Motorcycles have no child safety seats

For years, there’s been a debate in Illinois about whether motorcyclists should be required to wear helmets.

The state is one of only three in the nation without a helmet law of some sort.

While common sense would seem to suggest that motorcyclists are safer with helmets than without them, our point today isn’t to get into all that. Save that Pandora’s box for another day.

Instead, let’s talk today about the state’s children, as did an article Sunday by Transportation Writer Marni Pyke.

In that story, Pyke pointed out that Illinois doesn’t legislate that children who ride as passengers on motorcycles must wear helmets. In fact, the state doesn’t restrict them in any way.

Does this make any sense?

Greg Smith, public relations coordinator for the DuPage/Kane chapter of A Brotherhood Aimed Toward Education, argued parental judgment, not state mandates, should rule this issue.

“It’s the right of parents to regulate what their children have to wear,” he said. “If they feel their children should wear a helmet, then the child should wear a helmet. The parents, if they are responsible, will do the responsible thing. I wear a helmet at all times and a reflective vest. But it’s my choice to do that.”

Here’s the problem with that argument:

Parents aren’t always responsible.

And when parental irresponsibility puts children’s health and safety at risk, the state has the power and the obligation to intervene.

It does so all the time.

The decision, for example, whether to use child safety seats in cars isn’t left to parents; it’s required by the state. Parents who allow underage drinking in their homes, for another example, are subject to fines. Parents can be criminally prosecuted if they endanger their infant children by leaving them home alone.

And on and on. There are plenty of instances where the state steps in to look out for the child’s welfare when a parent fails to exercise responsible judgment.

This seems like the same kind of thing.

When it comes to the issue of helmet requirements for adult motorcyclists, arguments can be made against them.

Opponents of such laws can say that helmets interfere with the motorcycle driver’s ability to see or hear. They can argue that in a free society, those who accept the risk should be the ones deciding whether to wear a helmet.

The merits of those arguments may be debatable, but at least there are arguments.

But there are no arguments when it comes to regulating child passengers on motorcycles.

As a minimum, the state should say this: Any child who gets on a motorcycle should be wearing a helmet.

As a minimum.