>> hands up, everyone who’s got a “not wearing a helmet saved my ass” story to tell.
Um, that’s not the point. I have been riding motorcycles for many years and I have no doubt that, once you are involved in an accident, you are better off if you are wearing a helmet. No question there. My objection is that in slow, city, traffic, I lose a lot of perception if I am wearing a helmet. Bare headed I get feedback from the sounds of my mufflers reflecting on the cars by me and I hear their own motors. I lose a lot of this when I am wearing a helmet and turning my head around very fast is not so easy. Personally I feel safer in city traffic if I am not wearing a helmet and I wish the law would let me make that choice. On the open road, OTOH, I fell my attention is focused ahead and maybe due to the wind noise, my hearing the cars around me is not as important. Any time I am on the open road I would definitely wear a helmet but in the city I wish I had the option of not wearing it.
I hit the pavement once (because the ass-clown on the bike in front of me hit the brake for no apparent reason, but with a burnt out brake light), after a lonnnnng roll down the hiway, I emerged with a crack in the helmet. That would have been my skull…
Yes it is a risk, but I would rather have road rash than a broken neck, and I would rather avoid the accident altogeather.
I have laid a bike down at speed, and slid some distance. My head never touched the pavement, because I didnt have that extra weight of a helmet drag it down.
Yeah, right. They examined the available evidence and came to a valid conclusion. This would explain why folks who don’t wear helmets are invariably style-minded cruiser types. I have yet to hear a good argument against wearing helmets. Fatigue? Uhh, not wearing a helmet subjects you to an obnoxious amount of wind, which hits you right in the eyes. If you wear glasses, they can easily be ripped off, if you look to either side. Hearing loss? Nah. If anything, a helmet cuts down on wind shear and engine noise, and allows you to better hear important things. As well, a helmet helps protect your hearing over time. Heck, I wear earplugs when on long highway rides, as wind noise gets very annoying above about 60mph.
Ask professional racers or motocrossers not to wear helmets, and see if they don’t laugh in your face. Serious riders know that not wearing a helmet is foolish, and clearly style winning out over substance.
Your logic is fallacious. The fatality rate being discussed was “fatalities per # of motorcycle accidents”.
This number would be insensitive to the actual number of motorcycle riders, provided that this number stayed large enough to produce enough accidents to turn out statistically significant numbers of fatalities.
I have fallen down at highway speeds. I didnt slide that far, and didnt lide my head across the ground.
The added weight of the helmet can cause neck injuries even when the head doesnt hit anything, and in case where you are in a slide, the helmet can try to roll, with your head inside. The result is that you get a neck injury instead of a bit of road rash.
Also, say you land face first, I would rather get a broken jaw than a broken neck.
Its a complicated issue, there are a lot of differant things to take into account
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Sorry, but my experiance differs. Me and some friends tested a dot and snell aproved bell full face. I stood behind, moved my hand forward on each side and had the person tell me when they noticed my hand, and did the same test again without the helmet, and we found that it did in fact restrict vision. I am sure this is not true of all helmets. I have worn a full face helmet, and couldnt hear shit. This too can vary with helmets
I dsagree. I am not saying that you will in pain, just less alert. and subconsiously less inclined to turn your head as much because of the wind catching the helmet and twisting your head. And the fatigue problem is magnified when it is 100 degrees outside.
I disgree with this totally. Thats why people dont wear wool caps and ski jackets in the tropics. The air blowing across you cools you. You block that, you hold in heat.
Yes, you should drink alot of water, but I dont care how much you drink if you encase your head in esentially a styrofom insulator, block off all air flow, you are going to cook. I grew up in Texas, we have heat here. We know how to deal with it.
When riding in heavy traffic, you need all the help you can get, and I yes, I turn my head and look a lot, but you never know what someone is going to do. Having the extra advantage of being able to hear your exhaust boucing off the cars around you is a major benifit. I think ear plugs on a motorcycle are dangerous.
"Should I wear a helmet when riding a motorcycle? "
tells me that, YES, regardless of the number of studies and reports to the contrary, YOU SHOULD WEAR A HELMET. Mainly, because you lack the necessary experience on a motorcycle to correctly judge whether you should wear one!
