Move to Repeal State Helmet Law

In response to your May 9 editorial, “Helmet Law Repeal Takes a Spill”: The helmet law is nothing more than government intrusion and over-regulation, in an era of increasing governmental intrusion and over-regulation, into the private lives of citizens.

Using your logic, the concept of “serves the wider public,” “the pocketbooks of taxpayers” and “millions of public dollars in hospitalization,” where do we stop? Certainly using your logic, the government should ban cigarettes, or at least have them regulate what brands people may smoke, what kind of filter, and what hours of the day they may smoke.

DAVID M. McCARTHY

Marina del Rey

* Your editorial only perpetuates the confusion in applying the issue of the motorcycle helmet law to the law requiring the state to pay for medical costs of the uninsured.

A tax is a justified taking of funds from an individual as his fair share payment for services that the government provides to its entire citizenry, like national defense and road maintenance.

However, it is not only unfair and unjust but contradictory to the spirit of the Declaration of Independence to force taxpayers to pay for one individual’s stupidity, carelessness or misfortune in becoming injured while operating a vehicle without the proper personal insurance to cover a possible accident.

I would also like to point out that there are scenes in “Easy Rider” where the characters are riding with and without helmets. The important point is they had the freedom at the time to make a personal decision without the intrusion of government.

MARK ALBERICI

West Hollywood

* The only accurate point in the statement you make is the comment that statistics can be viewed in different ways. I quit riding my motorcycle when the helmet law passed because while wearing a helmet I found that I could no longer hear the sounds of the vehicles around me as clearly as without the helmet and narrowly missed being involved in two accidents because of the reduced hearing capability.

TONY PICO

Venice

* Logical as it may seem, the mandatory helmet law for adults does not save lives, does not prevent injuries (may, in fact, increase the incidence of catastrophic spinal cord injuries), does not create a public burden and has been enthusiastically enforced by the police principally as a means to subvert the Constitution and stop, search and investigate a class of people that most cops distrust and most of whom happen to look just like me.

The Times should reconsider its position. The state should mind its own business. And since your writer brought the matter up, why don’t you call up Peter Fonda and ask him what he thinks?

DON DAVIS

Redondo Beach