Helmet Law

[Mel46]

Speaking of accident prone people, today we rode for 120 miles and the first car we encountered had the hood taped down with a bunch of duct tape, had no working side mirror, had the left headlight taped on while the right side headlight was completely smashed, the windshield was smashed and spidered, and the girl wasn't wearing a seatbelt, but had on a big hat and has slumped down in what we call the driveby position, and was zooming in and out of two lanes of cars coming at us, just missing their bumpers. Yep, long sentence, I know. I wanted to emphasize that this car should not have been on the road, and neither should the driver, but they are there. The law won't change stupidity, but maybe it will keep some of them off of the road. That is the best we can hope for.

[Valiant]

Helmets only provide a statistically minute measure of safety. The biggest measure of safety is the 6 inches between your ears. All the safety gear in the world won't save you if you are an idiot. Making idiots wear helmets is nothing more than another do gooder law. Surviving an accident is mostly luck, avoiding accidents is mostly skill.

Only half-true IMO. Yes, a skilled rider will be in less crashes, but is there ANY amount of skill that will prevent an idiot in a cage blasting sideways at you @ 60 mph, running straight past a red light?


Honestly, how do you avoid that?

And I'd be the first to admit that even if I only caught 4 hours of sleep last night, I probably wouldn't hop on the bus instead, particularly if that's a recurring story 4 days out of the week.

I also think safety gear gives idiots a second chance to correct their behavior, most notably when they can't afford to replace their gear/bike.


I'd say the main reason for the jacked up premiums is profits and laziness, plain and simple. Insurance could easily fix this with a question and a couple of phone calls. The question being whether or not you wear a DoT approved helmet. The phone call being to police, EMS, or the hospital to ask if you had a helmet on during the time of your crash. If you don't, and you lied to lower your premiums, you simply won't be covered on anything and will have to pay for repairs/replacement and the hospital bills out of your own pocket.

[AustinPCX]

Stuff like that is extremely rare, but it gets a lot of media attention. Truth is most accidents are easily avoidable. Life is one big near miss accident until the very end whenever that may be.

[OriginalRocket]

I hate to even get into this subject because it fires people up...

All I can go by is what I see on a weekly basis.

I work in the ED in a decent sized hospital. We see a fair bit of motorcycle and ATV traumas.

I can say from what I see that people wearing full face helmets tend to do a lot better on average than the people who ride with the little bowl style helmets some of the cruiser guys wear. People wearing leather or textile suits do pretty well, a lot better than people wearing jeans and a tshirt. Boots wearers tend to do better than those wearing regular shoes.

I've worked there for 8 years. It has made me a better rider in that I pay a lot more attention to my surroundings than I used to. Still, no matter how diligent I am, eventually it's entirely possible I go down or get hit, and if so, the more gear I'm wearing that day, the better off I'll be judging by the stuff I see come in via ambulance every weekend.

I wouldn't say surviving an accident is mostly luck. Some of it is. Some of it is being prepared, too, and not riding a sportbike wearing shorts, a t-shirt, and flip flops like I see guys do all the time. Riding skill can only protect you from a certain percentage of idiots in cars.

I've been tempted from time to time to get a 3/4 open face for riding in town. But then I think of all the helmets I see that come in with road rash so bad they aren't curved anymore, they have a flat spot worn into them from the head sliding on asphalt. A lot of those chin bars are torn up pretty bad. From what I can tell, that plastic or resin or fiberglass or whatever it is withstands being ground into the pavement better than the human face does.

But hey, to each their own. I don't really get too worried about what anyone else does until it starts costing me a bunch of money or hassle because they were foolish. As long as I'm not footing the bill when someone is in ICU for two weeks, whatever. I'm all for freedom to choose until a poor choice by someone else puts an exorbitant financial burden on me.

I too work in a major Hospital in the Chicago area. During warm weather a few of the staffers and I take bets on the days ER visit by motorcycles. I see many times a day what proper gear, vs no gear does to a human body in a accident. The doctors who operate on them keep asking me why do I even ride anymore.

I too could care less if you choose to wear protection, or not. I just don't want your blood smeared corpse, or worse yet, your barely functional yet alive body, costing myself higher insurance premiums from your poor choice. That then causes new regulations and laws to be passed banning more motorcycles. Local communities are tightening the noose on modified exhausts and intakes on the bikes. Soon it will be like California motorist laws, totally not fun.

Statistics and money, that is what it is all about, remember that.

[SECoda]

Donorcycles?

[Steph]

Do got to watch out for ass holes running red lights.

[SECoda]

And left turners into your lane.

[kcpcx]

I ride a bicycle a fair bit. One thing I've noticed pretty consistently is that about 50% of people driving cars at any given time are looking down at their phone texting. This is especially true at traffic lights. If you're lucky, half the people are paying attention.

People pass me in town all the time on the street, and I can see them texting away or reading a message on their phone.

As far as accidents on two wheels being avoidable...well, yes and no. You can avoid a lot of them by being cautious yourself. So you control maybe at best 70% of the risk by how skilled or observant of a rider you are. The other 30% is stuff out of your sphere of influence. Eventually, if you ride enough time or miles, there is a pretty good chance you're going to go down due to something out of your control. That's what a decent helmet and gear is for.

The guys / girls from m/c accidents that I see who were wearing good helmets usually come in with a bunch of road rash that's painful, maybe a broken bone or two, but nothing critical. The people with no or bare minimum to be legal helmets are another story. They are the ones who have skull fractures, major traumatic brain injuries, etc.

