My home state of Connecticut has a shiny new law: All e-bike riders, regardless of their age, are now required to wear helmets. I’m a big fan of helmets; I recommend them for all two-wheel riders, and that includes riders of e-bikes. I even wrote a guide to buying your first motorcycle helmet. But Connecticut, in passing this e-bike law, has made its greater legal structure very, very stupid. See, e-bikes now require helmets, but motorcycles in the Nutmeg State still don’t — so long as the rider is over the age of 21.
The new Connecticut law around e-bikes (which are also too expensive) applies to all riders, with no regard for age. Yet the state’s motorcycle helmet laws — the laws that apply at highway speeds unreachable by e-bikes — only apply up to the age of 21. That age limit, too, was newly raised this month. It’s not like this is an ancient Connecticut law, grandfathered in from before our modern understanding of head injuries. This is a modern Connecticut law, allowing any motorcyclist of drinking age to cruise around with their hair in the breeze.
This is backward and dumb
In Connecticut, the bigger, heavier, faster, more dangerous vehicle is the one where riders have fewer mandated safety precautions. That’s backward. It’s always jarring to leave the comfort of New York to visit family in Connecticut, only to suddenly see legions of Harley owners with their sunburned scalps proudly gleaming atop their chromed-out hogs. These riders are perfectly in the legal right — they have the full freedom to leave their skulls unprotected.
Connecticut mandating helmets on e-bikes isn’t bad in a vacuum. It is, however, bad within the context of its lack of similar laws around other two-wheeled vehicles. The new law just makes an impediment to smaller, cheaper, more energy-efficient transportation, rather than actually addressing glaring safety holes left in the state’s legal code. As a former Nutmegger, I am begging Hartford to fix this: Either mandate helmets on motorcycles, or remove the requirement for e-bikes.