- The ARC - California Edition -

Food for Preventive Thought

Helmets and Prevention? -- This summer, the family took a vacation trip beyond the borders of the state of California. As we crossed the state border, we immediately ran into a form of visual sticker shock. Maybe it only happens to people who are interested in preventing brain injury, but the use of motorcycle safety helmets dropped from essentially 100% within California to less than 10% in any of the bordering states we visited.

In case the residents of those states haven’t heard, it has been clearly shown by various groups of scientists that people can prevent injury to their heads and brains by wearing safety helmets when riding their motorcycles. Here in California, fatalities and injuries related to motorcycle crashes have dropped over 50% since safety helmets have been mandated. In 6 years, that law has resulted in a lot of injuries being prevented – to the brains of 45,000 to 50,000 people.

First, A Helmet! -- This past summer, the Pennsylvania Lottery awarded an 80-year-old Philadelphia man a new Harley-Davidson Sportster 1200 Custom motorcycle. The Pennsylvania Lottery has joined with Harley-Davidson (which has their manufacturing plant in York, Pennsylvania) as part of a special promotion during the Harley 95th anniversary.

Mr. Edward Murawski, who is 80 years old, is a regular purchaser of Harley-Davidson Lottery tickets but on August 13th he suddenly found himself the holder of the lottery’s first instant-winner ticket. His immediate response included “Since I have that bike now, I won’t be doing much walking. But I will have to get a helmet first.”

Congratulations, Ed, and thanks for the plug about how to prevent brain-injury.

The Human Genome Project -- The Perkins-Elmer Corporation has announced that they will form a new private corporation for the purpose of completing the sequencing of the human genome within three years.

In this venture, the Institute for Genomic Research will perform the mapping of the genes and patent each of the sequences. The new company will be utilizing updated equipment that is reported to be much faster than the devices now being used.

New California Laws -- Some very significant changes were made to the laws of California during 1997 regarding the operation of Personal Watercraft (PWC) within the state.

It now is an infraction for any person under 16 years of age to operate a motorboat of more than 15 horsepower.

There are some exceptions, including sailboats that do not exceed 30 feet in length, or a dinghy used directly between a moored boat and the shore, or two moored boats.