Boy Leaves Helmet Off--and Pays the Ultimate Price for It Instantly : Accident: An unlicensed driver, 15, loses control of a motorcycle and crashes. He is killed, but an unhelmeted passenger escapes with bumps and bruises.

A 15-year-old Stanton boy who carried but did not wear his helmet died Wednesday night in a motorcycle accident that left his passenger with minor injuries, police said.

Christopher Claunch’s decision to carry his helmet on his gas tank as he rode away from a Carl’s Jr. outlet on La Palma Avenue may have cost him his life, Sgt. Ron Lovejoy said.

“Some of that force would have been absorbed by the helmet,” Lovejoy said. “It would have been much better if he had been wearing it.”

He was also driving without a license, Lovejoy said.

Claunch was pronounced dead of head injuries at 10 p.m. at Kaiser Permanente Hospital-Orange County in Anaheim, a spokesman for the coroner’s office said.

The passenger, Jon M. Rvyer, 19, of Fullerton, sustained “bumps and bruises. . . . He was standing when police showed up,” Lovejoy said.

Rvyer, who also was not wearing a helmet, was treated at the hospital and released, Lovejoy said.

Claunch and Rvyer left the Carl’s Jr. shortly before 9 p.m. and accelerated at high speed after stopping at a red light at the corner of La Palma and Tustin avenues, police said.

Claunch lost control of the cycle near La Palma and Hawk Circle and struck the south curb, a signpost and a guide wire, police said.

Water flowing from nearby sprinklers into the road had caused Claunch to lose control, said the victim’s mother, Ann.

Lovejoy said the helmet law just signed by Gov. Pete Wilson “will cut down on deaths and some serious injuries. I’ve seen guys’ heads in helmets (that have been) run over by cars and survive.

“The governor pointed out (that) an awful lot of tax dollars go to these severely injured riders,” he said. “If it was their choice and didn’t affect the rest of us it would be fine, but it’s not. . . . The kid didn’t have any business being on a motorcycle anyway at age 15.”

Ann Claunch said her son had been riding motorcycles since age 5.

“Nobody could ever take his bike away from him,” she said.

Claunch is survived by his parents, Ann and Joseph; two brothers, Richard, 38, of Riverside and Michael, 20, of Stanton, and a sister, Teresa, 19, also of Stanton.