My take on the motorcycle helmet issue: Keep the law in place.

Here's the thing: I don't ride a motorcycle because so many car drivers are morons out there and a motorcycle provides you with zero protection.

I understand all about ABATE, the group advocating the decriminalization/legalization of everything and anything related to riding a motor.

But here's the thing: their desire to be idiots stops at my nose.

And the costs and deaths related to failing to wear helmets of the idiots too damned dumb to wear a helmet while they were riding a bike are at least jacking up our insurance rates and for those ubermorons who ride WITHOUT insurance or are under-insured, costing us bank as we get stuck with paying for their medical bills and other costs.

WASHINGTON — The average medical claim from a motorcycle crash rose by more than one-fifth last year in Michigan after the state stopped requiring all riders to wear helmets, according to an insurance industry study. Across the nation, motorcyclists opposed to mandatory helmet use have been chipping away at state helmet laws for years while crash deaths have been on the rise.

For more than 40 years, Michigan required all motorcycle riders to wear helmets. State legislators changed the law last year so that only riders younger than 21 must wear helmets. The average insurance payment on a motorcycle injury claim was $5,410 in the two years before the law was changed, and $7,257 after it was changed — an increase of 34 percent, the study by the Highway Loss Data Institute found.

After adjusting for the age and type of motorcycle, rider age, gender, marital status, weather and other factors, the actual increase was about 22 percent relative to a group of four comparative states, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin, the study found.

"The cost per injury claim is significantly higher after the law changed than before, which is consistent with other research that shows riding without a helmet leads to more head injuries," said David Zuby, chief research officer for the data institute and an affiliated organization, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The data institute publishes insurance loss statistics on most car, SUV, pickup truck and motorcycle models on U.S. roads.

While other studies have shown an increase motorcycle deaths after states eliminate or weaken mandatory helmet requirements, the industry study is the first to look specifically at the effect of repealing helmet requirements on the severity of injuries as measured by medical insurance claims, Zuby said.

Groups advocating for helmet stupidity ignore these and other findings that show the idiocy of getting rid of helmet laws much like the CRC Scammers around here ignore the facts surrounding their little extortion project.

For many commenting it was because, well, there was a huge jump in riders who didn't take motorcycle safety courses, or that insurance companies are up set because, as one particularly knuckle-dragging specimen said:

...insurers are upset because "life has gotten more expensive for them and they have to pay out more."

Yo, idiot-stick: when insurers have to pay out more, who gets stuck with that tab?

We do.

 And I'm not interested in paying for other people who demand the right to be stupid.