I disagree. The government shouldn’t be legislating what people do unless they’re endangering or harming somebody else. And that should be limited to direct harm not to some vague idea that a person can become a burden on society in general.
My car lost its wipers one night during a minor rainstorm. I was only a couple of blocks from home, so I decided to roll the window down and drive home with my head outside the car.
A drop of rain hit me in the left eye at the 25-ish miles-per-hour that I was travelling, plus however fast a drop of rain falls. My eye finally stopped tearing up so that I could actually see out of it several hours later.
Imagine riding a bike, helmetless, at 60 or 70 miles-per-hour on a road with loose gravel. Or during cicada spawning. Or whenever pretty much anything non-fluffy is falling out of the sky.
You’re less likely to lose control of your fast-moving hunk of steel if you have on a helmet to deflect, absorb, or minimize the head shots you take.
There is a direct harm, though. A brain injury can be expected to cost between half a million and two million dollars. It’s pretty rare for these costs the be covered out-of-pocket - it’s going to be paid from insurance, and premiums are tied to payouts.
If a significant number of people insist on the freedom to forego safety equipment that can prevent avoidable injuries, then they are compelling everyone else to absorb the costs of the predictable consequences. That’s not vague - there are going to be more head injuries and as soon as the actuaries have the statistics then hey, you’ve got a new rate.
When you talk about what the government should or shouldn’t do, you have to think in terms of how best to represent the interests of the populace. The laws are for us, and everybody has rights - but your rights have to stop at my nose. It’s well and good to say “He should have the right to determine for himself how much safety is appropriate,” but you have to make some projections about where it’s going and what the consequences will be.
Does that mean nobody should ever be allowed to do anything risky? Of course not, but we do have to do what we can to mitigate the risk. Wanna go skydiving? Knock yourself out! But wear a helmet, so you don’t knock yourself out, because losing consciousness at 5,000 feet sucks, and you’re gonna hit your head once in a while when you land, anyway.
These sorts of regulations are exactly what government is for, as near as I can make out. (But then, I’m not American, and there are certain ideas that many U.S. citizens hold about the proper role of government that are very difficult to explain to those of us on the outside.)
Sad.
If by “no” you mean “no better,” I disagree. The best irony is when the offender sticks around to appreicate it.
Maybe he opposed wearing a helmet because it messed up his hair. Unfortunately, blood and grey matter don’t wash out very well.
That wouldn’t have made for nearly as good a story in this instance.
Luckily your head is completely safe in a car, else they’d have to enact laws covering that too.
I’m purchasing a bicycle and will never ride without a helmet (I do know lots of people who do though and it sucks). I was eating dinner with my friends yesterday (well technically 2 days ago as it’s after midnight) at an outdoor restaurant and we witnessed a cab totally t-bone a cyclist in the intersection. The dude was not wearing a helmet and obviously had a a nasty head injury- he was conscious and aware of what had happened so hopefully he’ll be relatively all right, but presumably he would have been feeling much better had he been wearing a helmet.
Where did I say it was a good idea to ride a motorcycle without a helmet? You’d be an idiot to ride a motorcycle without a helmet. Of course, you’re probably an idiot to ride a motorcycle at all - they’re more dangerous than driving a car and there’s no need to drive a motorcycle.
So if we ban helmetless motorcycle riding as dangerous, shouldn’t we also ban all motorcycle driving? And if you disagree, explain why one risk is acceptable and the other is not.
That’s not direct harm. Direct harm is when you hit me with your motorcycle not when you smack your own head onto the road.
If we’re talking indirect harm, should society be able to regulate other behaviors that risk medical costs?
Same here - Helmets rule
Most rider are better all round drivers - and its not the motorbike that is dangorous its the dumb ass car driver who thinks he does not need to be aware of other road user around him that is the danger. Your car is safe so why bother - so take out the airbag, seat belts, side impack bars the roll cage in the cars and see how safe they are.
Helmets are there to help prevent injury as is the airbag. but so is a high vis vest - I use it to ensure drivers who are so safe ‘i can change lane without indicating or looking’ see me ‘when they bother to look’
What you said was
I was pointing out that helmetless riding can endanger or harm someone else.
Your questions about what we should ban are unrealistic. Should we ban cars because seatbelts are generally required?
So how about if the law was that if you wanted to ride helmet-free, you had to get a special tag on your license plate. If the police see you riding helmet-free without the designated tag, you are given a ticket and forced to get the special tag. Then the people who ride without helmets can be separated from those who do, and the insurance companies can charge them accordingly.
I predict if the above were enacted, very few people would want to take the hit on their pocketbook and would instead choose to wear a helmet. Hits to the pocketbook are much scarier to some people than hits to the head.
I must admit that I snickered when I read this.
The Universe is a cold-hearted bitch most of the time, but every rare once in a while, she cuts loose with a classic practical joke.
Why is it irony? It’s straight forward cause and effect, totally predictable. Now maybe if there was a counter-protest where a guy was riding with a helmet to promote helmet usage and they hit each other and the guy with the helmet died and the guy without the helmet was fine, maybe that’d be irony.
Damn, I was picturing the pedestrian as some big dude built like a brick wall, but it was a 14 year-old girl!
Thank you.
Irregardless
Nucular
Alanis Morissette definitions of irony