Paul Lax: Senator in order to keep things moving, I'll address that one right now before I start the presentation. We've heard this argument for many years. We've made the argument, as Mr. Morrow suggested, that adding a weight to the end of your neck in an accident is going to exert the forces inertia, and those forces are going to result in greater injuries. To refer you to a source, as you requested, of empirical data, I would refer you to the UCLA study on 1992 California helmet law. Buried in that study, which overlooks certain things which we'll come to later, is a chart that shows the fatalities from spinal injuries. And that chart, which is buried in the back of the study as published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, shows that for 1991 and 1992 the rate of fatalities from spinal injuries increased over five hundred percent in California.

Senator Russell: It that this, the effect of the 1992 motorcycle helmet use law and motorcycle crashes in California.

Paul Lax: Is that by Krauss?

Senator Russell: Yes.

Paul Lax: That is the one, and there is a chart in the back of that and I'm sorry I can't refer you exactly to the exhibit, but I'm sure that by the end of this hearing we'll be able to give you the exact exhibit.

Senator Russell: Alright.

Paul Lax: It will take you right to that chart which shows that increase from '91 to '92.

Senator Russell: And that relates specifically too . . .

Paul Lax: Death by spinal injuries.

Senator Russell: Alright.

Paul Lax: If I may, I'd like to go through . . . I don't want too much of the time that we have allotted to us. I'd like to observe first of all that this is primarily an issue of people versus dollars. In this room are a number of people who would like to see this bill pass on through this committee. They are the people most effected by this bill. After we have concluded our presentation, you will hear from a number of people who are here to tell you why you should not pass this bill. I'd like you to consider the following facts. Those of us speaking to you now are volunteers giving up our time for something that effects us every day. And those who follow us are all being paid to be here, it's there job. They work for insurance companies, and we'll get to why they're here in a moment.

Why did the fatalities drop? The most common question that we will address is, why would you want to repeal this bill when the fatalities when down from '91 to '92. I can give you three reasons why the fatalities dropped and the reasons are absolutely unsalable.

Number one ridership went down. We rode less. It was no fun. We don't rider because . . . some of us ride because it cheaper, but most of us ride because it's more enjoyable than other modes of transportation. It became much less fun. We rode much less.

Now how can I make that assertion? A survey of seventeen hundred riders found an average decline of twenty percent in ridership in 1992. This is a state-wide survey conducted of people whether they wore helmets before or not. That was the average decline. What collaborates that survey? The California Highway Patrol reported a drop in accidents of a little over twenty percent in the first year and nobody claims that a helmet can prevent an accident. That drop in accidents is directly attributable to fewer people being exposed because fewer people were riding motorcycles.

And finally, the most important thing that made the numbers go down was the continuing effect of the California Motorcycle Safety Training Program. I just read a press release from the California Highway Patrol for Motorcycle Awareness Month 1996, and they attribute the decline in motorcycle fatalities and injuries in California to our very successful motorcycle training program. And I caution you when you listen to the witnesses that follow us, listen carefully to the years they give you. Often times on the Assembly side they would compare '86 to '92. From 1985 to 1991 there was only one factor at work in decreasing injuries and fatalities in California and it worked every year, and it was the motorcycle training program which our organizations support and the people in this room support.

There is one additional factor that's lead to the decline of fatalities and injuries. The most important factor in motorcycle injuries and fatalities in the United States, California included, is alcohol involvement. Improved DUI enforcement has most definitely contributed to the decline in accidents and fatalities involving motorcycles.

There are a lot of people that will talk about costs today, but I'd like to address two issues. Most of you by now have probably seen something called the Codes report. The Codes report is another one of these studies that done to prove a point. It is not a study done to find something out. In order to prove the point they took seven states and they collected data from those states, and they reported on the efficiency of helmets and seatbelt laws. I'd like to point something out to you in that report. If you go to exhibit fifteen, which is at approximately page twenty-eight of the Codes report, you'll find an unusual phenomenon. The cost per injury of helmeted riders, those required to wear helmets or that choose to wear helmets because several of the states were free-choice states, the hospitalization costs are higher. Let me repeat that, the hospitalization costs, if you look at the Codes report, in several categories, in fact most categories, are higher for the helmeted riders. So if your issue is not freedom but costs, then I think you should to support this bill 244.

Another thing I'd like to address on costs very briefly is what it has cost the State of California to try to enforce this law. Everybody in this room has probably had a helmet ticket. Many of them while wearing helmets. That's because the California Highway Patrol had adopted an enforcement policy that is unconstitutional. And the United States in San Diego enjoined that policy and ordered them to pay attorney's fees and I can't even begin to estimate for you the amount of State money that was spent on unenforceable tickets. Because, you know what? We all beat those tickets, because they are unenforceable. You've got an unenforceable law on your hands which doesn't help anybody.

Once cost you can measure is the revenue loss for the State of California . . .

Senator Russell: Pardon me, the unenforceable part is the part where they ticket you for an unsatisfactory helmet, not for the fact that you don't have a helmet?

Paul Lax: As of now, the tickets for not wearing a helmet are handled by the courts, some courts dismiss them as correctable, some to not. The ticket for wearing what an officer may deem an unapproved helmet, those are almost universally being tossed out on the strength of two Appellate Court decisions and a Federal Court injunction against the California Highway Patrol.

Senator Russell: Thank you.

Paul Lax: The one cost you can measure is what the state looses in revenue. Between 1991 and 1995 almost twenty-five percent of the registered motorcycles in California disappeared. That's part of that ridership decline. But you know what else it's part of? It's part of a revenue decline. You lost sales tax. You lost registration fees. And you lost a lot of jobs because you took an industry that was once significant . . . this state once accounted for twenty-five percent of the street motorcycles in the country, and you crippled it. And that doesn't make any sense.

Let's talk briefly about the studies. The UCD study . . . Davis, everybody's already heard of it. All these big numbers. The Davis study is an orthopedic study of fifty-one to calculate the cost of accidents. It has nothing to do with helmets or helmet use.

The UCLA study we've touched on briefly. The UCLA study comes to the conclusion that the helmet law has had a great benefit. The only benefit of that law was to get people off the road because the UCLA study never acknowledges anywhere in their pages the decline in ridership.

The Harborview study in Washington, we've debunked that. Harborview was done at a group level one trauma hospital which inflated the costs.

And now you're probably going to hear today about the USF study. This is another study that we've never seen that will be unveiled for the first time today. I submit to you just as we've debunked UC Davis, the UCLA study and Harborview, this study is just as bad. And I would be suspect of someone who brings you a report, gives you a peek of it, but won't give you a close look, and wants you to vote on that basis. This has been under consideration for three years and today they finished it? I doubt it.

Let me just close my comments with one thing. I'm only here about one thing today. I'm taking time off from my job, as most of us are, to be here to tell you that I think I know more about this issue than the members of this committee, with all due respect. I've been riding since I was seventeen. I ride every day including to get here today to this hearing. I've studied this issue for years. I know the statistics. I know what's good with them and I know what's wrong with them. I pay my taxes. I'm a partner in my law firm. I'm a graduate of UCLA Law School, and I can look you in the eye and tell you that I am safer on the road most of the time without that helmet than I am when you force me to wear it.

Thank you.

Senator Kelley: Thank you. Next witness please.

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