The Honda PCX / Forza / ADV150 / SH Forums

AustinPCX wrote: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.

kcpcx wrote: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.

AustinPCX wrote: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.

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

kcpcx wrote: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 wrote: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.

kcpcx wrote: 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.

AustinPCX wrote: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!