Let those who ride, decide. Education, not legislation.

United Bikers of Maine are represented by both bumper sticker slogans, making it clear how the organization feels about mandatory motorcycle helmet laws.

“The government has taken away so many of our freedoms in this country,” said John Ponte of Hebron, the motorcycle group’s president, Monday. “This is one we want to protect.”

Every so often, Ponte and the group’s more than 5,000 members are called upon to defend that stance, usually at a time when it might seem indefensible.

Last Wednesday evening, separate motorcycle accidents in Lewiston killed two men in a span of less than an hour.

Police said neither Lawrence Mathieu nor Corey Sturgis was wearing a helmet when the crashes occurred. The Sun Journal reported that, too. Ponte says it’s a case of media bias.

“How often do newspapers follow up on the results of toxicology tests or talk about horrible road infrastructure? The helmet isn’t even mentioned,” Ponte said, “unless (the driver) wasn’t wearing one.”

Some Maine rules

Maine mandates helmets for passengers 14 and under and operators with a learner’s permit, but nobody else. That’s only a shade more restrictive than Colorado, Illinois, Iowa and New Hampshire, which have no helmet laws at all.

Twenty-five Mainers died in motorcycle fatalities in 2003, the most in a dozen years. Ponte attributes that upswing to a larger sample group. Maine’s current total of 34,000 registered motorcycle owners is a record high, he said.

Last year, there were 779 motorcycle accidents in Maine. Ponte said nearly one-third of those were caused by the inattention of a driver in a full-bodied vehicle.

Ponte is backed by hours of his own research. But there are plenty of daunting statistics on the flip side. Nationally, per mile traveled, the number of motorcycle deaths is 26 times the death rate in car accidents, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

In Maine, child safety seats now are mandatory under age 8. All passengers in a vehicle are required to wear seat belts. Fines for speeding in work zones are doubled.

So why are motorcycles exempt from a law that could benefit the health and welfare of the riding public?

“I helped fight legislation in the 1970s,” Ponte said. “For every reason you should wear a helmet, there was a reason against it.”

We want that choice’

Bikers argue that helmets interfere with peripheral vision and that the increased head mass could actually cause neck injury rather than prevent it in a wreck.

Still, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that wearing a helmet reduces the risk of a fatal head injury in a motorcycle crash by 40 percent.

California is one of 20 states requiring helmets for all riders. Its motorcycle death rate fell 37 percent in 1992, the first year that law was on the books. One year later, the rate of California cyclists hospitalized for head injuries had dropped 48 percent.

One survey shows that 80 percent of adults in America favor mandatory helmet laws. So far, the minority has warded them off by playing the freedom card.

“I choose to hear a helmet occasionally, such as in certain weather conditions or if I’m at interstate speed,” Ponte said. “Many of our 5,000 members choose to wear them. We just want that choice.”

In 1971, in upholding the constitutionality of its then-new helmet law, the Massachusetts Supreme Court rejected the contention that helmet use is a “personal” issue.

“From the moment of injury, society picks the person up off the highway (and) delivers him to a municipal hospital and municipal doctors,” said the court. “(It) provides him with unemployment compensation after recovery if he cannot replace his lost job, (and) if the injury causes disability, may assume responsibility for his and his family’s subsistence. We do not understand a state of mind that permits the plaintiff to think that only he himself is concerned.”

Problem is, that won’t fit on a bumper sticker.

Kalle Oakes is staff columnist. He may be reached by e-mail at [email protected].