Letters to the Editors

No-helmet law adds to burden on the taxpayer

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 22, 2000

Re: Bikers may ride without helmets, June 17.

I would like to thank the governor for this new "entitlement" he has just released upon the Florida taxpayers. It seems that if one can spend enough money on lobbyists, common sense can be made to disappear.

Trauma surgeons in our state each year treat hundreds of motorcyclists who have brain and spinal cord injuries, as well as complex bone injuries, as a result of their freedom to ride motorcycles. Helmets have long been known to reduce some brain injuries in riders. Now we have freed some people to not wear their helmets so they can ride with the wind in their hair. But they have to have $10,000 in health insurance!

How will this be enforced? Will we spend more taxpayer money for more law enforcement personnel to make more stops to check for insurance cards that are valid? We currently have hundreds of uninsured motorists whom we can't get to comply!

This $10,000 sum is already painfully inadequate for most motorists. A head-injured patient in Florida must be transported to a trauma center. Many times this requires aeromedical transport, which is life-saving but more costly. Then the patient must have a team of qualified professionals such as trauma surgeons, neurosurgeons, orthopedic surgeons, anesthesiologists and specialized nurses immediately available to him. This is not to mention expensive test, operations, weeks in the intensive care units, months in rehabilitation and years on disability. The $10,000 personal injury protection is exhausted in the first day of care and may not be payable to the hospital or the providers.

With these monies spent early on, patients seek funding from county sources and Medicaid to pay for their care. The taxpayer is again paying expensive "entitlements" for what seems to be a ridiculous and unnecessary freedom for yet another "special interest group."

You are correct, Mr. Bush: "Reasonable adults should be trusted to make reasonable decisions."
-- Ernst E. Vieux Jr., M.D., trauma surgeon, St. Petersburg

The public good takes a back seat

Re: Bikers may ride without helmets.

It is somewhat ironic that on the same day the story on the helmet law was published, there appeared another story about a dying young man who was riding a bicycle without a helmet and was struck by a car (Hope is renewed for boy in coma). Much concern was expressed about the young man's medical bills, which will easily top $100,000.

The requirement for a $10,000 medical insurance policy is a bit of a joke in that that may cover the costs of perhaps one day in the hospital for a patient who has just sustained a closed-head injury.

And who will cover the rest? You guessed it. Everybody else. As a health care professional who has had the task of taking care of some unfortunate non-helmet-wearing accident victims, I would think that the small inconvenience of wearing a helmet would be a very small price to pay for protection it provides to the wearer.

The change in the law was done in complete disregard for the benefits a helmet law provides to the overall populace, which will foot the bill for everything above and beyond the the victims' insurance limits. But eventually the public will have to pay for that insurance as well in the form of higher premiums.

In the state of Wisconsin, where there has been no helmet law for sometime now, non-helmet-wearing motorcyclists are known in health care circles as "donorcyclists" because after an accident they often end up becoming organ donors. That's something for all those people seeking individual freedom to think about.

It is unfortunate that overall public good and safety take such a distant back seat to stupidity and the efforts of lobbyists, who disguise their cause as a fight for individual freedom. And we have all this just after mandatory auto emissions testing is eliminated in Florida -- as if our air quality is so pristine here that we can afford to dump tens of thousands of tons of pollution in the atmosphere.
-- Frank J. Mazzeo M.D., St. Petersburg

No confidence in medical examiner

Re: State drops charges against Scientology, June 13.

The Medical Examiner's Office mishandled this case from the beginning. But I have never heard of a medical examiner, at the request of a defendant in a criminal trial, changing the results of an autopsy or cause of death on the death certificate.

If the conclusions of the Scientologists' forensic "experts" on cause of death differ from those of the Medical Examiner's Office, present them in court and let a jury decide.

It is obvious the states attorney has lost confidence in the medical examiner and as far as I'm concerned so has the community she serves. If Joan Wood doesn't resign, she should be fired. This kind of incompetence cannot and should not be tolerated.
Matthew L. Roberts, Clearwater

Wood has to go

Re: Bungling Scientology case, editorial, June 14.

I totally agree that Medical Examiner Joan Wood should resign her position immediately. She is a total disgrace to her profession. I have worked for 20 years in law enforcement, and many many times we turned to the medical examiner for the cause of death in an investigation. The ME report was gold. It was always trusted and rarely questioned.

