ENG 105 – Essay #4 Patrick Kelley 4/13/2005
PROSPECTUS
Proponents of mandatory helmet laws often raise the issue of ‘public burden’. They claim that injuries from unprotected riders cost the public because insurance rates go up and taxpayers are forced to bear the cost of caring for uninsured riders. I examine this argument critically with the aim of showing that it is faulty. Much of the available data clearly shows that fatalities and injuries are reduced for helmet wearers – a worthy goal in itself – but fail to make the leap to demonstrate public burden.
Unfortunately for my argument, little data exists on the costs related to injuries. Even the proponents’ articles contain broad figures without citing sources or raw data. Finding data on insurance and tax rates also proved impossible. I may argue that neither insurance nor taxes have decreased as a result of helmet law enactment but I cannot prove my claims other than by showing that the opposing view has not been proven either. Instead, I will attempt to show that the cost impact, while large on a personal level, is actually quite small in the general scheme of economics.
The importance of this issue resides in countering the emotional appeal of the ‘public burden’ argument. While the argument for helmet laws contain merit, this particular argument depends on flawed reasoning to bolster the position for mandated helmet usage. It is important for arguments to be examined critically so that decisions can be made on actual merit instead of emotional (in this case, to our greed) appeal.
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Without Motorcycle Helmets We All Pay the Price, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 16 min., U.S. Department of Transportation, August 1998, VHS.
This brief film gives the basic arguments in favor of mandatory helmet usage. It includes a few case histories and gives some mention of the costs of injuries. Its main weakness is the lack of any hard figures or citations. It is broadly emotional and is really more of an advertisement than an informational work. I will not base my argument on it but will be using it for my presentation as an example of the propaganda presented by helmet law proponents; showing how weak their arguments are will serve emotionally to strengthen my argument by contrast.
2. State of Colorado, Department of Highways, Division of Highway Safety, Impact of Motorcycle Helmet Usage in Colorado, (Washington, DC: DOT/National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 1978), 382 pages.
This report examines injury consequences to riders both helmeted and non-helmeted. Its secondary objective was to examine the impact of the repeal of the helmet law in Colorado. It contains a huge mass of data covering July-September 1976 and 1977 (pre- and post-repeal). Typical of such reports, it discusses the injuries and causes in great detail but leaves out post-trauma effects such as length of recovery or cost of care. As such, it provides only an indicator of the rates of injury, which are similar to that noted in other works cited: Head Injuries Associated With Motorcycle Use - Wisconsin and Motorcycle Helmet Use and Injury Outcome and Hospitalization Costs from Crashes in Washington State. It provides nothing new but serves to strengthen the observed facts that I use in my argument.
3. T A Karlson, PhD, “Head Injuries Associated With Motorcycle Use – Wisconsin, 1991,” JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Association 272 (1994): 1 page.
This brief report gives hard figures of injury rates in the state of Wisconsin. It also provides a national figure and even talks about the quality of data gathered for such studies. Because it is short and clear, it makes an excellent launching point for my argument. It also includes a figure for costs of the injury, though that cost may not be relevant to the present time without some way to calculate the increase since 1994. In effect, it is a summary of a more exhaustive study such as Impact of Motorcycle Helmet Usage in Colorado and is more usable only because it does not overwhelm with raw data.
4. Jefferson Rowland, MS; Frederick Rivara, MD, MPH; Philip Salzberg, PhD; Robert Soderberg; Ronald Maier, MD; and Thomas Keopsell, MD, MPH, “Motorcycle Helmet Use and Injury Outcome and Hospitalization Costs from Crashes in Washington State,” American Journal of Public Health 86 (1996): 5 pages.
This report, similar to Head Injuries Associated With Motorcycle Use – Wisconsin, reports statistics summarizing motorcycle injuries. However, this one attempts to associate costs of the related injuries. This allows me to extrapolate costs beyond the study to examine total costs for motorcycle injuries. This article is used in my argument to make the link between injury and cost so that I can show that the costs are actually very slight. Its weaknesses lie in the fact that medical costs change and so it may not reflect true cost in today’s dollars. To make a stronger argument, I would need to factor in the increase of costs since 1996 or find more recent data, neither of which was available.
5. Jess F. Kraus, MPH, PhD; Corinne Peek, MPH; David L. McArthur, PhD; and Allan Williams, PhD, “The Effect of the 1992 California Motorcycle Helmet Use Law on Motorcycle Crash Fatalities and Injuries,” JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Association 272 (1994): 6 pages.
