Helmet Law

Some time last year Nigeria passed a new helmet law, which apparently took effect New Year’s Day. Readers from California may remember the controversy that surrounded a similar law passed in that state, pitting advocates for the right of motorcyclists to ride with the wind blowing freely through their hair against advocates for the rights of everyone else not to have to pay for expensive medical care (and burials) for uninsured motorcyclists who would die from head injuries that could be prevented with the use of helmets. Eventually the helmet law passed, and that should have been the end of the matter, if not for a handful of stubborn bikers and enterprising businesspeople…

In response to the law, several companies began manufacturing helmets that conformed to the very minimum requirements of the helmet law – that is, which provided just enough coverage to prevent a policeman from being able to ticket the rider. It seems that the law hadn’t specified that the rider’s whole head and face had to be covered, just that their headgear provide a certain level of crash protection. The resulting designs were vaguely reminiscent of military helmets used in the early 20th Century (German or British styles, depending on the brand) and didn’t provide the same level of protection that a full-coverage helmet would have, but allowed the user an increased feeling of exposure to the elements over a conventional helmet…

In Nigeria, a somewhat different solution is being used by motorcyclists who can not afford to purchase a conventional helmet: dried pumpkin shells. A story being reported on the BBC News Africa website tells the unusual story of improvised motorcycle helmets being adopted by Nigerians who make their living transporting people on the back of their motorcycles (motorcycle taxis, another service that would never occur in the U.S.). Nigerians are also protesting the helmet law on the grounds that it is possible for someone to put hostile magic in a helmet, which would permit the taxi driver to rob unsuspecting passengers…

Why does he tell us about this? I hear some of you asking. No one reading this post is ever likely to move to Nigeria and invest in a motorcycle taxi business, and if you did you’d certainly make sure that you have enough startup capital to afford TWO helmets, one for your and one for your passenger. So why am I wasting your time with this exotic tale of business and government regulation once again coming into conflict? Because, you guessed it, this situation plays out in one form or another every day in ever country in the world, and sooner or later you, too, are going to have to deal with the equivalent in your own business…

I’m not sure what aspect of your business our government is going to decide is unsafe, environmentally unfriendly, too expensive for your poorer customers to afford, or otherwise displeasing to the powers that be (or to some hyper-liberal advocate group with a really strong lobby); I only know that if you stay in business long enough, sooner or later there will be some form of safety law passed that will require you to spend money you can’t afford on safety provisions that will not make your business any more safe (but will generate a lot of money for whatever company makes the safety equipment). In your next strategic planning cycle you should probably add the possibility of blue-sky government safety laws being passed to the list of potential threats in your business environment; and if you don’t already go through a regular strategic planning cycle, you might want to consider starting…

Alternately, I suppose, you could look into shifting your production capabilities into making safety equipment…