Dick Floyd probably would have been the first to tell you that you should not emulate Dick Floyd.

He cussed too much, he smoked too many cigars and unfiltered cigarettes, and he gambled too much on football and baccarat.

Floyd, who died earlier this month at age 80, often was, to be delicate, crass. As a Democratic assemblyman, he feigned agreement with a Republican's proposal to drug test legislators by handing her a full specimen bottle. When she refused to accept it, he shrugged and took a swig. It was apple juice.

Floyd took note when some legislators piously posted signs on their office doors telling lobbyists that they refused all gifts. He dispatched his staffers to pencil in the words, "Send them to Floyd," Bob Giroux, a friend and former aide to the assemblyman, told me.

Floyd endeared himself to children who visited the Assembly floor by reaching into his desk and handing them little stuffed animals. How sweet.

Evidently, Floyd's supplier was affiliated with those arcade games in which kids try to grab toys with hand-operated cranes. Floyd blocked regulation of the games, Giroux said. I suppose you could call that quid pro quo.

His profanity and twisted humor aside, Floyd used to get ideas in his bald head – a head that former San Francisco Chronicle reporter Rob Gunnison once wrote was so aerodynamic that it looked like an Airstream trailer – and he wouldn't let go.

You can see evidence of his biggest idea on any freeway in California, when a motorcyclist zips by. Floyd is the guy who pushed the bill imposing California's motorcycle helmet law. Helmets are common now. But the fight was bitter, and for some motorcyclists, it remains so.

In 1966, Congress approved legislation tying federal highway funds to states adopting helmet laws. California was one of three stubborn states that refused to comply.

Floyd, a Korean War veteran, was working as an aide to the late Sen. Ralph Dills when he decided to run for Assembly in 1980. Bob Terry, a friend and campaign worker, used to ride a Honda motorcycle and wore what Floyd called a "brain bucket." That got Floyd to thinking.

In the middle of the campaign, Floyd showed up at a biker rally in the working-class town of Gardena and baited the bikers by bellowing into a bullhorn that he would push for a helmet law once he was elected.

They hooted him down, and that provided fodder for coverage in hometown papers and on television. An issue was born.

Floyd began carrying the bill immediately after he took office in 1981. Motorcyclists responded with a ferocious lobby to intimidate legislators, Terry recalled the other day. The bill died in its first committee.

"He wasn't afraid about his re-election. I sense current members back off from bills that will affect their election," Terry told me.

Floyd finally got sufficient votes to win legislative approval and place the helmet bill on Gov. George Deukmejian's desk. Deukmejian, who made a practice of vetoing Floyd's bills, vetoed the helmet measure in 1987.

Floyd's way of building a bridge was to denounce the Republican governor as gutless. Deukmejian responded by vetoing the bill again in 1988.

This being California, celebrities were working the issue. Floyd was unimpressed. When Jay Leno tried to talk to him, Terry recalled, Floyd refused to take the phone call. Repeatedly.

Gary Busey also worked to defeat Floyd's legislation – that is, until he crashed his motorcycle in 1988 and suffered a head injury that left him in a coma for four weeks. Busey became a fan of helmets.

In 1991, Floyd reintroduced the bill, and newly elected Gov. Pete Wilson signed it into law during an event at a physical therapy room in a Sacramento hospital.

"Certainly the idea of having the wind rushing through your hair as you race down Highway 101 or some other highway on a motorcycle is appealing," Wilson said as he signed it. "But it cannot compensate for or justify taking a risk of harm that so greatly outweighs the benefit."

Something astonishing happened.

In 1991, the year before the law took effect, California recorded 512 motorcycle-related deaths.

In 1992, the first year that helmets were required, the number of fatalities fell to 327, according to the California Department of Public Health.

In 2010, despite population growth and more motorcycles on the road, there were 348 recorded motorcycle fatalities, far fewer than in 1991 before helmets were required.

Cost was a big issue for Floyd and Wilson. Care for an injured motorcyclist easily mounts into the hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. No family can possibly pay for the care of someone who has lost chunks of brain. Taxpayers foot the bill.

In the year after the law took effect, the number of motorcyclists hospitalized for head injuries dropped by 48 percent, and costs associated with motorcycle-related head injuries fell $20.5 million, according to studies and a review by legislative staffers.

I happen to know a little about the impact of head injury. In 1969, my brother, Frank, crashed his car and cracked his skull. He was 21 at the time.

Our parents tried to care for him at home but in time had no choice but to relent.

Unable to function without full-time supervision, Frank lived in California state hospitals and nursing homes for the final three decades of his life.

Many of the people who shared wards with him got there by falling off motorcycles. Some could walk. Some were in wheelchairs. Many more had lost the ability to control their impulses and their bladders. They all had become wards of the state.

In 1995, Congress repealed the law tying highway funds to helmet laws. Several states responded by undoing their helmet laws. One of those states, Texas, gets lots of attention for its willingness to lift silly regulations. In the first full year after that repeal, motorcycle-related fatalities jumped 31 percent.

Each year, motorcyclists come to California's Capitol, rev their engines and demand that the helmet law be abolished. When he was in the Assembly, Floyd, cigar in mouth, used to go outside and watch the show. He had a favorite name for them.

"I don't think it's anything you can print," Terry said.

Floyd's law remains intact, though again this year accommodating legislators are pushing bills to repeal it, arguing that adult motorcyclists ought to have free choice over whether they wear helmets.

They don't know what they're talking about.

Come to think of it, maybe some of the new breed of legislators ought to light a cigar, cuss and gamble some, and emulate Dick Floyd.

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