Deaths in U.S. motorcycle crashes have nearly doubled in a decade, mounting to more than 4,000 annually, as more states have repealed laws requiring riders to wear helmets.

01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, June 18, 2006

BY THOMAS HARGROVE
Scripps Howard News Service

With motorcycle death rates rising nationwide, Super Bowl hero Ben Roethlisberger's crash last week is reviving the national debate over mandatory helmet safety laws.

By refusing to wear a helmet, Roethlisberger may have given momentum to highway safety advocates who are defending helmet laws across the country. Since Pennsylvania repealed its mandatory helmet law, deaths in motorcycle wrecks have spiked by 53 percent in that state.

The Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback underwent seven hours of surgery Tuesday at Pittsburgh's Mercy Hospital to repair his fractured jaw, broken nose and other facial breaks. Police said Roethlisberger, 24, was not wearing a helmet when his high-powered Suzuki Hayabusa collided with a Chrysler New Yorker on Monday.

Deaths in U.S. motorcycle crashes have nearly doubled in a decade, mounting to more than 4,000 annually, as more states have repealed laws requiring riders to wear helmets, according to a Scripps Howard News Service study.

Pennsylvania rolled back its helmet law in 2003, requiring only that children wear helmets while on motorcycles. The number of motorcycle deaths jumped from 134 in 2002, the year before the law was changed, to 205 last year.

The Scripps Howard study, which was published last month, found that the per capita rate of motorcycle deaths is 41 percent greater in the 30 states that don't require all motorcycle riders to wear helmets. Helmets used to be mandatory nationwide, but motorcycle lobbying groups have pushed hard in recent years for greater freedoms in federal and state law.

Roethlisberger's coaches repeatedly had urged him to wear a helmet, but he replied that he rides a motorcycle to relax and doesn't take irresponsible chances. "It's a choice," he said last year. "I just go out to enjoy myself."

In his first comments since crashing his motorcycle, Roethlisberger released a statement through the team Thursday in which he apologized to the Steelers, fans and his family, and said he was lucky to have survived.

"In the past few days, I've gained a new perspective on life," he said in a statement released just hours after he was discharged from a hospital. "By the grace of God, I'm fortunate to be alive. . . . "

Roethlisberger also said in the statement that if he ever rides a motorcycle again "it certainly will be with a helmet."

The accident in Pennsylvania is impacting a red-hot debate in Michigan where Gov. Jennifer Granholm is expected to veto a helmet rollback bill passed by the Michigan House and Senate.

"The governor supports the current law and has not received any convincing arguments as to why the law should be repealed," said Granholm's deputy press secretary, Heidi Watson. "She has serious concerns about safety and health costs."

She said Roethlisberger's accident is highlighting the debate.

"We are glad to hear that Ben is doing OK. This is just one more example of the dangers of riding without helmets," Watson said. "Because of who he is, the accident has brought the issue to the forefront of the media's attention."

Anti-helmet advocates agree Roethlisberger's spill has changed the political equation in Michigan.

"I think this does give the governor a little political cover" to veto the rollback, said Jim Rhoades, legislative director for the Michigan chapter of ABATE (American Bikers Active Towards Education), which has fought hard for optional helmet laws. "From our prospective, we still think it should be a matter of adult choice."

Rhoades argued that Roethlisberger might have died if he had been wearing a helmet. Anti-helmet activists have long maintained that helmets can increase the odds of spinal-cord damage in many types of accidents.

"The only kind of helmet that might have helped him would have been a full-face helmet. But in the kind of accident he was in, quite frankly, it could have broken his neck," Rhoades said.

Medical experts disagree.

"If he had a helmet on, he might have been able to get up and walk away," Dr. Jack Wilberger, chairman of neurosurgery at Allegheny General Hospital, said of Roethlisberger in an interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Safety experts at the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration estimate that nearly 700 lives a year could be saved if every motorcyclist wore a helmet.

Preliminary data indicate that U.S. motorcycle deaths rose by 8 percent last year, increasing from 4,008 in 2004 to 4,315 in 2005.

"There is no question that as states continue to repeal their helmet laws, that becomes a contributing factor to the increasing deaths," said NHTSA spokesman Rae Tyson. He said "it would be a wise decision" for Granholm to veto the Michigan bill.

The Scripps Howard study found that the rate of motorcycle deaths routinely spikes two or three years after a state repeals its mandatory helmet law. Tyson agreed and called the recent jump in deaths in Pennsylvania "inevitable."

"This has been frustrating," Tyson said.