I. INTRODUCTION
The first state laws requiring motorcyclists to wear protective helmets began to appear in 1967 following the inclusion of mandatory helmet use in the highway safety program standards issued by the Secretary of Transportation. In 1967, 22 States adopted helmet use laws applicable to all riders and 14 more States added such laws in 1968. By 1975, almost all States and the District of Columbia had enacted all-rider helmet use laws.
Mandatory helmet use laws were not well received by segments of the motorcycling community. Organizations such as ABATE (A Brotherhood Against Totalitarian Enactments; now more commonly, American Bikers Aimed Toward Education) formed and lobbied against helmet use laws. In the nearly four decades since the original helmet laws, States have variously enacted and repealed all-rider motorcycle helmet laws, with the presence or absence of congressional transportation funding incentives and disincentives often facilitating state legislative actions. In recent years, allocations of Federal highway funds to the States have not been linked to whether the State had or did not have a motorcycle helmet law applicable to all riders.
Effective July 1, 2000, Florida eliminated the legal requirement that all motorcycle riders wear helmets. Instead, state law now requires helmet use only by riders under the age of 21. The Florida law change follows similar actions by Arkansas and Texas in 1997, by Kentucky in 1998, and by Louisiana in 1999. At the end of 2003, there were 19 States and the District of Columbia with laws requiring helmet use by all motorcycle riders, 28 States that require helmet use only by riders under a specified age, and 3 States with no law regarding helmet use.
The present report examines the highway safety effects of Florida's law change. Following this introduction, the report is organized as follows:
Chapter VI, Discussion, discusses the findings of the study.• Chapter II, Background, reviews recent literature on the effects of helmet use and helmet use laws.
• Chapter III presents national data on trends in motorcycle registrations, travel, and casualties.
• Chapter IV, Effects of the Law Change in Florida, describes the effect of Florida's law change on helmet use, fatalities, injuries, and casualty rates.
• Chapter V, Effects of the Other Law Changes, updates earlier analyses of the effects of law changes in Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Texas.
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