Safety in Paradise

No Life Jacket? No Helmet? No Problem!

By Jonathan Weber , 8-25-08

	Happy Guy (Not the Author)

I recently overheard a new arrival to Missoula comment with astonishment on how few cyclists around town were wearing helmets. Back in Washington, he said, everyone wears a helmet. What’s up with that?

Now I will confess that I personally do not wear a helmet when I ride my bike (which admittedly is not all that often). It sounds silly in this context, but I love the feel of the wind in my hair. And I can’t quite get past the feeling that bike helmets are another manifestation of the nanny state. They didn’t exist at all when I was a kid, and somehow generations of children managed to survive.

I have a somewhat different reaction, though, when I float the river and notice the almost complete absence of life jackets. I look at a kid, and wonder, can he swim? Can the accompanying grown-ups drinking beer - presumably his parents - swim themselves? Do they have any idea how easy it is to get in trouble on a river?

At the same time, our own kids are not terribly good swimmers, yet it only occurred to us belatedly to make them wear life jackets in the tube. Nobody else was wearing them, so how dangerous could it be?

I’m firmly of the belief that adults should be able to do anything they want as long as any danger is only to themselves (and frankly that includes a lot of things that are currently illegal). Children are a different story, and reasonable laws aimed at protecting their safety are common sense. But the more complex question has to do with the social component of perceived risk, which is enormous.

When a dangerous behavior is both legal and routine, it warps our perception of the nature of that danger. Cigarette smoking is a great example. It used to be consider a normal thing to do; the risks were known, but society approved. Nowadays, the risks are no better known, but society no longer approves - and a lot fewer people smoke.

I was floating the river yesterday in my canoe, by myself, and I was wearing a life jacket. I’m actually a very good swimmer, and the Clark Fork was as mellow as could be, but when you’re alone in a boat a lot of weird things can happen. I was oddly self-conscious as I floated past the tubers, the fishermen, and the family-filled rafts, nary a life jacket in sight. It got hot, and I finally took mine off, which is a bad reason to take it off if you think it’s necessary, but, well, I was hot.

Every year, people die on the river because they weren’t wearing life jackets. Every week, it seems, somebody in Montana dies in a car accident because they weren’t wearing a seat belt. Sonny Bono’s death some years back finally prompted me to wear a helmet when I ski. But my risk choices still don’t feel very rational.

It seems to me the challenge with these kinds of issues is to find a way to express social disapproval without making the behavior illegal. Maybe it’s not possible: for decades hardly any professional hockey players wore helmets because it was considered a sissy thing to do, but most players were all too happy when the league made it mandatory. Seatbelts are not an encourgaing example either. Surely, though, there are creative approaches out there. Any ideas?

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