By no means would I suggest that a full face solves all problems in a crash. But it's pretty remarkable the difference in outcomes between people wearing a modicum of gear versus the other end of the spectrum.

Yeah, everyone where I work gives me crap for having my organ donor card filled out, etc. I can see where they are coming from. The cycle and ATV traumas we see are pretty frequent. I never realized how frequent till I worked in an ER.

[AustinPCX]

Got nothing against helmets, I wear mine all the time.

Lot of things that can kill you or put you in the hospital. Being overweight, smoking, drinking etc. Those are all bad lifestyle choices that affect all of us. It should be against the law to be overweight too then.

[gn2]

Most people die in bed.
Heaven knows why anyone ever sleeps in one, bloody dangerous things.

[kcpcx]

Got nothing against helmets, I wear mine all the time.

Lot of things that can kill you or put you in the hospital. Being overweight, smoking, drinking etc. Those are all bad lifestyle choices that affect all of us. It should be against the law to be overweight too then.

Perhaps. Good luck getting that law passed, though.

[you you]

Do got to watch out for ass holes running red lights.

That'll be me

[you you]

I ride a bicycle a fair bit. One thing I've noticed pretty consistently is that about 50% of people driving cars at any given time are looking down at their phone texting. This is especially true at traffic lights. If you're lucky, half the people are paying attention.

People pass me in town all the time on the street, and I can see them texting away or reading a message on their phone.

As far as accidents on two wheels being avoidable...well, yes and no. You can avoid a lot of them by being cautious yourself. So you control maybe at best 70% of the risk by how skilled or observant of a rider you are. The other 30% is stuff out of your sphere of influence. Eventually, if you ride enough time or miles, there is a pretty good chance you're going to go down due to something out of your control. That's what a decent helmet and gear is for.

The guys / girls from m/c accidents that I see who were wearing good helmets usually come in with a bunch of road rash that's painful, maybe a broken bone or two, but nothing critical. The people with no or bare minimum to be legal helmets are another story. They are the ones who have skull fractures, major traumatic brain injuries, etc.

By no means would I suggest that a full face solves all problems in a crash. But it's pretty remarkable the difference in outcomes between people wearing a modicum of gear versus the other end of the spectrum.

Yeah, everyone where I work gives me crap for having my organ donor card filled out, etc. I can see where they are coming from. The cycle and ATV traumas we see are pretty frequent. I never realized how frequent till I worked in an ER.

50% of drivers are texting continuously during their drive. Amazing. What phone package are they on?

[SECoda]

Sprint! We have the old unlimited everything family plan.

[kcpcx]

probably one of the plans that has unlimited texting. pretty standard these days.

[Valiant]

Stuff like that is extremely rare, but it gets a lot of media attention. Truth is most accidents are easily avoidable. Life is one big near miss accident until the very end whenever that may be.

Here's the thing though:
Most accidents ARE avoidable, if you want that in the literal sense. The problem is that there's no substitute for personal experience.

I crashed within 2 weeks of getting my PCX. I low-sided while making a left turn using a delayed apex line, by the book. Problem was, what they taught me in the MSF Rider's Course simply wasn't valid on a narrow and rounded road.

There's no cure for the kind of stupidity that drives a guy to pop a wheelie while shirtless, never once stopping to think about what his back is going to look like if he loses his balance and lands on his back. On the other hand, someone who's riding stupidly because of a lack of experience might well have the opportunity to learn from his mistake, provided he survives it.

That's what the gear is for.

[Kermit]

I work in the ED in a decent sized hospital. We see a fair bit of motorcycle and ATV traumas.

I can say from what I see that people wearing full face helmets tend to do a lot better on average than the people who ride with the little bowl style helmets some of the cruiser guys wear. People wearing leather or textile suits do pretty well, a lot better than people wearing jeans and a tshirt. Boots wearers tend to do better than those wearing regular shoes.

Makes me wonder...chicken or egg? Are the people who wear safety gear simply more safety-minded overall? Maybe they are more cautious, better at avoiding accidents in the first place or minimizing the impact because they ride a little slower, pay attention a little bit more closely, etc., versus the people who have an "it won't happen to me, and if it does, I don't want to live to tell about it" attitude.

[kcpcx]

good point. probably some of both.

[AustinPCX]

One day the helmet law will be the law of the land everywhere and guess what? Cyclists everywhere will still be badly injured or killed by the thousands.

Meanwhile tens of millions of fat people and smokers will continue to clog our hospitals with their heart disease related problems. Our health care premiums will skyrocket, but at least we did something about those cyclists!

[kcpcx]

One day the helmet law will be the law of the land everywhere and guess what? Cyclists everywhere will still be badly injured or killed by the thousands.

Meanwhile tens of millions of fat people and smokers will continue to clog our hospitals with their heart disease related problems. Our health care premiums will skyrocket, but at least we did something about those cyclists!

Yep.

One of the problems with the health system is that there is no disincentive to lead an unhealthy lifestyle, at least directly. You wreck your car 3 times in 6 months, your rates go way up and this provides an incentive to change your driving habits. You eat nothing but pork rinds and drink nothing but orange soda for 20 years, and you pay the same for health insurance as the guy who works out every day and eats nothing but kale and grilled chicken breast.

Until the average person actively takes charge of their health and health outcomes, costs will continue to spiral out of control. I read somewhere that something like 70% of a person's health is under their control, and 30% is genetics or random chance. But on average, people take little initiative to skew that 70% in their favor.

Sorry, off topic. But I see it every week at work. People take horrible care of themselves for years, and then wonder why they are a health basket case at age 50 or 60. Of course, it's never because they could have made better choices.