Given the way Wood has acted, she will have no credibility in the future and could cause much deeper problems for the prosecution in future cases. She should not only resign, there also should be a formal investigation of her handling of the Lisa McPherson case. Did the Church of Scientology and it's members finally get to her, too? If she did act inappropriately in any way, she should be terminated.

There are still many dedicated people working in the Medical Examiner's Office, but they, too, will have their work questioned in the future because of Wood if she is allowed to stay in her present position.

As it is written in the editorial, she should do what is right: resign.
-- Stephen F. Los, Palm Harbor

It looks like a bribe

Re: Scientology leader wanted a deal, June 14.

The situation described in this article smelled terribly of bribery! David Miscavige, Scientology's worldwide leader, offered a "deal" to State Attorney Bernie McCabe: a $500,000 donation to the county's emergency medical system and an additional payment of $15,000 (which the church would have been fined if it had been convicted) if McCabe would drop the charges in the Lisa McPherson case!

Now this sounded strangely like a bribe to me. Thinking I didn't know what the definition of bribe was, I looked it up. This is what I found:

1: money or favor given or promised in order to influence the judgment or conduct of a person in a position of trust; 2: something that serves to induce or influence.

Am I reading between the lines, or does anyone else see this, too?
-- Garry Rosseter, St. Petersburg

Speak out against secret evidence

Re: Resist efforts to dilute federal anti-terrorism law, Our safety should come first, and A questionable cause, letters, June 10.

Your June 10 issue includes views expressed by obviously biased members of the Jewish community fighting the Israeli-Palestinian turmoil from the comforts of U.S. soil. Would their beliefs change should one of them be thrown into jail under "secret evidence" and not know the reason for his incarceration?

I commend the St. Petersburg Times and especially staff writer Susan Aschoff for informative articles exposing the case of Dr. Mazen Al-Najjar who is now commencing his fourth year of imprisonment. It is encouraging to note support of Mary Jo Melone and Bill Maxwell (No secret to why he's jailed for so long and Secret evidence prevents basic fairness, June 4) in their respective columns. There is no constituency for victims like Al-Najjar and perhaps 18 to 20 other hostages, likely all Arabs and Muslims, who are involved in secret evidence cases.

HR-2121, currently before Congress, would correct some of the harsh language of previous legislation, which many legal scholars now deem was a reaction to terrorist acts here in America. Remember the immediate assumption that the Oklahoma City bombing was the work of foreign terrorists? What a revelation!

This legislation, introduced last year by Rep. David Bonior, D-Michigan, and Rep. Tom Campbell, R-California, now has 90 supporters and has had a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee.

Why not add your voice by telling your congressional representative to support HR-2121 in the name of justice? There will be more voices to echo the words of the late Martin Luther King Jr.: "Injustice anywhere threatens justice everywhere."

It is time the U.S. Justice Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service take action to open the cases now under "secret evidence," examine the validity of the claims, charge the victims or release them.
-- Gertrude Johanson, Tampa

Let's hear other candidates' ideas

Re: Marginal candidates are a distraction, letter, June 20.

I strongly disagree that the ideas the third party candidates put forth are "fruitless" and never put into practice. Many of the ideas presented by third party candidates have been incorporated by the so called "two party" system in the past.

However, since the media do not print all the excellent ideas the third party candidates are putting forth, it is difficult to understand how anyone can call them fruitless.

I, for one, would like to hear the third party candidates' so-called fruitless ideas in an open debate and see them detailed in the media. Only a true open debate will allow the voters to decide on who has the realistic chance of winning the presidency.

Or is that what the two parties are worried about.
-- Ben Quatrano, Clearwater

Do the eyes have it?

Re: Presidential race's days of dismay, by Mary McGrory, June 16.

Mary McGrory comments on George W. Bush's smirks and close-set eyes. When it comes to smirking, nobody can compete with Bill Clinton. He has had a permanent smirk on his face since his first election. And what about Clinton's bulbous (a la W.C. Fields) nose and Al Gore's bald spot?

Is McGrory advocating voting on looks rather than policies?
-- Phyllis Dietach, Largo

Heavenly West Virginia

Re: Getting acquainted with ancestors, letter, June 16.

I want to thank the writer defending West Virginia, not that it needs defending.

As a proud West Virginian, I know the logo "Almost Heaven" hits the spot. I'm only in Florida because the mountains, as beautiful as they are, are too hard on bad knees.

I also get a kick out of those "flatlanders" who, when you say you are from West Virginia, say, "West, by God, Virginia." Those of us who are natives don't have to say, "By God." We know he made it, and I love it!
Kathryn L. Robinson, Holiday

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