Writing columns for a community daily newspaper which eventually gets posted online can elicit feedbacks from readers outside of the target community. Recently, I received an email from RV Utah USA (rv.eng53@yahoo.com) as a response to last week’s column “Law or anarchy.”
RV wrote that “We fought for you during WWII to ensure your freedom. Sounds like the cops and the populus that ride motorcycles without helmets are exercising the freedoms that we ensured for you folks that we had to fight and die for. You call it anarchy? I call that freedom. Get with the program. Let those who ride decide. Not the nanny crats who are control freaks.” (A crat, by the way, is “an individual from the upper-classes. A step up from the ‘bourgies’ of the affluent middle-classes,” according to the Urban Dictionary.
I agree. The Americans fought the Japanese invaders in World War II in defense of the Philippines and the United States. But it wasn’t a one-way traffic. Filipino soldiers shed blood also for American soldiers of the USAFFE. My maternal uncle Capt. Jose S. Quito, MD served in the United States Armed Forces of the Far East (USAFFE) and was able to escape from the Bataan Death March. My father, Benedicto Senior, served as a guerilla courier.
As William Shakespeare aptly wrote in his play King Henry V, “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he today that sheds his blood with me, Shall be my brother; be ne’er so vile.” Except that the US government very belatedly recognized their Filipino brothers-in-arms after the war. Our Filipino war veterans had a harder time convincing the US government to recognize their sacrifices for the Philippine flag and the Stars-and-Stripes.
I believe that the brothers-in-arms fought for liberty and democracy under the rule of law, “not for the cops and the populous” to ride motorcycles so they can flout the law under the excuse of exercising the freedoms.
Otherwise, the USA would be one of those who curtail the freedom to drive motorcycles without helmets. Currently, 19 states and the District of Columbia have laws requiring all motorcyclists to use helmets, and enforce universal helmet laws. There is no motorcycle helmet use law in three states (Illinois, Iowa, and New Hampshire). So RV who lives in Utah lucks out. He has to comply with his state laws.
According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) , “Riding a motorcycle is inherently riskier than driving a car. Maintaining control is harder on two wheels than on four, and when crashes occur, motorcyclists are at greater risk of serious injury or death because they don't have an enclosed vehicle to protect them.”
Further, IIHS insists that “a helmet is the most important piece of motorcycle safety equipment. Helmets decrease the severity of head injuries and the likelihood of death. The federal government estimates that wearing a helmet reduces the risk of dying in a crash by 37 percent. Unhelmeted riders are three times more likely than helmeted ones to sustain traumatic brain injuries in the event of a crash.”
In the Philippines, Mr. Takeshi Yano, president of Yamaha Motor Philippines Inc., noted that motorcycle accidents account for the number four cause of deaths in the Philippines. “Based on our survey, an average of 16,208 motorcycle accidents is recorded in the country every year,” Yano emphasized.
Freedom not to comply with the law? More like the freedom to get killed in road accidents.
bqsanc@yahoo.com