Lower fees proposed to spur use of helmets

State lawmakers have steered a new course in dealing with a perennial issue of requiring motorcycle and motor scooter riders to wear helmets. This year bills would encourage but not mandate helmet use by offering lower motor vehicle registration rates to riders who choose to wear them.

Senate Bill 484 and other measures come less than two weeks after a 17-year-old Kalihi boy who was not wearing a helmet was killed in a late-night mo-ped accident and a 45-year-old Captain Cook man, also not wearing a helmet, died after rear-ending a truck in South Kona. Police said alcohol and speeding may have been factors in the second crash.

"We’ve been grappling with this for a long time, and we support choice but we also support making sure public safety in all areas is paramount," Sen. J. Kalani English (D, East Maui-Upcountry-Molokai-Lanai), chairman of the Senate Committee on Transportation and International Affairs, said during a hearing Wednesday.

The state Department of Health says that when Hawaii had a mandatory helmet use law on the books between 1968 and 1976, motorcycle deaths dropped substantially.

The department’s data show that an average of 11 people per year died in motorcycle-related accidents between 1962 and 1967, six people per year perished while the helmet law was in place and that the average increased to 23 deaths per year for the 1992-1998 and 1999-2005 periods and 31 people from 2006 to 2011.

The department also estimated that un-helmeted and uninsured motorcyclists injured in accidents in 2007 had a total of nearly $2.4 million a year in medical bills, while helmeted drivers without insurance had combined medical bills totaling $523,526.

Several members of the motorcycle community testified against the bill, saying Hawaii is a progressive state because it does not have a universal helmet law.

"I firmly believe that it is every motorcyclist’s God-given right to ride with or without a helmet," said Allen Stanley, a Maka­kilo resident and member of the Pacific Knights motorcycle club. "We all know that every time we get on our bikes and ride out that we are taking a lot more risk than other motorists, and we accept those risks because we love riding so much."

The original form of SB 484 sought to make the registration weight tax rate for motorcycles and motor scooters the same as that of passenger vehicles — except that motorcycle and motor scooter drivers who indicate on their license applications that they will not wear a helmet at all times would pay double.

Punishments in the bill for riders who elect to wear a helmet and are found riding without one include a fine between $100 and $1,000, 30 days in jail, a one-year driver’s license suspension, or a combination of those, for each violation.

Bikers said the bill could discourage future riders from applying for a motorcycle or motor scooter license and called the proposal a tax grab, mean-spirited and prejudicial toward motorcycle riders.

"There’s positive and negative incentives, and we consider this bill as negative- oriented with negative incentives," testified Bruce Paige, legislative adviser for the Street Bikers United Hawaii. "We’re suggesting it’s not a choice; a choice is when it’s not mandatory in the law that you wear your helmet and (not) be penalized if you don’t."

English responded to that concern by amending the bill to include only an incentive — a $50 decrease on the state motor vehicle weight tax for riders who elect to wear helmets. He said he wanted to remove the penalty aspect from the bill to try to make it work for everyone.

"I’m glad you’re having the dialogue and stuff like that," William "Wolfman" Gass, a Kailua resident, said when English first floated the idea of only including an incentive. "This basically looks like a back-door ploy to bring us in a helmet bill, and I don’t want a helmet bill."

Stanley echoed comments from other riders that an incentive for motorcycle education is needed, rather than helmet legislation.

"Riding is a choice, wearing or not wear a helmet is a choice and it should remain that: a free choice we as motorcyclists should determine and make based solely on our own discretion and not forced upon us by the state," he said.

A similar bill was introduced in the House, House Bill 1105, but a hearing has not yet been scheduled.