Over at Common Tread, my colleague Jen Dunstan did another one of her “explainer” articles and videos, this time taking a dive into the history of helmets and the endless, tiresome debate over motorcycle helmet laws. Jen did a good job, and predictably the reader comments are rolling in by the hundreds, but man… I am so tired of this whole discussion.
Probably the main reason is that the decades-long debate over helmet laws reflects the worst of our current political environment. Confirmation bias has always been a human trait, but it has been magnified ever since the internet made it easy to find someone else who also believed even the craziest, most unsupported idea you ever had. So now virtually nobody ever changes their minds about anything, but just cherry-picks information (or wild, uncorroborated speculation) that supports what they want to believe.
There’s really no question that you’re safer wearing a helmet than not. But as Jen pointed out, that’s not what it’s about. The debate really comes down to the differences between those who don’t want to wear a helmet and don’t feel the government should have the right to force them to, and those who think everyone should wear a helmet and don’t mind if the government mandates it.
I’m not personally affected because I always want to wear a helmet. Not just because it makes me safer, but also because it makes me more comfortable. There’s nothing about riding bare-headed and dealing with wind noise, sunburn, bugs splatting me in the face at 70 mph (or worse, stone chips) that feels appealing or fun to me. So I never give a thought to helmet laws. On multi-state trips, I wouldn’t even know if I’m in a state that requires helmets except for the percentage of other people wearing them.
One thing that bothers me is the hypocrisy on all sides in this debate, though it seems to run heavier among those opposed to helmet laws. There’s the guy who screams about infringement of his freedom because he has to wear a motorcycle helmet but jumps into his Ford F-250 Super Duty and buckles up in compliance with seat belt laws without a peep. Or the pro-helmet-law advocates who use the “social burden” argument, which basically says that helmets should be required because if you’re brain dead after a crash because you weren’t wearing a helmet the state is going to have to pay for your care until you die once your insurance runs out. Of course that same argument is also a perfectly logical reason to outlaw motorcycles entirely, given that you’re 27 times more likely to die on a motorcycle than in a car. Do we really want to outlaw everything that might hurt us?
As much as I would like to see everyone wear a helmet — and despite the fact I always wear one myself — I have a hard time mounting much enthusiasm for helmet laws. For the most part, people who ride without helmets only hurt themselves. But in the end, I just can’t muster much interest in this most highly debated of all motorcycling topics in the United States. Maybe that’s a selfish position. I’m not personally affected so I don’t care. But it also seems to me that this debate is already overloaded with participants and doesn’t really need me to take a side.
The one thing I can care about in this debate is the use of misinformation. Motorcycling is full of myths and flat-out lies, and I try to correct them when I have the chance. I’m not talking about opinions, such as what kind of riding is more fun, but things that can and have been factually tested.
In the comments to Jen’s story, one reader named Dan stated a few objections, one of them being that a helmet is “a neck breaker.” It’s an old and discredited assertion used by some opponents of helmet laws, stating that you’re more likely to suffer a neck injury in a motorcycle crash if you’re wearing a helmet. I don’t care what your position is on helmet laws, but I do care about spreading misinformation. So I pointed Dan toward an article I wrote about a scientific study that looked at the medical records of more than 1,000 riders who crashed, some wearing a helmet and some not, and found that those wearing helmets were actually less likely to suffer a neck injury. Dan responded by suggesting I try a home experiment that involved a toothpick and an olive to see that he was right because that was “science.”
Think about that assertion for a minute. A toothpick and an olive are better for predicting what will happen to us in a motorcycle crash than the medical records of a thousand people who were in real-life motorcycle crashes — as long as the toothpick and olive tell us what we want to believe. This shows the extreme to which confirmation bias has taken root among us today and just shows how almost no one is open-minded anymore. Like the origin of the coronavirus or any of a dozen other politicized issues these days, a person’s opinion tells me more about what they want to believe than about which reliable, vetted information they’ve carefully considered.
Another advantage of taking a ride on my motorcycle and wearing my helmet is that I won’t be able to hear any of them.
I read every single post of yours. And I agree with you 100% every time. That’s probably not a good thing because I’m actually kinda dumb.
Oh well, at least I’m smarter than Dan.
I fear that my helmet has more brains in it than Dan has. Even when no one is wearing my helmet.
Well said. I too am tired of this debate. I too am not enthusiastic about helmet laws. I too wear a helmet for both safety and comfort. It is sad that many people don’t let the facts get in the way of a preferred belief.