EDITORIALS : On Two Wheels
Posted on Tuesday, September 19, 2006
We’re all for anything
that makes riding
a motorcycle safer, up to and including the airbags with which some cycle manufacturers have begun experimenting. But we feel as though those manufacturers have gotten a little ahead of themselves. They’ve skipped an important step. While motorcycle airbags may save lives in some situations, it seems silly to us that they’re even being discussed while so many riders take to the roads without wearing helmets. Isn’t that like discussing airbags for a car while ignoring the fact that it doesn’t have any seat belts ?
We understand that many motorcycle riders don’t see it that way. For them, the wind blowing through their hair as they hit the open road is a big part of the attraction. And the manufacturers are, of course, sensitive to the desires of these helmet-eschewing riders, who make up a large portion of the customer base.
That explains why the manufacturers spend time on innovations like handlebar airbags, instead of aggressively lobbying state legislatures to enact helmet laws. We’re not traffic-safety experts, but it doesn’t take an expert to figure out that the best and quickest way to make riding a motorcycle safer is to push riders to wear helmets.
Of course, that will take one heck of a push. Ever since Congress repealed a law tying federal highway funds to whether states have helmet laws, the trend, nationally, has been heading in the wrong direction. More and more states have done away with their helmet laws, including Arkansas in 1997. Not surprisingly, motorcycle fatalities have increased in those states.
Everyone with a dog in the motorcycle-safety hunt has come up short — riders who refuse to wear helmets, manufacturers who sidestep the helmet debate and lawmakers, like ours, who do away with helmet laws. Their common mantra is that it should be about personal choice. People who want to operate cars without wearing seat belts say the same thing. We don’t agree with them, either.
Again, we’re for anything that improves motorcycle safety. We’ve seen too many horrific accident scenes not to be. If the airbags help, that’s good news.
Still, we can’t help but feel there’s something missing from the overall discussion about motorcycle safety. It’s been absent from this debate for so long that we sometimes have trouble remembering it. Then word of the latest motorcycle fatality involving a helmetless rider is broadcast over the police scanner, and it all comes back in a rush.
What’s missing is common sense. It took off on two wheels a long time ago.
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