These guys don't protest helmet rules
In 1981, I was a staff writer at the Elizabethtown Chronicle. I was assigned to write about the anti-helmet law demonstration at the state capital. I was the only motorcyclist on staff and always wore a helmet, so I was not sympathetic with the demonstrators.
I wrote about the demonstration and reported the opinions of the demonstrators as accurately as I could. I remembered some of their arguments from a decade before when I heard the arguments against wearing seat belts. The protesters insisted that riding a motorcycle was just as safe with or without a helmet.
Since it was a weekly newspaper, I had a chance to update my story the next day with a report of the death of a motorcyclist leaving the rally riding home in the middle of the night with a blood alcohol level that made him legally drunk. He died of massive head injuries. Since he was dumb enough to drive a motorcycle while drunk his lifespan was probably destined to be short anyway.
Personal protective equipment has always been controversial in freedom worshipping America. We are free to be as stupid as we want to be. We do not want people to tell us to wear masks or seatbelts or helmets or safety glasses or wash our hands.
We wear personal protective equipment for ourselves and for those who love us and for those who could be hurt if we don’t as in the case of facemasks. The trouble is there is no dramatic feedback for safety. We wear a seat belt and walk away from an accident that could have killed us.
There is an old proverb that says above all do not become a proverb. Do not be that blind man who refused safety glasses at work. And do not be the motorcyclist who protested helmet laws and died on the way home of massive head injuries. Fifty years post mortem you are still a proverb.
