The Journal Star has come out as a strong advocate of mandatory helmet use by motorcyclists, just as it has been strongly in favor of mandatory seat belt use in cars and trucks. You can read their argument on the editorial page today or by clicking here.

I, too, am an advocate of helmet and seat belt use. I can read the statistics as well as the next guy. Besides, it’s just common sense that you would want to take precautions and protect your self while hurtling down I-74 at 55 45 miles per hour. And I’ll never understand why you wouldn’t want to at least protect your face from bugs when you’re on a motorcycle.

But there’s a big difference between being an advocate for helmet and seat belt use and being an advocate for mandatory helmet and seat belt use. I’m a firm opponent of the latter. To me, it’s paternalistic for the government to be legislating your own personal protection; it’s akin to passing a law against running with scissors.

Most of the Journal Star’s arguments are very persuasive for voluntary helmet use, but they really only have one argument for making it mandatory:

Arguing for helmets is sure to offend those who want to feel the wind in their hair or reject government encroachment on their liberties. But operating a vehicle is a privilege, not a right.

And here is where we disagree. A very persuasive case can be and has been made that operating a vehicle — other than for commerce — is just the opposite: a right and not a privilege. It should come as no surprise that the argument is made by a libertarian. You can read it here.

What makes it so persuasive is that it’s not merely philosophical. Rather, it cites a multitude of court cases — legal precedent — for driving being a right; the “Right of movement, the Right of moving one’s self from place to place without threat of imprisonment, the Right to use the public roads in the ordinary course of life.” How could it be otherwise in a free country? Here are just a couple of quotes:

“The use of the highways for the purpose of travel and transportation is not a mere privilege, but a common and fundamental right of which the public and the individual cannot be rightfully deprived.” Chicago Motor Coach vs. Chicago, 169 NE 22; Ligare vs. Chicago, 28 NE 934; Boon vs. Clark, 214 SSW 607; 25 Am.Jur. (1st) Highways Sect.163.

“The right of the Citizen to travel upon the public highways and to transport his property thereon, either by horse drawn carriage or by automobile, is not a mere privilege which a city can prohibit or permit at will, but a common right which he has under the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Thompson vs. Smith, 154 SE 579.

Take away the “driving is privilege, not a right” argument and you’re left with no justification for creating a new crime — the crime of riding without a helmet.

I appreciate the sentiments of the Journal Star; I certainly don’t want to see people getting themselves killed. I’d rather people wore helmets and seat belts. But that’s their liberty. And with all due respect, I don’t need the editors of the Journal Star to protect me from myself through the power of the state.