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Helmet use

4K views 70 replies 29 participants last post by  Fugly 
#1 ·
Some guys are trying to tell me that the risk of injury wearing a helmet is greater than no helmet.
I think this is BS. Anyone ever hear this and what are your thoughts on it?
Do you always wear a helmet or not?
 
#54 ·
drbf said:
I see patients all the time after bike accidents
At high speeds you will usually die with or without a helmet, BUT in a low speed accident
the helmet can save your life.
Please use your helmet!!!!!!!!
Dr. B
Fortunately we do live in a society where you can make a choice where is it allowed. But then again as I type this I realize that freedom of choice doesn't exist in the arguement about whether to wear a helmet or not. The reason I say it doesn't exist is that with some states making it unlawful not to wear a helmet and some states saying do what you want. There is no choice. I agree totally with freedom of choice about wearing a helmet.

However, as a healthcare worker, I encourage you to think about what a helmet may do for you in an accident.
 
#57 ·
drbf,
How many patients do you see after bicycle accidents ? How many do you see after Automobile accidents ? How many do you see after falling from a ladder, slipping in shower etc. ?

I would be curious to know if your personal experience compares to National statistics, or if their Stats are just a bunch of Baloney.

Realistically you should be seeing 5 to 6 times more FATAL head injuries from slips,trips and falls in the home than you do from Motorcycle accidents ?

That's why I wonder about Statistics. If these National averages are true, then why isnt the Medical community up in arms about Automobile Safety ? If this stuff can be believed, then a person who drives a car and also rides a motorcycle is 20 times more likely to die in the car ?

This is strictly Fatalities I'm talking here too. I'm sure the Non-Fatal accidents would follow the same Stats.

On a Sad note, we lost one of our Avid Motorcyclists in this area a couple month's ago. She had been a Biker for as long as I had known her. Both her daughter and her were killed, and her daughter's friend was badly injured in an Automobile accident. Also killed in the accident was the passenger of the other vehicle. Both Driver and Passenger of the other vehicle were intoxicated at the time.

2 Drunks + 1 Pickup Truck = 3 Dead, 2 badly injured. :(
 
#59 ·
I am very sorry to hear about your friends. I couldn't begin to give you stats about accidents. That wasn't my point anyway. Isn't kind of logical that if you are in an accident that a helmet would protect your head much better than your hair or a ball cap? Am I way off base with this line of thinking?

I still feel that it should be a freedom of choice.
 
#60 ·
Of course it's logical. But that wasn't MY Point anyway.

My point is, why does the Medical community ignore the source of the Overwhelming majority of head injuries in this country but target Motorcycle head injuries ?

Can someone please explain this to me. And yes, I do have the Stats laying around here, in ABATE of Illinois literature ( which is in fact working hard to get FREEDOM for Bikers Nationally, not just in Illinois ) . Please dont make me start digging for that crap.
 
#61 ·
Fugly said:
Of course it's logical. But that wasn't MY Point anyway.

My point is, why does the Medical community ignore the source of the Overwhelming majority of head injuries in this country but target Motorcycle head injuries ?

Can someone please explain this to me. And yes, I do have the Stats laying around here, in ABATE of Illinois literature ( which is in fact working hard to get FREEDOM for Bikers Nationally, not just in Illinois ) . Please dont make me start digging for that crap.
Unfortunately the Medical community tends to be a bunch of pansy alarmist (no offense to anyone this is just an over all observation). Therefore being an alarmist we are going to point out that which is most obvious and critic it. Hence, you see plenty of safety warnings about wearing bicycle helmets (which as a motorcyclist you could cleverly argue that a bicycle is a hundred more times dangerous). You also see "us" (that's collective) criticing the motorcyclists not wearing helmets. We are highly visible.
 
#62 ·
I dont know Defib, I cant really say i think a Bicycle is more dangerous than a Motorcycle. I havent seen the Statistics on head injuries from bicycles.

I can however say that I had a Bicycle glued to my *ss when I was a kid, and never wore a Helmet once. My kids and all the kids around here wear them now, when they are skating or bicycling. My wife tells them to wear them.

The Only time I insist that my kids wear Helmets is when they ride their Dirtbikes. Regardless of whether they are at home or at the Motocross track. Dirtbikes are made for thrashin.

