In 1976, the Bermuda government enacted legislation that required anyone riding a motorcycle or scooter to wear a crash helmet. The new rule was deeply unpopular with many who enjoyed the feeling of freedom from the breeze blowing through their hair as they buzzed along on their souped-up scooter. Dr Clarence James, the Minister of Transport, pushed the mandatory helmet legislation through in the face of vocal opposition.
Looking back with today’s perspective, it may seem difficult to believe it took so long, given the obvious danger and potentially devastating consequences of riding unprotected. However, Bermuda was not a laggard. Many other countries introduced their helmet laws in the 1970s, including Britain, France, Japan, Spain, Italy and New Zealand, amid a global wave of concern over road safety. Road accidents were exacting a grim toll on the island in the early 1970s. A total of 88 people died on Bermuda’s roads in the five years before the mandatory helmet law — an average of almost 18 annually — this at a time when the population was lower than today, and many fewer vehicles were on the road. Many of the deaths came as a result of head injuries to motorcyclists.
However, although helmets were not obligatory pre-1976, some chose to wear them. And cycle rental companies encouraged visitors unused to Bermuda’s narrow and winding roads to strap up. John Brooks, a New York Times journalist, described renting a scooter from Oleander Cycles in an article that appeared on the newspaper’s front page on May 16, 1971, under the headline “Memoirs of a Bourgeois Hell’s Angel in Bermuda.” Brooks remarked that there were then 15,000 “motor-assisted cycles” on the island, 5,000 of which were rented out to tourists. After renting a Puch Maxi motorcycle with a maximum speed of 30 mph, Brooks wrote that a female travel companion “mentions that she has read in a local newspaper that there were 25 fatal accidents involving motorbikes in Bermuda the previous year; but later, as you grimly strap on your crash helmet preparatory to setting off, she says you look cute in it.” As he rode through Paget, Brooks describes seeing girls “breezing past you right and left, with little smiles on their faces and no crash helmets on their head.” His helmet proved useful as he came off his bike later that day, suffering only a scrape to the knee and injured pride.
In the first five years of legally required head protection, the lifesaving benefits became immediately apparent as road fatalities fell by more than half of the previous five-year period to 43 or 8.6 per year on average. With the mandatory helmet rule set to mark its 50th anniversary next year, one can only imagine how many lives helmets have saved and how many serious injuries have been prevented or lessened in severity.
