Coming to a Head : Safety issue: Foes of the motorcycle helmet law signed by the governor vow to continue the fight. Some in Orange County say they’ll sell their bikes when the law goes into effect.

The way Edmund Tafoya sees it, Gov. Pete Wilson’s signing of a law that requires motorcycle riders to wear helmets was a declaration of war, and he is in no mood to surrender.

“Nobody’s going to make me put on a brain bucket,” said Tafoya, 37, seated on his Harley outside an El Sereno hangout where weekend bikers rub shoulders with the more rough-hewn members of the Mongols and Vegas. “If a cop pulls me over, I’ll refuse to sign the ticket.”

A few miles away, from a hospital bed where he is recovering from a broken hip and wrist resulting from a motorcycle crash, 19-year-old John Heltsley used a different tone to express the same sentiment.

“I don’t like the law,” the soft-spoken college student said. “People ought to be able to choose.”

Sideswiped by a hit-and-run driver on a Pasadena street and knocked unconscious after his new speed bike careened into a concrete wall, Heltsley says he is lucky to be alive and may owe his survival to the helmet he wore.

But like many bikers, he opposes the new law on principle.

“You tell smokers they shouldn’t smoke, not that they can’t,” he said. “In the same way people shouldn’t be forced to wear a motorcycle helmet.”

While safety advocates hailed the measure signed Monday as long overdue, motorcycle enthusiasts who have long fought for the right to ride with the wind whistling in their ears reacted with anger and defiance.

“I’ve heard people say the bike goes up for sale when the law goes into effect, and others say, ‘They will have to catch me to give me a ticket,’ ” said Ron Coogan, manager of the bar at Cook’s Corner, a favorite biker hangout in El Toro.

Ray Malzo, owner of Orange County Harley in Santa Ana, said there is a difference between longtime Harley-Davidson riders and the newer generation of bike riders in reacting to the helmet law.

“The longtime bikers are saying they are going to sell their bikes and not ride, or ride without the helmet and screw the law,” Malzo said. “The new buyers of Harleys are not saying much at all, and 50% are buying helmets when they buy a new motorcycle.”

Malzo, who doesn’t wear a helmet, accused Pete Wilson of being “hypocritical” in signing the helmet law.

“Wilson’s whole campaign was pro-choice with respect to women choosing an abortion, and this is also a pro-choice issue,” he said.

The California measure, which becomes law Jan. 1, makes California the 24th state to require helmets for motorcycle drivers and passengers. If the experience of other states provides a clue, the law will save lives, but it won’t end the debate on whether helmet use should be mandatory.

“Every year the statistics prove that our (helmet law) is a great benefit,” said Janice Collins, an official with the Louisiana Highway Safety Commission. “But that doesn’t keep the anti-helmet lobby from trying to chip away at it in the Legislature and I doubt it ever will.”

In 1982, Louisiana became the first state to re-enact a helmet law after an earlier one was repealed. Since then, motorcycle fatalities there have declined by almost one-third, she said.

Ditto that success for Oregon (33%), Nebraska (32%) and Texas (23%), all of which have enacted helmet laws in the last three years and where safety officials have joined the chorus of those in other states extolling the virtues of helmets.

Experts say it is no secret why laws that require helmets for all motorcycle riders have greatly reduced deaths and injuries. An unhelmeted rider is 40% more likely to be killed and 15% more likely to be seriously injured than a helmeted rider, they say.

“It’s no coincidence that doctors characterize trauma in motorcycle crashes as the worst trauma outside of a war combat zone,” said Peter Fassnacht, an official with the Motorcycle Safety Foundation, a nonprofit industry group.

Surveys in states where helmets are optional reveal that about 55% of bikers choose to wear them, compared to 95% compliance in states where they are mandatory.

But surveys also show that nearly two-thirds of motorcycle enthusiasts oppose being forced to wear them.

Gary Jarvis, vice president of orthopedic services at the Irvine Medical Center, says he provides therapy for patients with head injuries from motorcycle accidents, but usually leaves his helmet at home when he takes his own Harley out.

“As a health care provider, I see the common sense in wearing head protection because we treat victims of head injuries,” he said. “On the other side, the emotional side, I have empathy for the biker enthusiast who is opposed to wearing a helmet.”

Veronica Hootman, 25, a San Bernardino housewife who belongs to the Victory Riders of the Inland Empire, a Christian biker group, counts herself among the majority on the issue.

“My husband and I are avid helmet wearers, so the law won’t affect us, but if people want to be stupid and not wear them, I believe they should have that right,” she said.

Only three states--Colorado, Illinois and Iowa--have no helmet requirements. Twenty-three states, including, until now, California, have limited laws that require helmets for riders below a certain age, usually 18. In California, it is 15 1/2.

Critics say that such laws do little to encourage helmet use and are therefore little better than no law at all. They say that anti-helmet lobbyists are largely to blame.

Indeed, some exemptions that lawmakers have managed to include in state regulations are almost laughable.

In Delaware, for example, adult bikers are required to have helmets in their possession, but not on their heads. pIn Texas, a rider can obtain a special 10-day exemption from wearing a helmet for medical reasons.

“I get calls from people who want to know if arthritis qualifies,” Texas safety official Linda Cox said. “If you’d let them, some riders would go for doctor’s excuses the rest of their lives.”