Posted On: June 26, 2006, 5:34 pm CDT

Posted By: Underwriter2

Perhaps a way to let all the "Live Free or Die-ers" have their way and interject fairness into the process would be this:

1) Permit free choice in wearing helmets while riding on a motorcycle if rider is at least 18. Let Darwinian process improve the gene pool;

2) Costs above direct insurance to be paid out of fund assessed against motorcycle manufacturers, thus spreading the cost of "freedom" back to the riders who, judging from the passion of comments, are fully willing to accept the consequence of their choice; and

3) The maximum bodily injury liability amount payable to an unhelmeted rider to be the $10,000 that helmet-law-repeal drafters deemed to be adequate medical cover for injured riders.

And congratulations to Becky for so adroitly twisting injury statistics to "prove" no difference in medical costs between helmeted and unhelmeted riders. The article she cited expressly stated that once brain injuries were inflicted, the average costs were about the same between the two groups, but that the unhelmeted riders were much more likely to suffer brain injuries than the helmeted riders, hard as that might be to accept.