.R. who were permanently damaged in motorcycle crashes or did not survive those crashes.  Some of them weren’t much older than you.”

She added, “Do you know what some people call motorcycles?”  I did not know.

“Donorcycles,” she said.  “They make organ donors.”

A recent article in STAT, an online product of Boston Globe Media, brought me back to that conversation with Sue. Headlined, “Pro-helmet activists are notching wins against motorcyclists shouting ‘freedom,’ ” it said:

“Pro-helmet activists have launched aggressive efforts in state legislatures across the nation to fend off motorcyclists demanding the right to ride bareheaded.

“For two decades, the riders – and their rallying cry of freedom – have often had the upper hand in these battles.  Now, though, the public health advocates are gaining traction as more and more evidence emerges that mandating helmet use saves lives.”

Around 4,500 motorcyclists are killed every year in the U.S., STAT reported.

STAT cited an academic research paper recently submitted for peer review that posited a 20 percent increase in the supply of donated organs in jurisdictions where motorcycle helmet laws had been repealed.  The paper is titled, “Allocating Scarce Organs: How a Change in Supply Affects Transplant Waiting Lists.”  Here’s an excerpt:

“…we hypothesize that the repeal of a universal helmet law, which requires all motorcyclists to wear helmets, increases the number of helmetless motorcycle riders. [Blogger’s note: Duh?]  This in turn increases the probability of brain death – the principal criteria for becoming a deceased organ donor in most cases.”

In each of the two previous legislative sessions, 2013-14 and 2015-16, at least one bill that would have weakened the Massachusetts statute requiring universal helmet use by motorcyclists has been introduced in the legislature.

This session, there’s House Bill 1862, An Act Relative to Motorcycle Helmet Choice, and Senate Bill 1932, An Act Relative to Standards for Protective Headgear for Operators or Passengers on Motorcycles.

H.1862 would change the existing law to mandate that only persons under 18 who are driving or riding on a motorcycle wear a helmet, while S.1932 would eliminate the section of a state law (Chapter 90, Section 7) requiring everyone on a motorcycle to wear a helmet.

In previous sessions, all anti-helmet bills died in committee.  There’s no reason to believe H.1862 and S.1932 will do any better this session.

On Thursday, May 18, a convoy of motorcyclists arrived on Beacon Hill to demonstrate support for S.1932.   According to the State House News Service, Rick Gleason, legislative director of the Massachusetts Motorcycle Association, said that day that one reason bikers want to be able to ride helmet-free is to experience the feel of the wind in their hair.

I wrote a post, back in April of 2014, on an earlier version of a helmet-free bill, one of those that later died in committee.  What I wrote then I write now:  I would endorse the enactment of a helmet-free law for motorcyclists if it included a section stipulating that anyone on a motorcycle not wearing a helmet who suffers a head and/or spinal injury leading to permanent disability agrees to forego permanently any public assistance, as through Medicaid or Medicare. 

If you don’t want the government meddling in your open-road experience and ordering you to protect your own brain in the most effective way possible, you can’t expect the government, i.e., taxpayers, to pay for the long-term care you may need after you’ve been badly hurt in a motorcycle crash.