Bill to Require Cycle Helmets Back on Track

SACRAMENTO —  In a major victory for advocates of motorcycle crash helmets, a state Senate committee reversed itself Tuesday and approved controversial legislation that would require cyclists and their passengers to wear protective headgear.

“Now we’re on the way and expect to see it on the governor’s desk,” a jubilant Assemblyman Richard E. Floyd (D-Hawthorne), the author, declared outside the hearing room of the Senate Transportation Committee.

Administration officials said Gov. George Deukmejian has not taken a position on the bill.

For more than 20 years, legislative efforts to enact a so-called mandatory safety helmet bill for motorcycle riders have fallen victim to various motorcycle organizations, including the maverick Hell’s Angels, who contend it is no business of the government whether an individual wears a safety helmet or not.

At an emotion-charged June 30 hearing, the Transportation Committee rejected the Assembly-passed Floyd bill on a 4-2 vote but later agreed to reconsider its action. In the intervening months, committee members were lobbied by supporters of the bill, and Tuesday they approved it 7 to 3 without taking more testimony.

The bill went to the Appropriations Committee for further consideration.

Floyd, whose bill last June became the first such measure to clear either house of the Legislature, credited the Transportation Committee’s turnaround to a “grass-roots lobbying” campaign waged by medical professionals and survivors of motorcycle crashes.

Currently, motorcycle passengers under age 15 1/2 must wear a safety helmet. The bill would extend that requirement to anyone riding a motorcycle or motorized bicycle on a street or highway. Failure to do so would result in a $100 fine for the first offense and progressively stiffer fines for subsequent violations.

Throughout the years, opponents of the bill, whether leather- and denim-clad bikers or businessmen in three-piece suits and wing-tip shoes, have argued that it is not the business of state government to require motorcyclists to wear helmets. They maintain that the issue is one of “freedom of choice.”

Proponents, however, argued that the greater public good would be served by a mandatory helmet law. Among other things, they contended that such a requirement would help prevent death or disabling head injuries, insurance rates would not increase as swiftly and public health costs would be reduced. An estimated 82% of the cost of taking care of motorcycle accident victims is borne by taxpayer-financed health agencies.

In 1986, the last year for which figures are available, 840 people were killed in California motorcycle crashes, contrasted with 5,222 for all traffic accidents, Transportation Committee analysts said. Nationwide, cyclists represent 10% of all fatal traffic mishaps, but they total about 17% in California.