The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has motorcyclists in its sights as it has added "Improve Motorcycle Safety" to its most-wanted list. The NTSB is an independent federal accident investigation agency that was created in 1967 to determine the probable cause of transportation accidents and to formulate safety recommendations to improve transportation safety.
In its release today about the addition to the list, the NTSB had this to say:
The NTSB added this new issue area to the list. From 1997 through 2008, the number of motorcycle fatalities more than doubled during a period when overall highway fatalities declined. Although the number of motorcycle fatalities fell in 2009, the 4,400 deaths still outnumber those in aviation, rail, marine and pipeline combined.
According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, head injury is the leading cause of death in motorcycle crashes.
The NTSB therefore recommends that everyone aboard a motorcycle be required to wear a helmet that complies with DOT's Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 218. Currently, 20 states, the District of Columbia and 4 territories have universal helmet laws that apply to all riders. Twenty- seven states and one territory have partial laws the require minors and/or passengers to wear helmets. Three states - Iowa, Illinois and New Hampshire - have no helmet laws.
The Motorcycle Riders Foundation, which opposes mandatory helmet laws, responded quickly with its own release. Here is the text of that statement:
National Transportation Safety Board Calls for Nationwide Helmet Laws
The Motorcycle Riders Foundation reports that the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is calling on all States that do not have a mandatory helmet law to adopt one. The NTSB has a "top ten most wanted" list that has never before addressed motorcycle helmet law, but does now. They are asking for every State to enact mandatory helmet law for every rider and passenger on every motorcycle.
This is a disturbing, but not surprising, recommendation by the NTSB. They had a forum in 2007 where they brought in some motorcycle safety professionals and asked them a few questions, they then relied on their motorcycle crash investigations, a whopping six in total crash investigations to issue some safety recommendations. This pales in comparison to the over 150,000 airline incident investigations, over 90,000 other surface transportation investigations, which does more than qualify them to issue such recommendations. But investigating just six motorcycle accidents and now they are the experts?
What's also surprising is the fact that motorcycle deaths declined last year. For the first time in 11 years motorcycle fatalaties went down, and not just a few percentage points. Motorcycle fatalities were down 16 percent last year. And it is not because people were riding less, vehicle miles traveled for motorcycles was down just a half a precent over the previous year, according to the US DOT.
The NTSB has no regulatory ability and no law making ability, just the power to issue recommendations to the States, industry and the Federal government. We at the MRF are troubled by the NTSB issuing recommendations about anything motorcycle, with such a lack of expertise in the arena of motorcycling and a seemingly nonchalant attitude towards the motorcyclists of this country.
The MRF will keep up you updated on this and every other issue facing the Motorcyclists of America.
Comments
Not gonna happen in the 603!
We don't need a Nanny State telling what is good for us.
well heres a brain storm for you. lets take into account the increase in motorcycles, atvs. scooters, and dirt bikes since 1997 and figure that in and youll probably find that the accident percentage has actually went down, but you know how politicians are, their gonna make thier case by hook or crook.
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