From “The Motorcycle Helmet Bill” Testimony Before the Maryland Senate by Janice Gotec
I respectfully urge you to oppose any legislation that weakens Maryland’s current “all riders” motorcycle helmet law.
Motorcycle helmets save lives and reduce critical head injuries, and laws requiring helmet use have a dramatic life-saving effect. This has been proven in Maryland and every other state where all riders are required to wear helmets. In such states, death rates from head injuries are half what they are among cyclists in states with no helmet laws or laws which only apply to minors. Where helmet [laws] have been enacted, then repealed, death rates for motorcyclists rise in the absence of a helmet law.
This is hardly a fluke; the General Accounting Office, a non partisan research agency of the U. S. Government, reviewed 46 studies of motorcycle helmets and helmet laws, and reported that every study comparing helmeted with non-helmeted crash victims found that helmeted riders had lower fatality rates, ranging from 28 percent to 73 percent lower…
Helmet laws save taxpayers money, too. Studies in six states show that public funds pay up to 82 percent of the costs to treat orthopedic injuries sustained by motorcyclists. A Maryland study showed that acute care costs to non-helmeted riders averaged three times those of helmeted riders…
A partial law is almost as bad as no law at all. Statistically speaking, there is negligible difference in death and injury rates between states with no helmet law and states with partial laws. Because partial helmet laws are difficult for police to enforce, helmet-use rates for all riders remain low in states with restricted helmet laws.
Helmet law opponents love to talk about motorcyclists’ right to decide whether or not they will wear helmets, but some rights are not worth having… To weaken Maryland’s helmet law is to condemn 28 – or more – Maryland motorcyclists to death. That’s a right nobody should have.
Questions to
1. Who is the speaker’s audience?
2. What is the speaker’s claim, or position?
3. Cite one reason that the speaker uses to prove her claim. Cite two pieces of evidence that support that reason.
4. Find another reason that the speaker uses to support her claim. What evidence supports this reason?
5. The speaker anticipates opponents’ arguments in the final two paragraphs. How does she counter these viewpoints?