It has been four years since Missouri lawmakers repealed the law that required all motorcycle riders to wear helmets.
It will be a while before the Missouri Department of Transportation has numbers from another summer of helmetless riding, but the record since the law was changed is not encouraging.
Stephen Buckner loved taking his motorcycle on long trips.
However, it was only a short ride home from work when he crashed while trying to avoid a pothole last year.
“I kinda just lost control,” explained Buckner. “Bike fell on fell on top of me, maybe slid like ten yards.”
Buckner had cuts and a broken ankle, but his head was fine, thanks to his helmet. “I’m definitely fortunate that I had my helmet on. I swear by it.”
Buckner’s home state of Ohio requires riders under 18 to wear helmets.
In many other states, the cutoff is 21. Seventeen states and Washington DC have laws making it mandatory for all riders to have head protection.
“I’m really big on safety and wearing all the gear all the time,” said Madisen Bates, who works at Blacktop Harley-Davidson in Columbia.
“I know a lot of people find freedom in not wearing a helmet and I would never judge anybody for that,” said Bates. “But for any new rider, I’m a big advocate wear a full-faced helmet every single time.”
In 2020, state lawmakers rewrote Missouri’s helmet law.
Now, only riders under the age of 26 or those with rider permits must wear helmets.
Anyone over that age is exempt, as long as he or she has health insurance.
One St. Louis trauma doctor says that’s only an illusion of protection.
Dr. Douglas Schuerer is a trauma doctor at Barnes-Jewish Trauma Center. “Kind of a faulty logic though, because people have long-term head injuries from these,” said Dr. Schuerer. “And the short-term insurance most people have would not even begin to cover the cost to the state and the government for their care.”
The numbers since the helmet law changed are disturbing.
In April, MoDOT reported a 47% increase in rider fatalities since 2020.
Last year was the deadliest ever, with 174 fatalities.
The insurance industry says two-thirds of all motorcycle accident injuries are to the head. The Missouri House Transportation Accountability Committee last spring made no recommendation to change the law.
“Helmets cut the risk of fatality in crashes by 37%,” said Eric Teoh, the Statistical Services Director for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).
He said there were more than 193,000 motorcycle deaths from 1976 to 2022.
In a new report out this fall, the IIHS estimates more than 22,000 lives could have been saved if every state still required all riders to wear helmets.
“We think helmet laws that cover all riders, not just ones of certain ages, are the most effective way to increase helmet use,” said Teoh.
Bates recommends new motorcyclists check out her dealership’s rider course, which provides 25 hours of expert guidance from instructors from the Motorcycle Safety Foundation.
