In a recent article “Wearing helmets should be a choice,” Matt Taylor presented some legitimate points on why the government shouldn’t be the one to tell us how we should protect ourselves. In my opinion, however, there are more aspects of this helmet ordinance that affect us on more levels than just limiting our personal choices.
I ride a motorcycle about six miles to school twice a day. By law, I am required to wear a Department of Transportation-approved motorcycle helmet. While I have several options, I choose to wear a full face, completely padded, DOT-approved helmet.
This means I sacrifice comfort and a lot of air flow for safety, and I do it for my own benefit, not because someone told me to. The reasons I choose this helmet are abundant, and also affect the average Mississippi State student on a bicycle.
I am going to assume most of us students on campus still claim our parents health insurance. Because of that, your parents are responsible for any medical bills you may assume due to bodily injury.
This also means if you obtain any kind of brain or head injury on your bike, parents are responsible for the thousands of dollars of medical bills that you caused.
In addition, when cyclists are hit, most don’t die. They are instead heavily injured, resulting in massive medical bills.
Every time you ride a bike without a helmet, you are inherently saying “I am affecting other people with this decision.”
In the case you aren’t on your parents’ medical plan, think about trying to pay for those medical bills by yourself while you can’t even work because of injury.
According to the SNELL Memorial Foundation, every year the estimated number of bicycling head injuries requiring hospitalization exceeds the total of all the head injury cases related to baseball, football, skateboards, kick scooters, horseback riding, snowboarding, ice hockey, in-line skating and lacrosse. Although a helmet may not protect from every injury, you are much better off by wearing one.
With the way bicycle helmets are created in this day and age, cyclists have the best helmets we have ever seen. Most helmets are relatively cheap, lightweight and small, thus staying out of the way of the cyclists and not interfering on hot summer days. 
There is absolutely no reason to forgo a helmet in favor of a $15 ticket that would cost more than a helmet would in the first place.
With cars speeding by within a few feet, your hair or the temperature should be the last thing on your mind.
I’m no law student, but could you imagine trying to sue a negligent driver for hitting you when you were also breaking the law?
An easy argument by the driver would be to say you assumed the risk of not wearing a helmet before even hopping on that bike and heading out on a public road.
Helmet use has been estimated to reduce head injury risk by 85 percent according to the insurance institute for highway safety.
Instead of being upset with the local government, we should appreciate them for caring about our safety on the roadway, especially with the way some people drive around this town.
If the government is more concerned about our lives than we are, people are moving in the completely wrong direction.