Arizona motorcyclists have convinced the House committee that a helmet mandate would infringe on their rights, despite regular pleas from the medical communities that a protective helmet would limit the injury to brain in an accident.

Democratic Randall Friese had proposed that any motorcyclist who violates the measure could be fined up to $500, in which $300 will be funded to pay expenses for motorcycle head injury patients and riders who paid the fine would be exempt from the mandate.

The Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure voted unanimously against the measure.

Randall Friese is also a Tucson surgeon said that he did not expect House Bill 2046 to advance in the Republican Majority Legislature. A similar bill was proposed in 2016 which never got a hearing. He also compared motorcycle riding to smoking, which is  a known risk.

He also said that “His thought process was: If  someone is going to choose to take the risk of riding a motorcycle without a helmet, then he has some responsibility to pay for that risk."

Friese said that he was just happy to have a public hearing and said this was a step forward.

Helmet based laws are rarely introduced in the state and the law routinely keeps failing.

The Supporters of the proposed bill said that requiring helmets while riding a motorcycle will improve public safety.

Dr. Bellal Joseph, who is a trauma surgeon at the University of Arizona said that “There was no doubt that a helmet law will save lives and also reduces the amount of traumatic brain injury”.

But the opposition argued, saying that training and education is more important than mandating safety equipment.

Mike Infanzon, lobbyist for American Brotherhood Aimed Toward Education of Arizona said that “He believes that education is more better preventative in crashes than helmets and education will prevent crashes more than the helmets will save lives.

Some people spoke out against the constitutionality of the measure requiring the fee.

Bobby Hartmaan with the Arizona Motorcycle Safety and Awareness said that “It was patently wrong to make few persons pay for everyone else’s potential expenses”.

According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety an Arizona rider who is under 18 is required to wear a helmet, but Arizona is among the other 31 states in which an adult does not require to wear a helmet.

Motocycle riders who want to opt out of Friese’s helmet law can pay a fee while registering their motorcycle and the fee would go toward a new fund, which will help crash survivors pay for long term care.

Last week in a press conference Friese said that no one knows, how many people he has seen without a helmet after an accident, who became an organ donor.

“ That is why they were taking about millions of dollars, if a person is 25 and gets a serious head injury, he will be incapacitated for 15 years, that is a lot of money to care for him, it's fiscally responsible and it saves everybody a lot of money."

AMandeep