I’ve loved riding motorcycles for years. During that time, I’ve never loved crashing.
This is about people doing something they love wrong.
If loving wrong is wrong, I don’t want to be wrong!
YMMV
You know, she’d have a valid point, if this debate took place in the context of a libertarian or anarchist dystopia.
Lady, it’s not your own risk, because other people will undoubtedly pay for the consequences of your failure to use reasonable safety measures in innumerable ways, and your asinine group will also protest any attempt to compromise by allowing you to choose that risk without unfairly requiring people who aren’t morons to subsidize it. “Well, we’ve put the data into an actuarial table and this is how much it’s going to cost if we spread the projected risk out among the ratepayers who want to have the option to go helmet-less.” “We can’t possibly pay that, that’s impossible!” “Yeah, okay - how about you agree to carry $20,000 personal injury insurance? Still nowhere near fair to everyone else, but it’s a pretty attractive compromise.” “Fascist! Let the rider decide!”
You know, I have no great love of stupid people (and there is a very strong correlation between vocal objection to traffic safety legislation and being approximately as smart as a rock) and I would be all for allowing them the freedom to dash their brains out on the pavement if that’s what they really want to do - if I wasn’t going to have to subsidize it and it wasn’t going to affect anyone else in any way.
Here in BC, our medical services deal with about 5,000 brain injuries a year. If any of those are preventable, they should effing well be prevented. I don’t want to have to wait longer for rehab to accomodate some idiot that wouldn’t be there at all if he didn’t worry that wearing a helmet made him look a little bit dorky. (“Hey, that drool on your chin looks pretty badass - you’re such a rebel!”)
This.
But it does open the possibility of nasty accident during the funeral cortege becoming a Darwinian autocalytic reaction.
Freedom is another word for doesn’t have a clue.
When ARE the next Darwin Awards? Cuz this guy’s a shoe-in.
Yeah, someone needs to give them a heads-up.
But aren’t motorcycles, statistically, vastly more dangerous to begin with? Isn’t riding a bike at all essentially working the same dynamic with respect to publicly-funded emergency services and all the rest? I’ve seen a couple gruesome motorcycle accidents in which the riders were wearing helmets. For that matter, some such cases may ultimately cost taxpayers more than if the rider was killed promptly. Yes, overall I’m sure we’d be better off if all riders wore helmets than if none did. But I’m not sure the line is quite as bright as we seem to be assuming here.
while I’m opposed to the helmet laws I wouldn’t ride a motorcycle without one. We don’t have the law in my state and I regularly see riders wearing nothing but shorts, t-shirt, and sandals. Even the least accident on a motorcycle is G O I N G - T O - H U R T.
Judging by the locals around here, they’ll suck down a few beers at the local biker bar and loudly proclaim that he lived and died the way he wanted to. In other words, no change.
End of the year. It’s basically a “year in review” kind of award. This guy will probably win some kind of “killed in the most ironic way” award.
Was this technically irony, though? Or what is the term for it otherwise?
People who don like helmets probably don know someone who has experienced a head injury. The normal thought is if I get in an accident it will be over any way so why worry.
I was doing about 20 MPH when a car pulled out in fromt of me and I slammed in to the right fender flew into the air landed on the hood head first and fell onto the ground. I split my head open. Did not crack my skull but had over 20 stiches in the skin covering my scalp and move under the skin.
I was not hurt bad released from the hospital that day. But now I have memory problems. One of the reasons I have problem spelling so many words I can nor remember how to spell. For over 5 years when ordering at a restraunt I had a hard time and my wife would have to help me. I could not remember what the earlier entry was that I read about to I had nothing to go back to to make a choice. I have made some dangerous mistakes at work because I forgot a setp.
the accident occured over 30 years ago and I was only ridding a bicycle and only doing about 20 mph. And my injury was only minor for a head injury.
Before anyone tells me I was an idiot for not wearing a helmet, you are right. But 30 years ago they were not common. Now I really do believe in them and believe in either helmet laws or those with out helmets agree that the expence for their care after an injury be only the families responsibility.
I started riding a scooter this year. A 2007 Honda Metropolitan, it’s a cute little scooter. I’m 5’3" and weigh 120 lbs and I certainly don’t look very menacing coming down the road like a huge 1 ton truck does but I don’t believe that I am F***ing invisible! I’ve had a number of close calls already. If my state didn’t have a helmet law I would still wear one. I like my brain, and I’d like for it to stay where it belongs.
Give it the Alanis test:
Passionate Angel, on his bike,
Contos was strong, believed in his right
To ride without a protective device.
As he lost control, flipped over and died
The Trooper’s said, ‘would’ve saved his life’
So isn’t it ironic, don’t you think…?
Yeah, like how about skydiving? At least those people are considerate enough to engage in an activity where major accidents typically are fatal and don’t require the public to pay for expensive trauma repairs and years of rehab.
And my own hobby, gardening - lemme tell you, digging around in the soil without gloves this weekend has left me with a couple painful little finger lacerations. And a big fat groundhog raced across my path. You gotta have body armor out here. 
Unhelmeted motorcyclists=organ donors “on the hoof”
Growing your own food? You should be shot. Instead of supporting the world economy, you revert back to the stone age and grow your own. Think of the farmer in South America, the truckers who drive blue berries all the way to your local market, murdering prostitutes along the way, but nooOOOOOOOOOooo. You’re too good for that. I hope you choke on your own sweet corn.
That cyclist… man. There’s no irony like lethal irony.
“I’m a cowboy… on an iron-y horse I ride… and I’m wanted…”
It reminds me of the BASE jumper, Jan Davis, who died BASE jumping off El Capitan in a protest on the ban on BASE jumping off El Capitan.