Wisconsin requires helmets only on motorcyclists younger than seventeen or those with a learner’s permit. It does not require bicycle helmets at all.
So why do I care? I care because of my seventeen-year-old son and his friends and my nephews and my friends’ kids. I care because I’ve seen what happens to young people without helmets. They don’t get to grow up to be George Clooney or anyone else.
Years ago, I worked at a hospital with a brain injury unit. On weekends, I sometimes worked as a receptionist to that wing of the hospital. The causes of injury to the younger patients were overwhelmingly bike or motorcycle accidents or gunshot wounds.
One mother came every Saturday and Sunday, rain or shine, and stayed all day. Her son was a handsome teen with thick dark hair. They would sit outside when it was sunny. He had to sit, of course. He was confined to a wheelchair and couldn’t even move his head unassisted. The first time I saw his mother hold a cup with a drinking straw to his mouth—he couldn’t even sip from the cup—I started to cry.
I would come home from work and lecture my son about wearing his helmet. I would ground him if I caught him riding without it, even in the driveway.
Ten years later, I’m still doing it.
Because I love my son even more than I love George Clooney.
