Michigan mulls Motorcycle helmet laws and improvements
Friday, 26 March 2010 | Written by Digits | Print | E-mail

Riders can add Michigan to the list of states tinkering with their motorcycle helmet laws as lawmakers attempt to allow bikers 21 years and older the choice on whether they wear one.

The bill was passed with a vote of 63-46 and under the threat of a veto from Michigan's Governor, Jennifer Granholm who has expressed concerns about safety and what would happen to insurance costs if the mandatory helmet law were repealed.

Granholm has vetoed similar legislation twice in the past few years with a spokeswoman noting yesterday the Governor continues to support Michigan's current law, which requires motorcycle riders to wear helmets.

The bill leaves the Democrate led House and rides over to the Republican-led Senate for the next vote.

Ironically, this was the week a team of inventive engineering students from Michigan Technological University became one of sixteen teams going to a national inventors conference in San Francisco.

Their invention? A new and promising protective layer for sports and motorcycle helmets.

Chosen from two hundred colleges the team of students from Michigan Technological University used the human head itself as a model for a building a helmet lining that mimics the body’s own tricks for deflecting blows to the head.

Michigan Tech undergraduates and graduate students will be demonstrating a prototype Enhanced BioMorphic (EBM) helmet layer at March Madness for the Mind, sponsored by the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA) and Inventors Digest magazine at the Exploratorium science museum in San Francisco.