LITTLE ROCK — On Nov. 20, Aubrey Appling became the 89th person to die in a motorcycle or all-terrain-vehicle accident in Arkansas this year, surpassing a high mark set in 2007, according to Arkansas State Police preliminary fatality records.
Appling, 55, wasn’t wearing a helmet while he was bringing in a deer he had just killed about 2 miles north of his home in the Sylamore community in southern Izard County, according to Izard County Coroner Eddie Howard and the Izard County sheriff’s office. Appling died on the scene after rolling his four-wheel ATV and hitting his head on a rock.
By seeing its 89th fatality with more than a month left in 2010, the state ended a string of two straight years that motorcycle/ATV fatalities had decreased since 2007. According to state police reports, 85 people died in 2008 and 84 died last year. Before that, however, the state had seen increases for five consecutive years, increasing from 47 in 2002 to 88 in 2007.
As states across the country have seen an increase in motorcycle and ATV fatalities, a push to bring mandatory helmet laws to all 50 states is under way. But advocates for riders’ choice say the statistics don’t tell the whole story and helmets can actually do more harm than good.
According to the National Transportation Safety Board, deaths have risen steadily in states that have relaxed their motorcycle and ATV helmet laws in the past 15 years.
“It’s a public-safety issue,” Christopher A. Hart, the transportation board’s vice chairman, said when he announced last week that helmets would be added to the transportation board’s “Most Wanted” list.
Now that helmets have been placed on the “Most Wanted” list the transportation board said it will increase pressure on states to pass legislation requiring helmets.
“Too many lives are lost in motorcycle accidents,” Hart said.
The transportation board doesn’t have any legislative authority but acts as a bully pulpit. However, it said it would turn to Congress if states didn’t enact laws on their own.
In about 65 percent of motorcycle deaths a helmet wasn’t worn, the transportation board said. In Arkansas, 70 percent of motorcycle/ ATV fatalities from 1999 to 2008, the last year helmet-usage information is available, were a rider who was not wearing a helmet.
In 1998, when most states still had mandatory helmet laws, there were 2,294 deaths; last year there were 4,400 deaths - a 92 percent jump, according to the transportation board.
There are 27 states, including Arkansas, that only require younger riders to have helmets. Three states - Iowa, Illinois and New Hampshire - have no helmet laws, while the remaining 20 require helmets for all.
All states required helmets after a 1992 federal law mandated states require helmet use or else they would lose federal funds for highways. In 1995 that law was reversed.
Arkansas and Texas were the first states to change their helmet laws two years later. Now the state requires riders and passengers under 21 to wear helmets.
Statistics show that Arkansas had a sharp rise in motorcycle and ATV fatalities after the law changed, according to a review by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette of the last 10-year’s motorcycle fatality records supplied by the Arkansas State Police.
Statistics also show more serious head injuries occurred after the law changed.
According to a Transportation Review on Motorcycle Safety published in December2007 by the National Conference of State Legislators, in 1998 helmet use in Arkansas had fallen by 52 percent when compared with 1997, when 92 percent of riders wore helmets.
In 1998, the number of head injuries from motorcycle crashes increased, as did the cost of treating motorcycle accident head injuries. The transportation board reported the costs per motorcycle injury to be around $310,000.
It’s the head-injury jump that has some state senators concerned.
Jake Files, a Fort Smith Republican recently elected to the state Senate and appointed to the Transportation, Technology and Legislative Affairs Committee, said that riders and passengers who are seriously injured don’t always have enough insurance to cover medical bills and the cost gets passed on to the state.
Still, Files said he wouldn’t be inclined to pass a bill that would require helmet use. Rather, he said he would consider a bill requiring motorcycle riders to have more expensive insurance if they choose not to wear a helmet.
Incoming vice-chairman of the transportation committee, Sen. David Wyatt, D-Batesville, also said he would discuss a law that would require higher insurance for those riding without a helmet, but he would not support an outright law requiring a helmet.
“It is strange that [Arkansas] requires a seat belt and not a helmet,” Wyatt added.
Rodney Roberts, a Little Rock motorcycle dealer and advocate for riders’ choice, countered with saying that there’s no law that allows people to buy different insurance if they choose not to wear a seat belt.
“It’s proven that seat belts save lives,” Roberts said. “In some cases a helmet can cause additional injury. ... It can break your neck.”
Robert contends that the numbers are misleading.
He said the statistics don’t take into account how the rider or passenger died or were injured and doesn’t look into whether a helmet would have helped.
Roberts led the fight for motorcycle riders’ choice in 2007 when the state Senate’s Transportation, Technology and Legislative Affairs Committee considered a bill pushed by state Sen. Kim Hendren, RGravette, that would have required helmets for all.
State Sen. Larry Teague, D-Nashville, who was on the committee in 2007, said he wouldn’t have voted for the bill even though he was against repealing the helmet mandate in 1997.
He said his father rode a motorcycle without a helmet, and he wanted other riders to have the same option.
Teague noted that he would be willing to consider a bill requiring higher insurance for motorcycle and ATV riders who go without a helmet.
“That would make enforcing any law complicated,” Teague said. “[But] I am willing to discuss it.”
In 2000, Florida became one of the only states that mandates that those riding without a helmet have at least $10,000 in medical insurance, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
Florida has had a decreasing motorcycle fatality rate since 2005, reaching the lowest number of deaths ever in 2009, according to the Florida's Department of Highway Safety.
But Roberts said most motorcycle riders already have adequate insurance and the difference would be minimal.
Roberts said one of the draws for hundreds of thousands of motorcycle riders each year to the state is the relaxed helmet law. If the law were to change, thousands of tourism dollars would flood to other states, he said.
He said the issue has been sensationalized by the transportation board and it is picking on motorcyclists “because they have nothing better to do.”
Arkansas, Pages 7 on 11/29/2010