07.02.2009 2:21 pm
Tip of the helmet to Gov. Nixon
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
AP Photo/Jack Dempsey
Update: Read the governor’s Veto Message here.
Tony Messenger reports that Gov. Jay Nixon will veto the bill that would repeal the Missouri law that requires motorcyclists to wear helmets:
“In terms of lives and of dollars, the cost of repealing Missouri’s helmet law simply would have been too high,” Gov. Nixon said. “By keeping Missouri’s helmet law intact, we will save numerous lives, while also saving Missouri taxpayers millions of dollars in increased health care costs. Keeping our helmet law in place was the safe and cost-effective choice for Missouri.”
That’s right governor. Good going.
Eddie Roth writes about education, social justice, public safety, transportation, legal affairs and historic preservation. He joined the Post-Dispatch editorial page in 2008 after six years as an editorial writer with the Dayton Daily News. But he is not new to St. Louis. Eddie grew up in Webster Groves and south St. Louis County. He's a lawyer who for many years practiced with a downtown firm, and was active in civic affairs, including serving a term on the St. Louis Police Board. He and his wife, Jeanne, and their three daughters, Emily, Julia and Alice, live in the Shaw Neighborhood.
When it comes to community organizing, he endorses Quentin Crisp's advice: Rather than keeping up with the Joneses, it's better to pull them down to your level. 
Randy, it is to about a right, not a rule! It’s a claim on my well being for the sake of state dollars. When a dolt speeds, gets drunk… he’s killing somebody else, not himself; that is an objective violation of the rights of others and ought to be punished with crushing pain.
As for the pick-your-battles perspective, I tend to agree; but we were within inches of a small victory for man’s rights. And, yet again, it was not to be.
They will control everything until they can control nothing. Just wait and see.
Randy, you are correct in a legal sense when you say that riding without a helmet is not a right. Personally, I even wear a helmet when I ride my bicycle. But as a general rule, I feel that if people want to do dumb things for fun, it isn’t the government’s business to stop them unless they put others in danger. Whether it’s flying private aircraft, skydiving, climbing up cliffs, smoking cigarettes, or riding without a helmet … it isn’t Jay Nixon’s business.
As far as picking your battles goes … I can tell you that the “riding without helmets” crowd is one of the most organized political groups in Missouri. I remember back more than a decade ago, they had a hospitality suite at Lincoln Days. So apparently, this is an important issue to them.