Motorcyclist in Helmet Protest Hits Head and Dies

[Bear45-70]

i agree. It seems like they should force us to wear helmets while doing other activities as well. Why don't they just make it a law that i have to wear arm floaties while swimming?

Good example.

Why stop at helmets?

Should a rider be required to wear kevlar pants, knee & elbow pads, and leather jacket too?

Maybe just outlaw 2 wheeled vehicles in general because they are too dangerous.

Oh yeah and guns too.......take those away from people.....far too dangerous.

BS on the guns, cars kill and maim 20 times as many people as guns do every year, so until they outlaw cars, alcohol and tobacco................ However guns are off limits to the banners because they are Constitutionally protected and regardless of the lies of the anti gunners it can not legally be done, so sayeth the SCOTUS.

[Bear45-70]

i agree. It seems like they should force us to wear helmets while doing other activities as well. Why don't they just make it a law that i have to wear arm floaties while swimming?

Because you can swim without arm floaties but you can not repair a smashed brain, no one can.

If you drown....there is no repairing that either.

If you are stupid enough to go in the water and drown, that is just nature's way of clearing out the shallow end of the gene pool. I suppose riding without a helmet is the same class but driving and anything to do with it is a privilege and they can legally make you do all sorts of things. If we say no helmets, why have speed limits? They shouldn't be able to tell you how fast to drive.

[Trafficjamz]

If you are stupid enough to go in the water and drown, that is just nature's way of clearing out the shallow end of the gene pool. I suppose riding without a helmet is the same class but driving and anything to do with it is a privilege and they can legally make you do all sorts of things. If we say no helmets, why have speed limits? They shouldn't be able to tell you how fast to drive.

If I drive fast, I put myself and others at risk.

If I do not wear a helmet, the only life I risk is my own.

I 100% agree that helmets should be worn.
But I disagree that the government should try to step in and make it mandatory.

Number of deaths for leading causes of death

Heart disease: 616,067
Cancer: 562,875
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 135,952
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 127,924
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 123,706
Alzheimer's disease: 74,632
Diabetes: 71,382

Heart disease and Cancer are the leading causes of death in this country.
But there are no laws that force me to eat healthy or not smoke.

Accidents come in at number five on this list with 123706 deaths.
75% of those happen in the HOME

That means only 30 thousand die in traffic accidents.

The government is not trying to save lives or there would be a ban on fast food and cigarettes.

[tru72]

guns dont kill people... the people behind it does the job
I wear a helmet al the time as well. Do i think they should make you wear one by law, no. Its your choice to live or die by the stone.
I tell people al the time wearing a helmet is the most unselfish act you can do when riding any 2 wheeled vehicle. Cause when you crash, and you sooner or later will, they can at least have a open casket so they can say good bye to you...

[Trafficjamz]

guns dont kill people... the people behind it does the job

Motorcycles don't kill people.........The pavement does .


Here are some more reasons people should CHOOSE to wear a helmet.

Facts

Head injury is the leading cause of death in motorcycle crashes.

Helmets are estimated to be 37 percent effective in preventing fatal injuries to motorcyclists.

Wearing a properly fitted helmet can actually improve the rider's ability to hear by streamlining the head and ear which can deduce wind noise allowing the rider to hear other sounds.

Helmets prevent eye injuries and distraction from dust, dirt and debris thrown up by other vehicles on the road.

Per vehicle mile, motorcyclists are about 37 times as likely as passenger car occupants to die in a traffic crash and about 8 times as likely to be injured.

Hospital stays are longer for unhelmeted riders and the cost to taxpayers is significantly higher since many motorcyclists are uninsured.

[mbilderb]

guns dont kill people... the people behind it does the job
I wear a helmet al the time as well. Do i think they should make you wear one by law, no. Its your choice to live or die by the stone.
I tell people al the time wearing a helmet is the most unselfish act you can do when riding any 2 wheeled vehicle. Cause when you crash, and you sooner or later will, they can at least have a open casket so they can say good bye to you...

I disagree, with a helmet you live on life support, draining everyone's resources. However, signing your donor card and not wearing a helmet, that's unselfish. Take our protestor; he may have improved many lives by not wearing his helmet. He died right away, rather than hanging on until all of his valuable organs deteriorated and he died of some organ failure on life support.

Personally, I prefer to be selfish. I think most smart people would too. So, let's not legislate stupid people stop being stupid and be smart, let's leave them to their own devices and correct themselves. Perhaps one may save a smart person's life.

[mbilderb]

About 25 years ago I saw a helmet save a rider's life first hand.

I was sitting at a stop sign, waiting for a motorcycle to pass, when the truck opposite me entered the intersection. The cycle slid sideways into the truck, pushing the side of the bed in by about a foot. I and my passengers ran over and pulled the bike off the rider, then called 911. He was complaining about his helmet hurting him and begged to have it off. Eventually, we succumbed and helped him take it off, and tried to make sure he didn't go into shock. He seemed pretty alert, just shaken up. The ambulance came and we left.

Three years later I was at some friends' house, standing around drinking a beer with my buddy and he introduced me to a buddy of his from high school. We started talking about bikes and somehow the discussion came to accidents. My buddy's friend mentioned having had an accident on Walnut street three years before, and I asked him if he ran into a truck. He assented that he did, then went on to ask me what happened. He informed me that he was unconcious for three days after the accident, and woke up in the hospital not knowing where he was or what had happened.