Anyway, I remember eating a lot of asphalt when I was a kid. I'm surprised that without the supervision of the Government and all of the Do-gooder organizations I have survived. Perhaps I survived because my Skull is so thick ?
 
#63 ·
I'll take a thick skull over a helmet anyday !!! It just feels better !! 25 Years on the streets with no head injuries, I'm either good or lucky. If something happens tomorow it should be my choice, I've had a good run anyways. Hundreds of thousands of enjoyable miles riding wearing a helmet ony when required and sometimes not even then !!! :p:p

I have NO problem with anyone wearing one. Just wish we could get all the facts so people could make "informed decisions"....

Did you know more children die from bicycles in this country than by guns ??? Maybe they should be sold with pedal locks ???
 
#64 ·
Hey, I rode a 50cc Yamaha Moped for a lot of years without a helmet. Got the scars on my body to prove that I laid it down a number of times. And when I was kid I rode bike without a helmet. I would probably ride without a helmet but my mom, who I try to keep happy even when I am 34, was a Neuro intensive care nurse in San Francisco and dad was a doctor so I try to keep mom happy. Not a big deal to me either way. I don't have a deficits in my peripheral vision with a full face helmet. I may change my position come summer. I have been off of motorcycles for a few years. I will have to see but I have a helmet in case that is the way I choose to go.

Thealien I didn't know that about kids and bicycles. Hell, my friend was showing off to his kids on his mountain bike and he went over the handle bars and broke his arm. I still give him sh*t about that.

Anyway, like your sig says "Ride like you're invisible."
 
#65 ·
The Following is a copy of the article, "The Wild One" published in Forbes FYI, which effectively articulates many of our best arguments in favor of Freedom of Choice on helmet use...and best yet, it's printed in a respected, credible and well-recognized magazine. Copies were distributed recently at the NCOM Convention in Phoenix, Arizona, and many attendees felt this article would make an impressive and convincing addition to any state's lobbying package. Therefore, NCOM will be sending copies to all state motorcycle rights organizations that are members of the National Coalition of Motorcyclists, and to others by request (e-mail your name and address to aimncom@aimncom.com).

By Dick Teresi

ABATE, or American Bikers Aiming Toward Education, is a nationwide organization of helmet-hating Harley riders. Mensa is an international organization of geniuses and near-geniuses. Its members must score in the top two percent of the population in an intelligence test.

The Gator Alley chapter of ABATE challenged its neighbors in the Southwest Florida chapter of Mensa to a whiz-kid test of knowledge. No bikes, no chains, no colors. Just tough questions, such as “What was established by the Lateran Treaty of 1929?”

The showdown took place in Bonita Springs, Florida. It was a seesaw battle, but in the end, the bikers won. To be truthful, Mensa played without the services of its president, Jeff Avery. On the other hand, the ABATE team played without Avery also. He disqualified himself, being president of both clubs. After their loss, the Mensans sat down with their opponents and listened to arguments for the bikers’ favorite cause: the repeal of motorcycle helmet laws for bikers over the age of 21. Several Mensans, swayed by the logical arguments, joined ABATE, even some who were not bikers.

I cite the Mensa-ABATE showdown to demonstrate that not all anti-helmet-law activists are intellectually challenged, which is the prevailing media consensus. The TV reporter interviews a helmet-law advocate, a scientist (smart) in a white lab coat pointing to a hard, spiffy helmet. Then she interviews a drunken, tattooed biker (dumb) who screams “Helmet laws suck!” as he falls off his barstool.

It seems intuitive that wearing something hard on your head would help you survive a motorcycle accident. Many state legislators agree. Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia now have laws mandating helmet use by adult motorcyclists. The laws appear to work. A study by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) indicates, quite conclusively, that motorcycle deaths per 1 million residents are lower in states with helmet laws.

That sounds good, but we could make the same argument for surfing helmets. Let’s say Kansas, Nebraska and Wyoming pass laws requiring helmet use by surfers. California does not. The CDC then does a study, finding that states with surfer-helmet laws have fewer surfing deaths per 1 million residents than California does. This would be a ridiculous argument. People don’t surf in Kansas, and if they did, it would be relatively safe, helmet or no helmet, there being no ocean.

