Wyatt Hopper
WRIT 102
Dr. Koster
April 19, 2001
The Injustice of Helmet Laws
Each year, on Memorial Day, U.S. veterans from several wars, but especially Vietnam era vets, converge upon our nation's capitol to pay tribute to their fallen comrades. Some come by car, by train, by bus, by plane, but increasingly, thousands and thousands of these proud American arrive on their preferred mode of transportation, motorcycles. And a considerable portion of those are not just any bike, but that proud symbol of American freedom, the Harley Davidson. However, the saddest part of this giant patriotic bike rally is not that many of these courageous survivors are missing the buddies they lost in Nam, or the Gulf War. No, the saddest part is that these men, some of whom have ridden hundreds, if not thousands of miles for this event, are forced to do something that many of them would rather not, that is, put on helmets, because, the District of Columbia has a mandatory helmet law for all riders.
For those arriving from Virginia and Maryland, this requirement may not be such a big deal, because those states, too, require all riders to wear helmets. But for many who rode from Illinois, from Iowa, or all the way from Colorado, states that have no helmet laws at all, the rule in D.C. is a galling restriction upon their freedom. And 21 other states that do have helmet laws only force them upon teenagers, not grown up women and men who fought for their country more 30 years ago. Helmet laws for people over 18 are wrong because they deprive adults of freedom and the pursuit of happiness. They exist only because the powerful insurance lobby has more influence upon lawmakers than the people who risked their lives to defend liberty halfway around the globe.
Some say that helmet laws are good because they save lives. Granted, some motorcycle fatalities are prevented because of helmets. And, I am not opposed to requiring teenagers to wear helmets. Many of them have too little experience riding a bike, and too much willingness to take risks, and requiring them to wear helmets when they are still minors is not necessarily wrong. However, once people are adults, they should be free to do anything that does not harm or endanger others. And riding without a helmet endangers no one but the rider. In fact, a rider without a helmet has better visibility and better hearing than a person wearing one, so some collisions are undoubtedly avoided when riders don't wear helmets and don't have their senses compromised.
No, helmet laws were not devised by people trying to save lives. They were foisted upon the public by people trying to save money. How does this work? If a rider suffers a severe head trauma, the person might go into a coma or become "brain dead" but, thanks to modern medicine, not really die. So, that person then can become a very expensive liability to a community if he or she ends up in the county hospital with no medical insurance, but is racking up thousands of dollars of medical bills while on life support. Yes, this does happen, and, yes, this can present serious financial problems and serious ethical problems, but that is not sufficient reason to deprive all the adults of the joy of riding without a helmet. Especially since the mandatory helmet law solution has produced another unwanted consequence besides depriving thousands of adults of their freedom. It has contributed to the shortage of donated organs. Yes, it's true. There is a reason why emergency room personnel refer to motorcycles as "donorcycles." When a young, previously healthy, but suddenly irreparably dead person shows up in the emergency room, the first thing the doctors do, if authorized, is harvest all the fine, young, perfectly healthy organs that weren't damaged when the cyclist met his or her untimely end. Now, some cyclists who would not have otherwise survived are surviving thanks to helmets, while others, who would not have otherwise died if they had an organ donor, are dying for lack of a liver, a kidney, a heart, or a lung, all of which used to be in greater supply before the do-gooders in the government decided to pay back the insurance companies that had bought them their elected offices by passing helmet laws that serve insurance company bottom lines more than any other stakeholders.
So, laws requiring adults to wear helmets should be repealed because they violate the individuals' rights to freedom and the pursuit of happiness and they don't really serve society at large. The savings not spent keeping a brain dead person on life support are undone by the decreased supply of donated organs. Plus, there is a simple solution to the financial and ethical problem of "pulling the plug" on a brain dead motorcycle accident victim. Instead of requiring everyone to wear a helmet, simply require everyone who does not want to wear a helmet to sign a living will. Simply put, in the event of traumatic brain injury that a doctor says the patient will not recover from, the living will authorizes the state to pull the plug and harvest the organs. Just like the millions of Americans who now designate themselves as organ donors on their driver's licenses, the cyclists who want to ride free will do the same, with an additional line covering the event of irreparable brain damage.
This way, the state can still protect underage riders, and it can still protect itself from costly medical expenses to keep alive someone who isn't really capable of living. And it will allow those whose idea of living includes riding down the highway with the wind blowing their hair to live as they choose, without having their freedom deprived by the bean counters at the insurance company whose only interest is their bottom line.
This argument originally appeared on a page of argument resources published by A.B. Longman at http://wps.ablongman.com/long_ramage_abguide_3/0,5259,371094-,00.html. No author was identified.