Ron Smith and buddy Brenda Volpe had been reportedly on their strategy to the funeral of one other buddy when Smith needed to brake instantly and crashed August twentieth close to Holiday, FL; each suffered deadly accidents. The Tampa Bay Times stories, “It’s impossible to say whether a helmet would have prevented Smith’s and Volpe’s deaths, experts said. Smith’s autopsy report lists blunt head trauma as his cause of death and an initial report from the Hillsborough Medical Examiner’s Office also lists Volpe’s cause of death as head trauma.”
Florida is one in every of a bunch of states that dialed again its helmet necessities in the final couple of many years, and Smith was a key proponent of that. Here’s a quick historical past from the National Library of Medicine:
Florida
Florida’s common helmet regulation was first carried out in September 1967. For over 30 years, motorbike rider teams led by American Bikers Aiming Toward Education (ABATE) lobbied the Florida legislature to amend the regulation. One argument distinctive to Florida and states with comparable climates was that carrying a helmet in the extraordinary warmth was particularly burdensome. An modification of Florida’s common helmet regulation almost handed a number of instances, together with one event in 1985 when it was vetoed by Governor Bob Graham, a Democrat. The state legislature switched from Democratic to separate management in 1992 and to Republican management in 1996. These political developments mixed with a rising motorbike inhabitants, involvement of ABATE in state campaigns, and modifications in federal incentives created a legislative local weather that was extra supportive of insurance policies centered on particular person rights.
In 2000, the legislature handed and Governor Jeb Bush, a Republican, signed a invoice amending Florida’s helmet coverage to use solely to these riders who’re both below age 21 years or with no medical advantage of at the very least $10 000 on their insurance coverage coverage. Governor Bush expressed his political perspective on the difficulty as follows:
I imagine authorities oversteps its official function when it excessively interferes with private freedom… . Of course we might considerably scale back deaths, accidents, or well being dangers … by a mandate that each one people train, put on sunscreen, quit smoking and study to swim; but we impose no such necessities.
The modification handed regardless of objections from a number of organizations, together with the AAA Auto Club and the Brain Injury Association of Florida. Florida requires particular license tags for younger riders to allow regulation enforcement to find out extra simply whether or not an unhelmeted rider is underage. Studies have discovered that motorbike registrations and fatalities elevated in Florida after the common helmet coverage was amended. One analysis estimated that in the yr after the regulation change, rider fatalities rose 21.3% after adjusting for registrations.
Get the in-depth story from the Tampa Bay Times here.
Our condolences to the households and associates of Mr. Smith and Ms. Volpe. We encourage all our readers and non-readers to at all times put on a helmet.
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