AB 1412 -- California's Insurance Compromise to Helmet Laws

AB-1412
The ABATE of California
Insurance Compromise of 1998

From the "Legislative Analysis of AB1412" -- California's latest attempt at proposing a helmet law modification bill -- comes the following summary:

"SUMMARY: (AB1412) Exempts drivers and passengers who are 18 years of age or older from the requirement to wear motorcycle safety helmets unless they show proof of medical insurance. Specifically, this bill exempts the drivers and passengers of motorcycles, motor-driven cycles, and mortorized bicycles who are 18 years of age or older from the requirement to wear safety helmets if they can show proof of medical insurance which is adequate to cover the cost of treating injuries that may be incurred while riding the cycle." (Legislative Analysis of AB 1412 by John Stevens)

This proposed insurance requirement is not about wearing or not wearing a helmet! It is about buying the insurance as a condition of riding a "cycle"!!

If the point were to cover the "public burden" created by not wearing a helmet (assuming there were such a thing just for the purpose of this argument), the insurance requirement would be to cover the "additional cost of treating injuries that may be incurred from not wearing a helmet while riding the cycle" instead.

But that's not what they're saying, is it? What they are saying is essentially that the fact of riding a motorcycle creates a public burden, and as a condition of riding a motorcycle, bikers must post a bond to cover that cost to the public over their transportation choice.

What they are saying, and what the sponsors of the bill (ABATE of California/MMA) are agreeing to, is that the public has a right to expect bikers to buy special insurance in addition to the liability requirements already mandated by the state as a condition of using a motor vehicle in the first place, as a condition of owning and riding a motorcycle. It's a motorcycle use tax, folks!

Except for acts similar to this last-minute addition of the insurance requirement to AB1412 (see Texas, Florida, and New Hampshire), there never has been a legitimate basis for the contention of any direct cost to the public whatsoever from bikers not wearing helmets . . . save perhaps now for this "admission" by the sponsors of AB1412, which all will view (including the courts), hereafter, as an admitted "fact."

Why, why, why would ABATE of California, or any other motorcyclists rights organization, ever offer motorcyclists up as self-confessed public burdens? Why are they agreeing that motorcyclists are a problem? And why are they trying to excuse bikers from an unjust, unfounded law by promoting legislation that requires us to buy insurance that no other class of roadway user has to purchase?

I don't know about you, but I plan to enter my plea of "not guilty" to being a public burden, most likely in person. California Senator Quenton Kopp likes me (I'm kidding), and I think he'll be more than happy to give me the floor when the bill comes before the Senate Transportation Committee (I'm not kidding). And though I risk being viewed as a bill killer one more time, I'm motivated by the fact that there are a Hell of a lot of other bikers who feel the same way but who just don't have the time or opportunity to speak out on in person.

Final note:

For those who say that such thinking is unreasonable in that it does not allow for compromise, here's your compromise:

The only way to enforce any insurance amendment, without exposing all unhelmeted bikers to constant stops for inspection of "their papers" (and the sure lecture from some well-meaning know-it-all cop), is to put the insurance on as a condition of registering a motorcycle. Therefore, we propose that the offensive stipulation be reworded such that it reflects only the requirement to insure the provable difference in the cost of an injury between not wearing a helmet and wearing a helmet IF a motorcyclist were to be involved in a crash, AND that it be put on all motorcycle registrations to avoid the selective stops.

An insurance policy that covers only the difference in what can be proven to be the additional expense incurred because someone was not wearing a helmet, will only be a couple of bucks a year at most. That's a damned site less than a one year membership in ABATE, and it's not a lifetime commitment to paying additional insurance premiums which can increase at any time once they have become mandatory. A one-time, two dollar payment to end the matter for good . . . yeah, we'll go for that. One time.

The legislature doesn't have a right to ask more of us than to insure the difference in the non-helmet usage. I mean, why should we have to buy insurance to pay for the loss of an arm or a leg as a condition of not wearing a helmet? That would get us right back to that special fee for owning and riding a motorcycle, wouldn't it? Is that really where the motorcycling community wants to put itself?

Since there is no way to establish a difference in the cost of such an injury, save pure conjecture (which is not "proof"), it will become immediately evident that the cost of not wearing helmets over the cost of wearing helmets is in-, as in "not", calculable. And, when there is not a single successful claim against such a policy, the legislature will finally have to recognize that there NEVER WAS a viable medical estimate of the public burden brought about from bikers not wearing helmets . . . it was all a lie.

In addition, because a life example is the only way helmet proponents are going to learn, the bill should be written such that the insurance requirement will expire at the end of one year if it becomes evident that their concerns were without merit, which it will.

As it stands today, February 2, 1998, the language of the proposed bill AB 1412 is such that it constitutes nothing more than an additional, discriminatory tax on motorcycle use, and not just on helmet non-use; therefore there is every reason for all bikers to oppose AB1412.

Please feel free to do so.

quig