Here’s the fact of the day from a Michigan State graduate student’s study:
Our estimates imply that every death of a helmetless motorcyclist prevents or delays as many as 0.33 deaths among individuals on organ transplant waiting lists.
When a state repeals their helmet laws for motorcyclists, organ donation increases by 10%. Basically, stupid young men (men account for 90% of motorcycle deaths according to this paper) die more regularly and, as a direct result, more people on the organ donation list get to live.
That raises an interesting question: Do you mandate the use of motorcycle helmets, reducing the number of idiots that kill themselves via their own free will? Or do you tax the use of helmets so that you help, even further, the people on the organ donation list?
When I was looking for an image to throw in with this post, I came across the picture above of a motorcycle inside a car. Apparently some guy in Sweden was going almost 160mph on his motorcycle and broadsided a slow moving car in the intersection. The two people in the car, and the motorcycle rider, were killed instantly (the motorcyclist was somehow found inside the car as well).
No word on whether or not the idiot was wearing a helmet (he probably was, if he was going that fast — if we taxed a helmet, he might have been going much slower?), but it doesn’t matter, my vote still goes to a helmet tax.
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