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Dangers Of Motrocycle Helmets

Helmets Kill
Many common misconceptions are associated with motorcycles and the rules that bind them, but none is more highly debated than laws requiring helmets. Although common sense would suggest that wearing a helmet on a motorcycle is safer than not, there are a variety of ways that wearing a helmet can be more hazardous. Severe and permanent spinal injury caused by ineffective helmet regulations and standards is just one of the many reasons why it is safer to ride without a helmet. The rise in motorcycle deaths is not due to fewer states having helmet laws, but is credited to the increase of new and inexperienced riders. Awareness of the dangers of helmets coupled with stricter guidelines on who may receive a motorcycle license would greatly reduce motorcycle fatalities.
The agency that is responsible for establishing and enforcing standards for helmet manufacturing companies is the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Their testing procedure has to do with the use of a head form without the neck or body being considered. The only concern in these tests is the protection of this head form without regard to the actual application of the helmet on a human head. Without the use of a full body dummy, the NHTSA has neglected the very real injuries that occur to the neck and spinal cord from wearing a helmet.
In the United States only four states are completely helmet law free, twenty six have age restrictions associated with there laws, and twenty states require helmets to be worn at all times regardless to age. Most would assume that the states with full helmet regulations would experience a significantly greater loss of life than those that do not require it. This assumption however would be wrong. The fatality rate has increased with repeal of helmet laws: It is actually lower for non-helmet law states than helmet law states. The injury and death rate in Colorado was never higher per accident than during the...

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