This article explores the effects of the California helmet law and its affect on injury and fatality rates. It is important to my argument because it also shows the trend for the previous years, which gives a more accurate feel for actual change than simply assuming that the pre-law rate was fixed and that the post-law fatality rate was solely a result of the helmet law. This report also addresses injury recovery in terms of hospitalization but makes no mention of actual costs for recovery or care.
6. Population Estimates Program, Population Division, U.S. Census Bureau, “State Population Estimates and Demographic Components of Population Change: April 1, 1990 to July 1, 1999,” U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates, 2004. <http://eire.census.gov/popest/archives/state/st-99-2.txt> (December 29, 1999)
This is a credible source for population information. I use it to compare the injured riders to the total population to make the point that relatively few people are supported by a relatively extremely large population base, resulting in little impact per capita. The source itself is strong but does not relate directly to any other sources I cite.
7. Jess F. Kraus, MPH, PhD; Corinne Peek, MPH; and Allan Williams, PhD, “Compliance with the 1992 California Helmet Use Law,” American Journal of Public Health, 85, No. 1 (1995): 3 pages.
This article is similar to the previous article by the same authors except that it regards compliance rather than injury rates. It is interesting because it highlights the fact that the number of riders dropped after the passage of the law and postulates that it may have been the high risk riders that are no longer riding. However, it offers no proof of this and is, essentially, a useless argument. It also quotes another source as showing helmet effectiveness at between 32% and 73%, a surprising lack of accuracy. However, the cited report is unavailable to me and the very vagueness of the citation and data won’t allow me to use it in my argument.
8. Rachel Dardis; and Camille Lefkowitz, “Motorcycle Helmet Laws: A Case Study of Consumer Protection”, The Journal of Consumer Affairs, 21, No. 2 (1987), 18 pages.
This article presents a formulaic approach to determining the costs of motorcycle injuries to the public. It processes the raw data presented at the beginning of the article in a series of well laid out, clear steps. Each step is justified and the assumptions are given so that the quality of the estimate can be judged. Not only is this excellent material, though the actual figures may be dated, but it also provides a model for my own approach of proceeding from cited data to my own conclusions.
9. Dick Teresi, “The Wild One”, Forbes, 163, No. 9 (1999), 2 pages.
This brief article provides a summary of anti-helmet law argument. Basically a position piece, it provides little in the way of hard fact and merely counters the opposing arguments with emotional appeal and exploration of fallacies in the opposing arguments. It provides some starting points for my own research and argument..
10. M. Margaret Knudson MD, FACS; Carol Schermer MD, FACS; Larisa Speetzen BA; and the Subcommittee on Injury Prevention and Control for the Committee on Trauma of the American College of Surgeons, “Motorcycle Helmet Laws: Every Surgeon’s Responsibility”, Journal of the American College of Surgeons, 199, No. 2 (2004), 4 pages.
Basically a position piece in favor of helmet laws, this article examines the historical and lifesaving effects of helmet laws. At the end of the article is a section dealing with the costs of injuries, broken down by patient. It is weakened by its brevity and failure to show how it arrived at its figures and conclusions but it is well cited and, were the cited articles available, might be valuable as a jumping point for digging deeper.
11. Andreas Muller, “Florida’s Motorcycle Helmet Law Repeal and Fatality Rates”, American Journal of Public Health, 94, No. 4 (2004), 3 pages.
This article summarizes fatality rates before and after the repeal of Florida’s helmet law. Like the earlier cited studies in Colorado, Wisconsin, and Washington, it provides little beyond fatality rates and had no cost data at all, rendering it useless for my purposes.
12. Kimberly M. Auman; Joseph A. Kufera; Michael F. Ballesteros; John E. Smialek; Patricia C. Dischinger, “Autopsy Study of Motorcyclist Fatalities: The Effect of the 1992 Maryland Motorcycle Helmet Use Law”, American Journal of Public Health, 92, No. 8 (2002), 8 pages.
This article reported on injury and fatality rates before and after Maryland enacted a helmet law. Similar to Florida’s Motorcycle Helmet Law Repeal and Fatality Rates, it failed to provide any cost data. It merely reinforces rate data already available from other studies and is not significantly different for my purposes.