Why Hasn’t the Motorcycle Industry Advocated Safety Technology?

Over the years, the incidence of fatal and personal injury collisions among passenger vehicle occupants throughout the United States has steadily declined as the car industry has equipped vehicles with more safety features. Only recently have motorcycle manufacturers offered such features to riders. Moreover, it has fought legislation mandating the use of helmets. A recent crash in New York illustrates the dangers of neglecting to wear a helmet.
Last July, while riding in a protest against mandatory helmet laws, a motorcyclist was involved in a single-vehicle crash and killed in Onondaga, New York. He was not wearing a helmet. When 55-year-old Philip A. Contos hit his brakes, he began fishtailing and lost control of his bike. He was ejected from the motorcycle and hit his head on the pavement. Paramedics transported him to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead, reported CNN.com.

In 2009, traffic accidents claimed the lives of 4,462 motorcyclists and left another 90,000 injured, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). In 42.8 percent of these crashes, the motorcycle rider or passenger was not wearing a helmet. Moreover, the annual number of motorcyclist fatalities has more than doubled from the late 1990s to 2009, finally decreasing in 2009.

Although all states initially had helmet use laws after the federal government required them to enact such laws in order to qualify for certain federal safety programs and highway construction funds, only 20 states and the District of Columbia presently have laws mandating the use of helmets. In 1968, Michigan became the first state to repeal its helmet law, and by the late 1970s the states had successfully lobbied Congress to stop financially penalizing them for not having helmet laws.

The rate of head injury-related fatality among motorcyclists is twice as high in states that lack helmet laws or have laws that apply only to young riders, according to the IIHS. Motorcycle helmet use has decreased from 67 percent in 2009 to 54 percent in 2010, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association. Moreover, in the first nine months of 2010, the number of motorcyclists wearing federally-approved, impact-absorbing helmets decreased by 13 percent. Department of Transportation approved helmets reduce riders’ risk of being killed in a crash by 40 percent.

Arguments against mandatory helmet use include that they increase the risk of neck injuries, reduce peripheral vision, and impair hearing. For others, helmet use should be a matter of choice. The motorcycle industry may not have embraced helmets—or other safety technologies like antilock brakes—due to cost and a lack of consumer demand. While BMW AG plans to equip all models with antilock brakes as of 2012, Honda Motor Company and Harley-Davidson are monitoring customer interest before making the systems standard to all of their bikes, reported The Wall Street Journal. Motorcycles with antilock brakes have a 37 percent lower rate of fatal crashes than the same models that lack them, according to the IIHS.

Hopefully, the federal government will mandate that all motorcycles come with antilock brakes and other technologies that are being introduced to these vehicles to prevent fatal and personal injury accidents. The country’s declining helmet use illustrates the necessity for such laws, explains a lawyer in California.