Protesting Too Much, Editorial, Motorcycle Sport, September 1977

Compulsory Helmets. We hazard a guess that the majority of readers of Motorcycle Sport are against the law and for the wearing of helmets. We hazard another guess that the majority of commuting, non-sporting and basically disinterested motorcyclists would take the opposite view or, let’s say, a neutral one.

In short, they could not care less, one way or the other, for they plan to wear a helmet anyway.

Then there are the good people from MAG. They are passionately against the law and are prepared to march on Downing Street to say so. Indeed, not too long ago they held the second of their marches on Downing Street, and we went along to have a look.

Quite frankly we were forced to take the view that with friends like these we do not need enemies. For some reason the MAG campaign has almost totally missed out on the sort of people we, in our possibly old-fashioned way, think of as typical motorcyclists.

Our kind of motorcyclist is, as Professor Higgins once said of himself in a rather unordinary sort of way, an ordinary sort of rider, recognisable by his ordinariness rather than his outrageousness. He may be wearing a Barbour suit, leathers, jeans, or an ex-WD coat, but by his manner and attitude he is a part of, not apart from, the crowd.

Those on the MAG demo were, to us, quite apart from any crowd.

The TV cameras had a field day showing helmetless riders, riders with their ‘colours’ aloft, riders with shaved heads, and chopper riders. All, no doubt, sincere and decent people who feel keenly that the law is wrong.

And all, unfortunately, on the day ambassadors for the sport and pastime of motorcycling and helping to form in the minds of the general public an idea of what motorcyclists are like.

A few abused this privilege by flouting the law and behaving in a way that shamed not only motorcycling but MAG. They were reported as scattering pedestrians and doing their best to create havoc with the rest of the traffic.

Perhaps this is the only way to bring an injustice to the attention of the world at large and perhaps, in time, such demonstrations will help to make it possible to get a repeal of the law (though we doubt it).

If it does, we shall have won the right not to wear helmets but the sport of motorcycling which, we think, is at last beginning to overcome the prejudices of the past 40 years, will have become once again the odd-ball activity of hooligans to the general public.

There must be a better way of campaigning against the helmet laws than this.

A final, distasteful episode was the appearance of racist Robert Relf, who has taken up motorcycling in order not to wear a helmet, in protest of the Sikh exemptions.

The thought of Relf and his kind and the prospect of another Ladywood or Lewisham should be enough to make any sane motorcyclist run a thousand miles from the next anti-helmet demonstration.