Similarly, you find a lower density of bikers in helmet-law states. For many bikers, motorcycling with a helmet is like surfing without an ocean. Compare Florida, a helmet state, with Iowa, a no-helmet state. Florida has a beautiful, year-round riding season. Iowa has a long, brutal winter. Yet Iowa has more than three times the numbers of registered motorcycles per hundred population as Florida. In California, a onetime biker paradise, registrations dropped by 22% (138,000 fewer bikes) in the first four years after its legislature passed a helmet law. Overall, states with no helmet law had 2.6 motorcycle registrations per 100 population compared to 1.3 in helmet-law states. In other words, non-helmet states have twice as many bikers.

Let’s go back to those CDC statistics that show helmets prevent deaths. If we use the same statistics, but count fatality rates per 10,000 registered motorcycles rather than per all residents, one finds that helmet-law states actually suffered a HIGHER average fatality rate (3.38 deaths per 10,000) than non-helmet-law states (3.05 deaths). this is not sufficient evident to prove that not wearing a helmet is safer, but it demonstrates that helmet laws do not reduce deaths.

Another way to measure the difference is to look at deaths per 100 accidents. Not even helmet law advocates suggest that helmets will reduce the number of motorcycle accidents. The purpose of a helmet is to help the rider survive an accident. The numbers indicate otherwise. During the seven-year period from 1987 through 1993, states with no helmet laws or partial laws (for riders under 21) suffered fewer deaths (2.89) per 100 accidents that those states with full helmet laws (2.93 deaths).

How can this be true? Is it possible that helmets don’t work? Go to a motorcycle shop and examine a Department of Transportation-approved helmet. Look deep into its comforting plush lining, and hidden amidst the soft fuzz you’ll find a warning label: “Some reasonably foreseeable impacts may exceed the helmet’s capability to protect against severe injury or death.”

What is a “reasonably foreseeable” impact? Any impact around 14 miles per hour or greater. Motorcycle helmets are tested by being dropped on an anvil from a height of six feet, the equivalent of a 13.66-mph impact. If you ride at speeds less than 14 mph and are involved only in accidents involving stationary objects, you’re golden. A typical motorcycle accident, however, would be a biker traveling at, say, 30 mph, and being struck by a car making a left turn at, maybe, 15 mph. That’s an effective cumulative impact of 45 mph. Assume the biker is helmet-clad, and that he is struck directly on the head. The helmet reduces the blow to an impact of 31.34 mph. Still enough to kill him. The collisions that helmets cushion effectively - say, seven-mph motorcycles with seven-mph cars - are not only rare but eminently avoidable.

Another reason helmets don’t work: An object breaks at its weakest point. Some helmet advocates argue that while helmets may not reduce the overall death rate, they prevent death due to head trauma. Jonathan Goldstein, a professor of economics at Bowdoin College, in Brunswick, Maine, wondered how this could be. If fatal head traumas were decreasing, then some other kind of fatal injury must be rising to make up the difference.

Applying his expertise in econometrics to those aforementioned CDC statistics, Goldstein discovered what was happening. In helmet-law states, there exists a reciprocal relationship between death due to head trauma and death due to neck injury. That is, a four-pound helmet might save the head, but the force is then transferred to the neck. Goldstein found that helmets begin to increase one’s chances of a fatal neck injury at speeds exceeding 13-mph, about the same impact at which helmets can no longer soak up kinetic energy. For this reason, Dr. Charles Campbell, a Chicago heart surgeon who performs more than 300 operations per year and rides his dark-violet, chopped Harley Softail to work at Michael Reese Hospital, refuses to wear a helmet. “Your head may be saved,” says Dr. Campbell, “but your neck will be broken.”

John G. U. Adams, of University College, London, cites another reason not to wear a helmet. He found that helmet-wearing can lead to excessive risk-taking due to the unrealistic sense of invulnerability that a motorcyclist feels when he dons a helmet. False confidence and cheap horsepower are a lethal combination. I called a local (Massachusetts) Suzuki dealer, and told the salesman I was a first-time buyer looking for something cheaper than the standard $15,000 Harley. He said I could buy the GSXR 1300 for only $10,500, a bike that could hit speeds in excess of 160 miles per hour. He recommended that I wear a helmet, even in non-helmet-law states. Imagine: a novice on a 160-mph bike wearing a plastic hat that will reduce any impact by 14 mph. It’s like having sex with King Kong, but bringing a condom for safety’s sake.