Some people said he was lucky; he wasn't. Luck had nothing to do with him surviving. He survived because he wore a good quality full face helmet. If he were lucky, he would have missed the truck. If he were a better rider he may have swerved around it. However, he did what 95% of us would do: lock up the back end, slide sideways, lower the shoulder, and take the impact side, shoulder then head. Without the helmet, his head would have popped like watermelon dropped from Dave Letterman's roof.

[Bear45-70]

guns dont kill people... the people behind it does the job
I wear a helmet al the time as well. Do i think they should make you wear one by law, no. Its your choice to live or die by the stone.
I tell people al the time wearing a helmet is the most unselfish act you can do when riding any 2 wheeled vehicle. Cause when you crash, and you sooner or later will, they can at least have a open casket so they can say good bye to you...

I disagree, with a helmet you live on life support, draining everyone's resources. However, signing your donor card and not wearing a helmet, that's unselfish. Take our protestor; he may have improved many lives by not wearing his helmet. He died right away, rather than hanging on until all of his valuable organs deteriorated and he died of some organ failure on life support.

Personally, I prefer to be selfish. I think most smart people would too. So, let's not legislate stupid people stop being stupid and be smart, let's leave them to their own devices and correct themselves. Perhaps one may save a smart person's life.

WOW! Guess I should have passed on my helmet in 1994 when a deer tried to occupy the same space my 750 and I were in. I busted up one * of a lot of body parts and pieces and even almost died because the local fire fighter screwed up (oxygen, always give the hurt guy oxygen), but my Simpson race helmet saved my head. A week in the hospital and home for 6 months of recovery and rehab. Guess I should be dead by your standard, but then again you are wrong. I was a firefighter/EMT with the local volunteer fire dept and the wife is a 23 year Para-medic and we will both tell you you are wrong about helmets.

[mbilderb]

guns dont kill people... the people behind it does the job
I wear a helmet al the time as well. Do i think they should make you wear one by law, no. Its your choice to live or die by the stone.
I tell people al the time wearing a helmet is the most unselfish act you can do when riding any 2 wheeled vehicle. Cause when you crash, and you sooner or later will, they can at least have a open casket so they can say good bye to you...

I disagree, with a helmet you live on life support, draining everyone's resources. However, signing your donor card and not wearing a helmet, that's unselfish. Take our protestor; he may have improved many lives by not wearing his helmet. He died right away, rather than hanging on until all of his valuable organs deteriorated and he died of some organ failure on life support.

Personally, I prefer to be selfish. I think most smart people would too. So, let's not legislate stupid people stop being stupid and be smart, let's leave them to their own devices and correct themselves. Perhaps one may save a smart person's life.

WOW! Guess I should have passed on my helmet in 1994 when a deer tried to occupy the same space my 750 and I were in. I busted up one * of a lot of body parts and pieces and even almost died because the local fire fighter screwed up (oxygen, always give the hurt guy oxygen), but my Simpson race helmet saved my head. A week in the hospital and home for 6 months of recovery and rehab. Guess I should be dead by your standard, but then again you are wrong. I was a firefighter/EMT with the local volunteer fire dept and the wife is a 23 year Para-medic and we will both tell you you are wrong about helmets.

I think you misunderstood my point, but your story does support it.

Your implication that you could have passed on your helmet suggests that your decision was voluntary. You did not indicate that you were required to wear it and you weren't complaining about having to wear it, which suggests that you aren't stupid. However, it does indicate that you are somewhat protective or selfish of your life.

You describe what sounds to be a long, difficult and expensive recovery. I suspect that you were insured and didn't pay out of pocket for your bills. Thus, everyone else paid through high insurance fees, taxes to pay for the EMT and Fire department, etc. Again, wearing the helmet was smart, but selfish.

Had you not worn the helmet, it sounds like you would have died. If so and you are a donor, many other people may have benefitted. Doing so, I think would have been unselfish; stupid, but unselfish.

So, when someone complains about having to wear a helmet, I fully support their cause. They shouldn't have to wear one. Morally, they should fill out a donor card.

Besides Bear, it is your quote that my point best identifies with:
Like I said "Stupidity, if left to it's own devices, is almost always self correcting."

or said another way:

"In Nature there is only one capital crime. That is stupidity. There is only one sentence for this crime. DEATH!!!! Sentence is usually carried out immediately, there is no appeal."

Why do we want to make laws in conflict with nature's laws?

[Bear45-70]

In Washington State a helmet is require by law for any two wheeled vehicle and ATV riding. So no, not voluntary but would have had one on anyway. I raced way to much to not know the value of a helmet.

[noiseguy]

Hospital stays are longer for unhelmeted riders and the cost to taxpayers is significantly higher since many motorcyclists are uninsured.

Yes. Right there, you just made the argument for manditory helmet laws. This is the exact reason that they are put in place, and it's purely economic.

In countries with socialized medicine (UK, Canada, Aus) helmets are manditory b/c it reduces cost of care for MC riders; it's a no-brainer.

In our quasi-soci/capitalist health care system, the argument's much more convoluted, which is the only reason it's been left to states to decide, to date. If we ever really nationalize health care, helmet laws will be federally mandated (or all states will be pushed to institute them.)

[ottoman]

I would love to see a study on exactly how much more (if any) it costs my state (Wisconsin) in medical costs after we repealed the helmet law many years ago.
I have a hunch the numbers are not so bad or they would be posted every time a legislator or group proposes a new helmet law here.