Should adult riders who choose not to wear helmets be entitled to the same damages from a driver’s auto insurance as those who choose to wear helmets? Assuming either rider gets into an accident with a car and that the accident involves a blow to the head, the helmetless rider will come out the worse. The helmetless rider’s choice is affecting the driver’s insurance rates. Pretty cool (not!) how other people’s money underwrites the rider’s choice not to protect himself/herself adequately.
i’ve riden bicycles tens of thousands of miles in twenty-some countries. i’ve never worn a helmet. i have been hit by cars, but never seriously injured.
my opinion is that most collisions between motor vehicles and adult-riden bicycles are the fault of the driver of the motor vehicle. if one accepts this as true, then the driver’s policy should pay for medical care.
aar, would a car driver lose rights to medical payments if s/he weren’t wearing a seat belt??
if you accept the premise that the rider is at fault for head injury for not wearing a helmet, then you might also say the rider is a fault for injury for not driving a car.
I use a bicycle to do my daily commuting, and don’t often wear a helmet on good-weather days. I agree with Chrome Spot that any car<->bike accidents will most likely be the fault of the car…I treat every car like it’s being driven by an idiot, and I’m rarely proven wrong. You really have to watch out all the time, it’s amazing how inattentive so many drivers are.
Having said that, though, there’s the issue of the injuries being more severe without a helmet. That’s something I’d like to see some numbers on. I’ve always felt that if you get knocked by a car, chances are that a helmet isn’t going to help a whole lot (particularly for neck or spine injuries), you’re just going to be FUBAR with or without. Helmets are more for helping against low-speed (ie-self inflicted) terrain collisions, and my helmet has saved me from a mild concussion and possibly a cracked skull on at least one occasion, when a tree swerved in front of me In situations like that, yes, there should be liability for not wearing a helmet. But, would the average cheapo bicycle helmet have helped if I had been flung from a 30-40mph impact with a car? I highly doubt it. Anyone have any figures on this?
Let’s change the issue slightly to make it hit closer to home. Let’s say your tiny little import urban car gets clobbered by an SUV. Should their insurance pay less of your medical bills because the real reason for the severity of your injuries is that you yourself did not have an SUV too?
I had a bicycle accident once. I lost my grip on the pedal, fell, skidded across the wet pavement, and slammed face-first into a curb. It broke 2 of my front teeth, and I had to get crowns for them.
I was wearing my helmet at the time. It was sitting WAY up there on the top of my head, doing me absolutely NO good.
How about charging SUV owners more for insurance since their needlessly large vehicles cause excesive damage to normal sized cars and the people in them.
Oh-oh
::Quickly tries to get the worms back into the can::
Yeah! And we should charge extra insurance premiums to car drivers, too, since their needlessly large vehicles cause excessive damage to motorcycles and the people who ride them. :rolleyes:
My motorcycle insurance is already less than my car insurance, but I don’t feel my car is needlessly large when it is raining/snowing/10[sup]o[/sup] out.
If two cars are in an accident, and the driver who was NOT at fault (legally, I mean) was NOT wearing a seatbelt, any damages awarded will be LESS than if they were wearing a seatbelt.
Sooo, if a bike rider is in an accident with a car, and is not wearing a helmet, the would probably receive a smaller settlement as well.
Basic medical expenses are always covered (as far as I know), but that pesky “pain & suffering” area would be lessened.
Well, where I am from not wearing a seatbelt usually results in a finding of contributory negligence. There are few cases where it is found that the failure to belt up was not a contributing factor to injuries. In such caases a percentage of the total award including medical, loss of past and future income as well as pain and sufferring would be deducted.
With helmets I note that many laws mandating helmet use specifically state that failuire to wear the helmet shall not constitute evidence of contributory negligence though it must be remembered these apply only to kids.
I am not sure if at this point anyone has been found to have been contributorily negligent or voluntarily assumed risk in such a case. It really isn’t a question I would leave to juries. I think to some extent it is a departure from normal tort practice which assignes all liability to the person causing a collision. At some point I think its reasonable for the negligent driver to complain that the injured party failed to take minimal efforts to protect themselves from forseeable risks and assumes responsibility for damages which would not have resulted but for that failure. I would be reluctant to find that not wearing a bicycle helmet crosses this line unless helmet use was mandatory.
As a policy question, there seems to be good reason to make use mandatory. People with head injuries can cost the public a fortune after their insurance runs out.
Ah, the old “you were deliberately stupid, so why should you get cash” debate.
Got no proof, but an anecdote about the usefulness of a bike helmet. My friend Danika was hit by a car while riding, and she was flung about 10 or 12 metres. She landed okay, but her head just snapped into the pavement, cracking her helmet like an eggshell.
Personally, I think she should be entitled to very little if she wasn’t wearing a helmet, just like a driver without a seatbelt should get nada, and so on and so forth.
Laws across the country vary as to whether failure to use seat belts is admissible evidence. My own view is that since use or nonuse of a seat belt (and, by extension, a bike helmet) is not a cause of a traffic accident, it should be inadmissible as evidence of the plaintiff’s fault. After all, if the wreck is 100% due to the defendant defendant blatantly running a red light, how on earth can you say that the plaintiff’s failure to wear a seat belt somehow caused the accident?
But failure to wear a seat belt is certainly relevant to the issue of damages. I think it’s reasonable and logical to hold the injured person responsible for any exacerbation of injuries that is due to the failure to buckle up or strap on a helmet. That behavior is entirely within the control of the injured person, and it therefore seems most appropriate to assess those costs to the person who had the only opportunity to reduce the risk of extra injuries.
Of course, good luck keeping the concepts of fault and damages separate in the minds of the average juror.
I agree, rolling eyes notwithstanding. Motorcyclists should enjoy lower liability insurance, reflecting the less intense damage that they inflict on other vehicles, on average. They should face higher medical payment (vehicle) insurance, reflecting the greater risk of injury they impose on themselves.
[hijack] Similarly (analogously?) for particularly heavy cars. [/hijack]
Does anybody here have a problem with paying extra for extra risk that they choose to impose on themselves -or others (leaving aside the practical problems of measuring risky behavior)?
In situations like that, yes, there should be liability for not wearing a helmet. But, would the average cheapo bicycle helmet have helped if I had been flung from a 30-40mph impact with a car? I highly doubt it. Anyone have any figures on this?