Abe,
Generally I'd agree with you - but on this one I'd have to support the concept of a publicly funded study simply because I think it'll actually cost us all less in the end.
Unless you are studying an issue that is very mainstream (and affects a large percentage of the population) it has been my experience that you are unlikely to get a single, unbiased, well-run, privately funded study. For a study affecting motorcyclists the only two groups likely to have the time, werewithal, and resources to conduct such a study would be the insurance industry and perhaps the AMA - and these are both entities not verly likely to produce results that do not simply verify their pre-existing belief structures.
When you pass legislation based on bad information it ultimately is either unproductive or even counterproductive and usually costs us all money in terms of economic inefficiency and litigation. So I, personally, would rather take a shot at having a reasonably good study done by the most unbiased folks I can find and if that means public funding so be it.
As others have rightly pointed out in this thread there are publicly funded studies that aren't worth the paper they are written on (I review a good number of these for a living), but I still maintain that your best shot, at issues outside the mainstream, lies with researchers more interested in finding answers than verifying pre-existing beliefs. And that generally means the government-funded, peer-review studies.
Admissions like this come hard for a libertarian so take it easy on me, OK
sbp