PRINT THIS PAGE | E-MAIL THIS PAGE

Saturday, April 26, 1997

Strong feelings on both sides of motorcycle helmet debate

By JULIE BONNIN Austin American-Statesman

AUSTIN - At 7, he was riding a bicycle with training wheels when he saw a kid pull the starter cord on a mini-bike and knew he had to have one.

Now 41, "Harley Bob" Wieland rides Harley-Davidson motorcycles and assembles motorcycle engines for a living. And what he now wants more than anything is for lawmakers to wake up and repeal a helmet law that's kept Texas cyclists wearing headgear since 1989.

Lisa Harmon, a nurse who coordinates rehabilitative care for hospitalized trauma victims, is against the repeal. She also wants people to wake up: to the reality of head-injured patients who've died or lost much of their functioning due to motorcycle accidents.

The Texas House and Senate, which have voted to repeal the law for those 21 and older, must vote on the amended measure again, and are expected to repeal the law next week. Then it will be up to adult cyclists to decide whether to wear protective gear.

They may consider statistics like these:

- Twenty-six percent of unhelmeted Texas cyclists who had accidents in 1995 sustained head injuries, compared to 19 percent of helmeted cyclists who had accidents, according to the Texas Department of Health.

- States with comprehensive helmet-use laws have nearly half the head-injury-related death rates of states with partial or no helmet policies, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association.

But it's the unquantifiables - not the numbers - that are decision-makers for people like Wieland and Harmon.

Wieland, big and burly, wears black jeans and a T-shirt to work at Bud's Motorcycle Shop on East Cesar Chavez Street.

The air is thick with the smell of motor oil.

Wieland's voice is thick with indignation.

"The wind in your hair - there's nothing else like it; it's part of the ride," he says. "And it's like they've got their hand on your head. You're attempting to have some freedom, and the government's got their little hand on your head. It's not just a helmet."

Wieland had his first motorcycle accident while he was still in the military and based in Washington. Two guys tried to run him off the road. He was wearing a helmet.

The accident didn't make Wieland reconsider whether he wanted to keep riding a motorcycle.

Hitting pavement will "either make you stop," he says, "or it'll make a motorcycle rider out of you."

His second serious accident was in 1980. This time he wasn't wearing a helmet, and landed on his face. Wieland believes his neck would have been broken if he had been wearing a helmet with a strap.

It's hard to see or hear as well wearing a helmet, Wieland says. During Texas summers, they get unbearably hot.

"You've got this little ice chest sitting on your head that holds heat in and when there's a headwind it bangs your head around. It can be fatiguing."

Several friends of Wieland's have died or been badly injured in motorcycle accidents. But if lawmakers really want to address the issue of motorcycle safety, Wieland says, they ought to put more emphasis on educating drivers to watch out for bikers.

It ought to be his decision whether to wear a helmet, Wieland says. It ought to be his decision whether to take an admitted risk.

"You can't run from life," Wieland says. "You gotta live a little bit. If nothing else, cholesterol's gonna get you from sitting behind the TV all the time."

Lisa Harmon has heard those kinds of arguments before.

Sitting in a tiny cubicle of an office at Brackenridge Hospital, a sheaf of paperwork in front of her, she is steps away from the emergency room, the place where her patients begin their odyssey of medical care.

It would be misleading to say that motorcycle-related injuries make up a large percentage of the patients Harmon works with. Or to imply that all of the cyclists brought here due to accidents weren't wearing helmets.

Harmon, a nurse, has worked in rehabilitation for a decade. She has seen victims of motorcycle accidents lying immobile, responsive only to the touch of a mother's hand, or to a nickname. Family and friends immobilized, too, by all the unknowns.

"You don't know when they'll wake up," she says. "You don't know if they'll wake up. You don't know what they're going to be like when they wake up."

If a mandatory helmet law can prevent a death or injury for just one person, Harmon says, it's worthwhile.

"They say that this helmet issue is about having freedom or control," she says. "It seems to me that having a severe head injury, that's the ultimate in losing control of your life.

"People think it's not going to happen to them. In one instant their whole life can change."

---

Distributed by The Associated Press Send a Letter to the Editor about This Story | Start or Join A Discussion about This Story
Send the URL (Address) of This Story to A Friend: