California - S.B.
No. 1057 AUTHOR : Morrow
The bill will exclude adults (18 and over).
May be acted upon on or after March 27, 2001.Here is a
sample letter.
Your name here
March 1, 2001
Assemblywoman Lynn Daucher
305 North Harbor Blvd., Suite 303
Fullerton, CA 92832
Dear Assemblywoman Daucher,
Please let me know if you will cosponsor the bill to
change the motorcycle helmet law to exclude adults of age
18 and older.
I've included some important points below.
Outline
I. Helmets cause injuries.
II. Helmets have no significant effect on the motorcycle
fatality per accident rate.
III. Cosponsor helmet repeal bill for riders 18 and
older.
I. Part of the proof that helmets cause injuries is in
the information in the California Assembly Transportation
Committee Analysis in 1998 for Assembly Bill 1412.
Here are the facts.
1. There was a significant decrease in the number of
motorcycle related accidents after the helmet law was
implemented in California.
2. The overall number of cervical spine injuries of
motorcyclists per year did not change.
The following information was taken from the California
Assembly Transportation Committee Analysis in 1998 for
Assembly Bill 1412. "The California Motorcycle
Safety Program (CMSP) annual report cites a continuing
decline in the number of motorcycle accidents and
fatalities declining from a peak of 40 to 12 accidents
per 1,000 riders. Accidents among younger drivers under
25 years of age have declined from 146 to 72 accidents
per 1,000 riders." 5) The overall number of cervical
spine injuries did not change.
With simple math you can see that if we look at the
cervical spine injury per accident rate, since there is a
significant decrease in the number of accidents and the
number of spine injuries remained the same, there is a
SIGNIFICANT INCREASE in the spine injury per accident
rate. This is proof that helmets cause injury.
More evidence is in a letter from the National
Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to the U.S. Department
of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration (NHTSA). The letter from the NTSB
referenced the Raeder/Negri study of the effects of the
helmet law for motorcyclists in New York State. The
letter said that there was "a increase from just
under 6% to close to 38% of all fatalities resulting from
broken neck injuries..." and asked the NHTSA to
investigate.
The NHTSA did not investigate this concern and maintains
that there is no evidence indicating that helmets are in
any way related to neck injuries.
II. There is no significant difference in your
probability to survive a motorcycle accident if there is
a helmet law or not.
Quote from the California Highway Patrol:
"A comparison in accident statistics was made in
order to assess the effectiveness of California's law,
1987 through 1991, were compared to the first five years
after the law became effective, 1992 through 1996. The
average motorcyclist fatality rate for California for the
last five was 2.524. The average for the five years after
the law, 1992 through 1996, was 2.398." - Statement
by Commissioner of CHP, D.O. Helmick August 19, 1999.
The numbers he is referencing are fatalities per 100
accidents. So, the helmet law changed the fatality per
accident rate from 2.524% to 2.398%.
The reasons that there is no significant difference in
the fatality per accident rates is that helmets only
reduce the impact by 15 MPH and the strap around a
rider's neck along with the added weight of a helmet
causes fatalities from neck injuries.
III. As you know, it takes an active effort to get bills
passed. Please cosponsor the bill to return my freedom.
Also, people who oppose this bill on the grounds that
unhelmeted riders may be a public burden should be
informed that helmets create as many problems as they
cure as explained above and that estimates presented in
order to get the helmet law passed in 1991 were false.
The author of the helmet bill falsely reported that the
public burden was $140,000,000 per year for head injured
motorcyclists, but records show that the public burden
for all head injuries in the state, with motorcyclists
being a portion, was around $16,000,000.
Please also be advised that the vast majority of recent
studies of the effectiveness of the use of helmets
analyze only the benefits of reducing head injuries and
exclude the adverse effects of helmets which are related
to neck injuries. The people who use these reports will
tell you that head injuries are reduced with helmet use,
and they will tell you that helmets reduce neck injuries.
The point to note is that if what they say is true, the
fatality per accident rate would be greatly reduced when
all riders are required to wear a helmet, but it is not.
So, when they make the claim that helmets reduce neck
injuries, please ask them to prove it. I've already
proved that helmet use significantly increases neck
injuries.
Another aspect of this issue is, "how intrusive
should the government be"? Keeping in mind that, for
every motorcyclist with a fatal head injury, there is at
least one person with a similar injury from a car
accident, here is a question.
If you were convinced that a significant number of lives
and money would be saved by requiring everyone in cars to
wear helmets, would you support such a law?
Regards,
Lee Jordan
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| Oregon Bike-Pac of Oregon is
introducing repeal, (over 21 years of age)and a bill
prohibiting discrimination in places of public
accommodation, based on mode
of transportation and related apparel, or group insignia.
Also,exemption of
the ban on self-serve gas for motorcyclists.
Through the actions of motorcyclists becoming involved in
the political
parties as Precinct Committie Persons,then, working our
way up the ladder to
committie chairs etc, we now have the political clout to
have convinced all
three major parties to adopt adult helmet law
modification as a part of
their legislative platform in the 2001 session. IT CAN BE
DONE PEOPLE, JUST
GET ACTIVE!!!!!
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