R-C-B-S Corporation Et Al. v. City Atlantic Beach Et Al‪.‬

Does a motorcyclist have a constitutional right to ride the highways without the protective helmet and goggles or face mask the legislature says he must wear? The trial judge thought so. Michigan and Louisiana courts have agreed. But others have upheld similar statutes, declaring that the danger of flying stones is likely to distract the cyclist and send him hurtling into the path of motorists, or that "it is to the interest of the state to have strong, robust, healthy citizens, capable of self-support, of bearing arms, and of adding to the resources of the country." We approve without hesitation the requirement of protection for the eyes. Any collision between the naked eyeball of the cyclist and the dirt increasingly airborne in our time is likely to pose a menace to others. But we ought to admit frankly that the purpose of the helmet is to preserve the life and health of the cyclist, and for some more divinely ordained and humanely explicable purpose than the service of the state.