I can't help but see this article as a an example of Give Up.

Motorcycle fatalities involving riders without helmets have soared in the nearly six years since Gov. Jeb Bush repealed the state's mandatory helmet law, a newspaper reported Sunday.

A Florida Today analysis of federal motorcycle crash statistics found "unhelmeted" deaths in Florida rose from 22 in 1998 and 1999, the years before the helmet law repeal, to 250 in 2004, the most recent year of available data.

Total motorcycle deaths in the state have increased 67 percent, from 259 in 2000 to 432 in 2004, according to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration statistics.

Makes me think of this map (from CDC data).



Motor Vehicle deaths per 100,000, states with rates higher than the national average. Yet another way Red states appear to be less safe to live in. Amazingly, only two Blue states make this map. The two states with the highest rates are Wyoming at 31.5 and Mississippi at 30.6. Compare that to the national average of 15.7 and the five lowest states: Massachusetts 8.8, New York 8.8, Rhode Island 8.9, New Jersey 9.1, and Hawaii 9.7.

Now, in this case you don't have a great deal of sympathy for motorcyclists who aren't bright enough to wear a freaking helmet, but just look at the data! These states are failing in a major area of public safety. Screw terrorism, motor vehicle accidents are what's going to kill you.

Source: Kochanek KD, Murphy SL, Anderson RN, Scott C. Deaths: Final data for 2002. National vital statistics reports; vol 53 no 5. Hyattsville, Maryland: National Center for Health Statistics. 2004.