Joe Perkins, a shift commander for the Carl Junction Fire Department, said he can see the side of the argument for giving riders a choice, but in his own experience of riding motorcycles and responding to a number of accidents on the highway, he said he personally would always wear a helmet.

“I don’t own a bike now, but I have ridden and I always had a helmet,” Perkins said. “Part of the reason that I don’t own a bike is because I work here and my wife is an RN at Freeman, and we’ve both seen a lot of accidents.”

Perkins said he doesn’t think a law should be what drives someone on a bike to put on a helmet, but rather common sense.

“A helmet, in my experience of doing this for 10 years, makes all the difference in the world if you crash,” Perkins said. “Not just in surviving (an accident) but also the injuries that you receive that might be debilitating or threaten your lifestyle. I don’t know if I would be in favor of the law or not, but it’s sort of one of those things that if people are not going to wear one, then they kind of get what they get.”

Nixon’s main reasons for vetoing the bill have to do with safety and cost, said a letter posted on his Web site. According the letter, which cited government statistic reports, “head injuries are the leading cause of death in motorcycle accidents” and helmets have saved nearly 20,000 cyclists’ lives in the past 22 years. The letter also said that the revision of the law would cause an increase in the cost of treatment for patients in motorcycle accidents, and taxpayers would end up having to cover a significant percentage of that cost.