After motorcycle mishap, DOT secretary becomes a spokesperson for helmet safety

It's not just because of her job that Mary Peters, Secretary of Transportation, cares about motorcycle safety.

Peters is an avid motorcyclist herself and one who knows firsthand how important wearing a helmet can be. “My helmet prevented me from being a brain injury patient when I crashed my Harley two years ago,” says Peters who suffered a broken collar bone when she hit the pavement. That’s why she’s now pressing Congress to enact legislation to encourage more states to pass motorcycle helmet laws.

“I want states to be able to join in urging riders to take personal responsibility for their safety by wearing a helmet every time they ride,” said Peters who is prompting Congress to allow states to use federal motorcycle safety funding to promote the use of motorcycle helmets. Currently, states are limited to using that money for safety training and awareness programs only.

Peters notes that motorcycle fatalities have more than doubled in 10 years to 4,810 in 2006. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that helmets saved the lives of 1,658 motorcyclists in 2006—and could have saved an additional 752 lives if all riders had worn helmets compliant with federal safety standards.

Although motorcycles account for only two percent of vehicles on the road, they make up more than 10 percent of all crashes. Part of the problem, says Peters, are aging baby boomers like her. “Many of them are going out and buying bikes—and wrecking them.” As a result, crashes among the 50-plus age group have gone up 400 percent in the last decade.

Those numbers help explain why Peters calls motorcycles “our nation’s greatest highway safety challenge”—and why DOT launched a new federal initiative last fall to improve rider education and training and to curb counterfeit helmets that provide less protection on the highways. Peters even starred in a public service announcement.

Unfortunately, in recent years, efforts to encourage all states to adopt laws requiring all riders to wear helmets have collided with a strong motorcycle rights lobby.

Comments

[Mark Infield]

Mary Peters is no more an "avid motorcyclist" than I am Peter Pan. She crashed because she was inexperienced and not paying attention. Funding for motorcycle education is much more effective at reducing crashing than spending funds promoting mandatory helmet use is for promoting safer crashing. If helmets were the answer to the spike in fatalities, why isn't there a wide gap in the fatalities in helmet states and non helmet states? The answer is because helmets only offer limited protection in some instances and there are many other injuries that can and do kill motorcyclists besides head trauma. Mary Peters is in way over her head and refuses to act on anything except her own emotion and experience. I think that she should park the Harley. Knitting might be a lot safer hobby for her, but there those long sharp needles to deal with. Mary Peters' blatant disregard for the existing law and constitutional freedoms demands that she be removed from office, If you think motorcyclists are mad at Mary Peters, ask a truck driver how they feel about her!

[JanBOLT]

Motorcyclists will hang Mary Peters in effigy on April 18, 2008, just as helmets have caused people to have similar neck injuries. The next day, in Raleigh, on the anniversary of the first shots of the American Revolution, we will be speaking of freedom, and protesting helmet laws, and the loss of individuals rights, at the Patriots Day Motorcycle Rally.

Take personal responsibility? I agree! Since when is personal responsibility an option in North Carolina? NC motorcyclists are not lawfully allowed to decide for themselves. NC has had a universal mandatory helmet law for 40 years, and we have just as many deaths as other states.

North Carolina does not allow its subjects the right to assume personal responsibility. The socialists have decided we have no right to decide this important safety matter for ourselves.

Helmets are not the panacea Mary Peters and the DOT claims. The DOT program for keeping lousy imported helmets off the store shelves is horrible! There are over 1/2 million helmets in the recalls database, but the NHTSA cannot account for them! Where are they? These dangerous helmets are most likely on the heads of over 500,000 people who think they have been tested and are DOT Approved. Yet, the truth is that the DOT neither tests nor approves helmets, and they cannot even give you a list of helmets that are compliant with federal motor vehicle safety standards. Yet, Ms "Crash" Peters and the DOT push these Pacific Rim products on us and get the states to force us to wear them or be ticketed for wearing a helmet that is not compliant.

Yes, we should exercise personal responsibility, but by researching the facts and making our own decisions, rather than relying on bureaucrats to decide for us. Free people question authority, and call them on their lies and their unlawful attempts to subvert the intent of Congress which said the NHTSA shall not use taxpayer funds to lobby for helmet use.

Visit boltnc.org and see you at the protest!