 Limited run only!!!
Tragic news and moral outrage
From the small office in the back corner,
near the water cooler
June 16th, 2006
The last week just goes to show
that any type of momentum, regardless of how strong it may appear is
stoppable and maybe even reversible.
But before we get to the
conclusion, lets baby-step our way through the connecting dots.
A Superbowl winning quarterback and
a motorcycle accident, sans helmet, was sensational enough to keep
the news media busy and the forums boards buzzing since the morbid
Monday event. Words were written and reports filed with a mixed bag
of emotions from the public and professionals which ranged from
sincere concern to infuriated outrage about the accident as well as
any possibility of a tragic outcome.
It felt that if all the critics and
writers were to actually give Mr. Rothliesberger their two cents
that seemed so generously printed during the last five or six
days, the professional athlete could give up football all together
and quite comfortably retire from the proceeds.
The literal beating had the hulking
football player apologizing to family, friends, team mates and the
public for his actions (actually inaction) and promised to wear a
helmet if he was ever to ride a motorcycle again. The last part in
itself sounded extremely in doubt.
Yes, the media had managed to do
what the best paid defensive players hadn’t been capable of over
many football seasons. Bringing down the towering quarterback and
stopping him in his tracks.
Don’t take any of this as me
leaping to his defense or trying to make what happened any less
important than it was. No, the point of this editorial was to bring
to light what should be known now and forever more as the
Rothliesberger effect. Well that would be its official name, but
it’s too much of a mouthful to say and certainly even more of a pain
to type. Maybe we’ll call it the ‘Busa Boob.
For the younger riders out there,
the word boob is used in the context of a mistake rather than
the body part prominently featured on Britney Spears, or the
insulting slang given to the current husband prominently featured at
the side of Britney Spears.
The 'Busa Boob effect goes beyond
athletes and motorcycles affecting any public figure getting caught
in a sensational, life-threatening moment. ABC reporter Bob Woodruff
and Bob Rothliesberger have both been overwhelmed by the 'Busa Boob
effect.
As with Bob Woodruff's tragic
injuries while reporting in Iraq on May 29th, Rothliesberger’s
motorcycle accident saturated the media, generating not just stories
about the event but also commentaries and opinions from any writer
who had an outlet.
Sadly though, as numerous as the
news reports ran and as strongly as the opinions were written, both
events seem to have outlived the media’s attention span. If one were
to type ‘Rothliesberger’ into Google news on Wednesday June 14th
thousands of results would have been returned. By Friday the number
of stories that came back were a lot less.
Even the stories themselves grew
shorter along with the attention span of the reporters. Pages of print
and albums of pictures in the first few days after the motorcycle
accident dwindled down to a report of the apology which didn’t even
merit two paragraphs by the Associated Press.
As if the gods of coincidence
carefully crafted the events to give the ‘aha’ exclamation point to
the ‘Busa Boob theory, Bob Woodruff visited the ABC studio’s this
week (on Tuesday June 13th) for the first time since his accident in
Iraq.
Didn’t hear about that?
Probably because the mass media was
still in the throes of calculating how hard a quarterbacks head can
hit a car’s windshield and still have the poor guy know what decade
he’s in. Case in point, a search on Google News returned 4 results
for Bob Woodruff’s news room visit.
Now the ring-wearing quarterback
has been given not only a relative clean bill of health but a nod
from the Doctors that he should be able to play football come
September, so it seems it's time to move onto the next 'if it
bleeds (especially with a famous name) it leads' news story.
Where does that leave motorcyclists, helmet laws and public opinion.
The nationwide trend has been for
state's to amend helmet laws, giving the over 21 year old rider the
choice of wearing one or not. This has been covered in various news
stories, our article
Helmet Law Battlegrounds and on
Clutch and Chromes
Helmet
page.
Opponents of the helmet law
amendments have felt frustration by the effective organization and
lobbying efforts of motorcycle rights groups state after state.
Surely they must looking to the most recent 'Busa Boob
involving Mr. Rothliesberger as their rally cry to not only get the
attention of State government, but reverse the helmet law
trend sweeping across America.
So a movement that seemed set to
steamroll across the United States could find itself slamming into a
wall of public opinion. The various chapters of ABATE and other
motorcycle action groups must be watching the headlines and trying
to get a feel of which way the populace wind is blowing.
I'm not here to give my opinion of
Helmet Laws, but to point out that in the overwhelming fuss that's
been made over the most famous motorcycle accident in recent history
and all the furor that's sure to follow, once again the most
important matter will be lost.
The safety of the biker.
Anyone who reads any of the traffic
safety studies knows a majority of motorcycle fatalities are caused
by other vehicles (cars, trucks, pick your poison) hitting the
motorcyclist. Where the fatality happened through biker error, read
there was no-one else on the road at the time, a majority of bikers
didn't have recognized rider safety training or even a motorcycle
license!
Shouldn't these be the real focus?
The Editor |
