Colorado has eighth-highest rate of motorcycle deaths

[Desolation Angel]

Colorado has eighth-highest rate of motorcycle deaths
posted by:  Sara Gandy  Web Producer
 
Created: 5/29/2006 10:20 AM MST - Updated: 5/29/2006 7:47 PM MST
 
   
DENVER (AP) - Colorado has the eighth-highest rate of motorcycle deaths in the country, and it's the only state in the top ten without a helmet law.  


The Rocky Mountain News reports today that between 2000 and 2004, Colorado's death rate was one-point-eight per 100-thousand people.

The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration says the rate could be reduced if Colorado had a law requiring motorcyclists to wear a helmet.

The agency says motorcycle deaths in Colorado rose from less than 22-hundred in 1997 to more four-thousand in 2004.

Motorcycle registrations rose by more than 40 percent over that period but the number of miles driven by motorcycles declined slightly.

Colorado is one of only four states that don't require motorcyclists to wear helmets. The state had a helmet law for almost a decade in the 1960s and 1970s but it was repealed.

[jbrough7]

Crap!  I wanted to go there in a month too!

Just can't imagine riding without a helmet - I feel naked if I leave my gloves at home.

Why the heck would they repeal that law?  "Oh, there have been fewer deaths so we can do without the helmets for a while!"????

[Desolation Angel]

Texas has gone back and forth over the years...helmet law....no helmet law...helmet law...  

I don't care if we have one or not.  I'd normally wear one.  I think the cruiser lobby over the years has fought down the helmet laws.  We have one now and my understanding is that you must wear a helmet unless you've provided some kind of proof of financial responsibility or significant insurance coverage that basically shows that if you crack your skull, you won't be a drain on society.  You get some kind of notation on your license for it.

I'm just going by what I've been told in casual conversations.  I could be misinformed.  I haven't been interested enough to research it.

I'm about helmets like I am about seatbelts, which is to say that I always wear them, but I don't need my nanny government, at the insistence of goody-two-shoes citizen groups, telling me I have to!

[jbrough7]

I hear ya, Bandit breath!  Just about every time I ride the Bandit, I think how free it feels NOT to have to wear a seatbelt!

Hey!  The Canadian Government has given me special dispensation to speed in Canada.  Right on my license, it says, "Tear along dotted line!"

             

[Red01]

My helmet & seat belt opinions are like yours, DA. Though when helmets were optional, I did ride without one on occasion - like a ride down to the store a few blocks away.

What strikes me as odd... CO is the only state without a lid law in the top 10 - and it's way down at #8. I'd like to see the full list of how all the states rank, but the article doesn't say who compiled the list. While looking for this list, I came across a NHTSA research report on occupant fatality rates by type and size of vehicle, but it didn't include motorcycles, just cars, trucks, vans & SUV's. What's interesting is the 2004 national cage fatality rate is 10-15 per 100,000 registered passenger vehicles, depending on your choice of cage... so it sounds like you'd be >5x safer to ride without a helmet in CO than to be in a cage.
http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/nrd-30/NCSA/RNotes/2006/809979.pdf

The agency says motorcycle deaths in Colorado rose from less than 22-hundred in 1997 to more four-thousand in 2004.

Hmmm... is this agency the NHTSA? If so, that flies in the face of what they publish on their website. According to their CO page, there were only 80 m/c rider deaths in 2004. 19 of those were helmeted and 61 were lidless. The NHTSA claims 11 lives were saved because someone was wearing a helmet in their accident and helmets would have saved 23 of the lidless ones .

Their CO stats available to the public on the site only go back to 2000, and the m/c death toll for '00 was 73. 18 helmeted, 55 lidless. A lid saved 7 and 22 could have been saved with a lid.

Here's the NHTSA's CO m/c fatality stats:
Year/Total m/c deaths/helmeted/unhelmeted/unknown/lives saved by a helmet/lives that could have been saved with a helmet
2000/73/18/55/0/7/22
2001/84/25/58/1/10/16
2002/73/26/47/0/16/17
2003/70/13/57/0/8/21
2004/80/19/61/0/11/23

[Vidrazor]

Chances are states with higher fatalities have denser populations. I think if you want to risk your life further by not wearing a helmet, that's your business, although if you carry a passenger they should wear one or be given the option to. Iin other words, by law the driver should HAVE to ask the passenger if they want to wear one, from which they can decline if they want. This of course in states that don't have helmet laws.

[Wee H]

No option here in the UK, it's the only piece of protective equipment you have to wear, and have fastened, by law... unless your a Seikh of course.  When I was in Greece few years ago, I thought it was fantastic not having to wear a lid, it was like.... FREEEEEDOM    Hubby soon changed his mind when he got stung in the nose after riding into the back end of a bumble bee <snigger>