Helmets are not an option under a Senator Lee bill.

The bill, introduced last week by Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco), would require children under the age of 18 to wear a helmet while skiing or snowboarding. Like California’s bicycle helmet law, SB 880 would impose a fine of no more than $25 on parents whose children do not wear a helmet.

“California’s ski slopes are perhaps the last area of recreation where we do not have basic safety standards in place for children,” Yee said in a press release last week. “Despite repeated warnings from public health experts, professional athletes, and ski resorts, each winter brings news of hundreds of unnecessary tragedies for the failure to wear a helmet. With this legislation, we can significantly reduce instances of traumatic brain injury or death for such a vulnerable population.”

To Yee, the legislation is common sense. As a child psychologist who has also spoken out about limiting children’s exposure to violent video games, Yee wrote the helmet bill after seeing a federal study that showed that half of all skiing deaths are caused by head injuries.

“When the data is so conclusive that helmets save lives and reduce severity of injuries,” said Yee, “California should set minimum standards for safety.”

Senator Tom Harman (R-Huntington Beach) disagrees, calling the bill “nanny government.”

“You get into the question of just how far government should go in protecting people from themselves,” Harman told the Los Angeles Times.

Yee argues that the government does not leave decisions about seat belts, car seats or basic vaccinations up to parents, and therefore a minimum safety standard should be set for helmets on ski slopes as well.

The California Ski Industry Administration, which represents ski resort operators in California and Nevada, has pledged its support of the bill. The fine for not wearing a helmet does, after all, fall on the parents, not the resorts, and as Executive Director Bob Roberts told the San Jose Mercury News, “Let’s face it: We also sell them.”

While some may complain that a helmet law would just add another cost to an already expensive sport, Chuck Peters, president of the South Bay-based Sundancers Ski and Snowboard Club, told the San Jose Mercury News that a decent helmet costs less than a day on the slopes.

Dr. Jo Linder-Crow, Executive Director of the California Psychological Association, another one of the bills supporters, says, “The lives lost and public health costs are too high to ignore any longer.”

The bill will not be heard in the Senate until at least next month and will then go to committees for further debate. A final decision is expected later this year.

                                        

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