DOT Boss and Motorcycle Enthusiast Promotes Bike Safety
Unlike legislators and lawmakers who wouldn't know a centerstand from a clutch lever, US Department of Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters is an avid motorcyclist with a passion for riding. Peters was involved in a wreck two years ago, and credits safety gear for preventing more injury than the broken collarbone she walked away with. "If I hadn’t taken those safety precautions," she says in a new public service announcement, "I wouldn’t be standing here today."
The PSA is part of a motorcycle safety campaign which includes a Motorcycle Action Plan, an Educational Safety Plan, and a Crash, Death & Injury report. While the motorcycle industry is working on their own motorcycle crash research study, the NHTSA findings report, like the decades-old Hurt report, that a direct correlation exists between head injury and helmet use.
I encourage you to read the government findings and comment on them here, but before you go study-bashing, remember that this time they originated from one of us.
Photo © NHTSA
Comments
Well here we go again. I think that everyone should wear a helment, It’s just nuts not to. But that should be left up to me not Mary Peters or the DOT. But then again nowdays we don’t really have a lot to say about anything, it’s what ever the goverment says.
I don’t think it can hurt to have one of our own heading up DOT.
If I have to wear a seat belt in my company truck by law, then I should have to wear my helmet by law too.
busfreak: I know this is controversial, but I don’t think the decision whether or not to wear a helmet should be yours alone. If you become a vegetable and need round-the clock care, it costs $100,000 a year for someone to change your diapers, feed you, roll you over and put ointment on your bedsores. And when your insurance policy has paid it’s lifetime coverage (which I subsidize through higher premiums), your family has to come up with the money. Do you want to do that to your family? After they lose their house and savings (your children’s college tuition) and can’t pay any more, the cost of your poor judgement is rolled over to the taxpayers. I do not think you should have the right to make me pay higher taxes just because you wanted to feel the wind in your hair.
The government is making decisions for us because too many people don’t seem to be able to make rational decisions on their own. Give a group of people freedoms, and there will always be some who misuse it, leading to restrictions for everyone. We all end up paying for the poor decisions of a few individuals.
Having ridden coast-to-coast as well as up and down and all around North America a bunch of times, I am an advocate for wearing helmets. In fact, helmet use has saved my life. However, I am not an advocate for helmet “laws,” and I applaud DOT for attempting to improve the motorcycle fatality rate via training and education, as opposed to initiating more restrictions on American freedoms.
MC-G
motorcycle-intelligence.com
We all need to accept that our tax money will, in part, be used to help our neighbors that have suffered misfortunes, and that our entire life plan could change for the caring of a loved one for any reason. Our society accepts a certain free lifestyle that includes risks, both foreseen and unexpected. We all have our own personal limits, and we should all accept the limits of others. So, I’m saying that I’m in favor of personal choice; motorcycles are dangerous with and without helmets. Secondly, I would like to say that I’m tired of this issue getting so much attention compared to another issue. That is, PUBLIC AWARENESS AND EDUCATION, which I hear very little about. There should be public serivce announcements (by celebrites - like the drug and illiteracy commercials), billboards, offical road signs supporting motorcycle safety, etc. A serious effort in this direction WILL decrease motorcycle mortality and morbidity!