10 Stories About Evel Knievel You Won't Believe
4. He Was A Public Safety Icon
As someone who regularly risked his life in a series of increasingly death-defying stunts, Knievel is the last person you’d expect to front multiple public safety campaigns. However, throughout his life he lent his image to a variety of them and always championed the importance of ‘keeping your word’.
He is probably best known for his anti-drugs message, one which he would often deliver before his stunts. During one of these anti-drug sermons, in 1971, he caused a near riot when he accused the present Hell’s Angel bikers of being drug dealers. This resulted in a tire iron being thrown at him during the show and an ensuing fight that led to 3 bikers being hospitalised.
His most prominent anti-drugs activity was, however, his 1977 film Viva Knievel in which Knievel (played by himself) foiled a drug smuggling plot across the US-Mexican border.
He was also known for promoting the use of a helmet whilst motorcycling and described anyone who rode without one as a ‘goddamned fool’. He even went as far as to offer a cash reward to any person who saw him performing a stunt without one. When he appeared before the California legislature to support their 1987 bill to make motorcycle helmets mandatory he was introduced as the "best walking commercial for a helmet there is".