Why the enthusiasm for helmets? Mike Osborn, chairman of the political action committee of California ABATE, says insurance companies are big supporters of helmet laws, citing the “public burden” argument. That is, reckless bikers sans helmets are raising everyone’s car insurance rates by running headlong into plate-glass windows and the like, sustaining expensive head injuries.

Actually, it’s true that bikers indirectly jack up the rates of car drivers, but not for the reason you might think. Car drivers plow over bikers at an alarming rate. According to the Second International Congress on Automobile Safety, the car driver is at fault in more than 70% of all car/motorcycle collisions. A typical accident occurs when a motorist illegally makes a left turn into the path of an oncoming motorcycle, turning the biker into an unwitting hood ornament. In such cases, juries tend to award substantial damages to the injured biker. Car insurance premiums go up.

Osborn sees a hidden agenda. “They (the insurance companies) want to get us off the road.” Fewer bikes means fewer claims against car drivers. Helmet laws do accomplish that goal, as evidenced by falling motorcycle registrations in helmet-law states. It is interesting to note that carriers of motorcycle insurance do not complain about their clients. Motorcycle liability insurance remains cheap. Osborn pays only $125 per year for property damage and personal injury liability because motorcycles cause little damage to others.

Keith R. Ball was one of the pioneers of ABATE, its first manager in 1971 and later its national director. What annoys him most is the anecdotal approach taken by journalists who have a penchant for reporting whenever the victim of a fatal motorcycle accident was NOT wearing a helmet. When was the last time you saw a news item mentioning that a dead biker was wearing a helmet?

Which is not to say that Ball opposes helmets. He thinks anyone who rides in a car should wear one. After all, he points out, head injuries make up only 20% of serious injuries to motorcyclists, but they account for 90% of all car injuries. If Ball’s idea catches hold, one day I suspect you’ll see angry men stepping out of Volvos with odd T-shirts beneath their tweed jackets. The T-shirts will read: HELMET LAWS SUCK.
 
#68 ·
Thealien said:
I'll take a thick skull over a helmet anyday !!! It just feels better !! 25 Years on the streets with no head injuries, I'm either good or lucky.
Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. I've ridden cross country, more accuratly, across all the western states, only wore a helmet when I lived in CA. Always wore a beenie. Even getting on base with a beenie was no problem. No I live and ride in a no helmet state. I only wear a helmet to get on base for work. I've been wearing a full face to get on base, mainly so when I'm riding around town or the hills, some over anal military safety nazi can't put the face with the bike. In all my rides across the west I never wore a helmet, but I think next time I'm going to give a full face a shot to see if I'm not so worn out at the end of the day. 2 years in a row riding back from 4 corners to CA, 800 miles in one day wears you out.
 
#69 ·
Fug, I think I herd something about that on the radio= WDKR:FM I think:)
Were they wearing helmets? I was just courios if the news story said one way or the other? Not that it would of made any differance:(
 
#70 ·
Freedom of choice is good, an Im for it. Where the hell dose common sence come in?

Any person that make statements such as "only reduce 7 MPH" is in poor jugment. Then say " at 160 MPH yes where a helment" but not at 45!!!
Its hard to beleave that so smart of folk can be so DUM. It personaly bothers me that folks turn to stats and such to get what they realy want, freedome of choice.

One thing I never see is how many head injury deaths of hatless vs. lid worn.

I cannot type how angree I feal about people trying to justify no need for protective equment. Any state that repeals helmet laws on the grounds of safty sould be fine and federal aid taking away for thier roads...

Just two weeks ago a local 50 year old lost all his rights from a low speed head inpact with the road.
My brother was knock out when his head hit the road falling over after a truck stoped him. He was life flighted with no major injurys because he was not awake to say "Im alright". The helo ride was 8 grand.

My girl had to lay her bike down, her pretty smile was saved by the Bell...

I personaly whent down verry hard, my Bell full face not only save my brain but may very well of agravated my injurys I still ware a lid...

In my 32 years of riding dirt bikes, sport bikes & Harleys I have seen to many folks lose the battle, and I have seen unbelievable crashes that where survide only because of safty gear and maybe faith...
 
#71 ·
Good article 2DEUCE.

Markcuda if you are talking about the 3 people who were killed that I mentioned before, none of them were wearing helmets. None of them were on Bikes. 3 of them were in an Automobile, 2 were in a Pickup truck. Sorry, guess I should have made that a little clearer.
 
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