In a nutshell, those riders who are against helmet laws are the ones who, primarily, can quote chapter and verse for repeal of helmet laws.
As for me, I think helmet LAWS are bogus.
Will I ride without my full-face helmet properly secured to my noggin?
Never.
This is just nonsense. I had an accident with a car that ran a red light and got knocked unconscious, and was LUCKY I had a full face helmet on. I was riding with my face shield up, it was a full face Shoie helmut, when I hit the ground face first, the face shield was forced closed by the slide with such force that the Shoie letters got transferred off of the helmut and onto the inside of the face shield. Additonally, the was a major scrape on the outside of the helmut which would have been my face if I hadn’t had the helmet on.
The problem here is that what you need to see is larger than a hand, a LOT larger. Certain skills are required to ride a motorcycle and one of them is being aware of what’s around you. That means using your properly adjusted mirrors to see what’s behind you, and turning your head to see what’s beside you. I’m from NYC and have ridden in all types of heavy traffic, a situation in which you have to be on top of your game and alert and I wouldn’t dream of doing it without using a helmet and if I did, I’d drive my car.
The hearing thing is very interesting. I think the reason you can’t hear anything with a helmut on, is because your hearing is probably damaged from riding without a helmut. The level of noise you endure when riding without a helmet is high and sustained exposure to that will affect your hearing. Even with a helmet on, the level of noise is high and will contribute to fatigue, sorry I don’t have a cite for this. I always ride with ear plugs and everyone I know or ride with does as well. Once you exceed 70mph, the noise is pretty significant, I never ride without ear plugs and can hear what I NEED to hear just fine as a matter of fact with the wind noise filtered out my level of awareness is hightened.
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That same air that blows across you and cools you, also serves to dehydrate you as well. It’s all in the physics of perspiration.
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This is really bizarre and bogus. What’s is this some kind of bat radar approach to riding in traffic? I prefer my stock exhaust for a more stealthy approach and here’s why; When I’m driving my car in traffic and I hear a loud exhaust, I’m usually distracted by that because the direction and position of the vehicle isn’t immediately discernable. I’ve seen drivers startled by this to the point that they change their position on the road, not a good thing. I don’t know where you live and I don’t know how much riding you have done, but it sounds to me like you don’t have that much experience riding in traffic. By default when you’re in traffic you have to be much more alert to what’s going on around you and ready to act and the margin for error is slim, which is why riding with protection i.e. jacket, helmut, pants and boots is critical.
This is a very well-argued and thoughtful article. Thanks for providing this.
As bdgr said so well, it’s how you cook the statistics. I don’t have specific refutation of the points in the article but I can suggest why some of the points may be flawed.
[story begins by noting that the president of a Mensa chapter is also president of an anit-helmet group]
True, and a very good point, brilliantly made, although ad hominem. That a stupid person believes something doesn’t prove it false, and that a smart person believes something doesn’t prove it true.
I agree with the author on this point. The statistics that I have usually seen on traffic accidents refer to injuries or deaths per passenger mile, not as a percent of the driving population. Motorcycle deaths per state resident is meaningless.
The statistic does not prove a causal relationship.
Comparing death rates in two different states may suffer from uncontrolled variables. The author himself had just stated that “you find a lower density of bikers in helmet-law states”. If that is so then there could be other variables in rider behavior between helmet-law states and non helmet-law states that could account for the difference in fatality rates. Just as an example, you could speculate that if ridership is higher in non helmet-law states, than whatever is making that state conducive to riding might also mean that the existing riders ride more and so are generally more experienced and ride more safely. I don’t know if that’s true, my point is only that there are uncontrolled variables, and correlation is not the same as cause and effect. It would have more meaning to compare fatalities in the same state before and after helmet law legislation.
The head vs. neck argument seems well reasoned in this article, although the author has again gone ad hominem without presenting any figures. I still fail to understand how I could be worse off with a helmet. If an impact is strong enough to break your neck while wearing a helmet, wouldn’t it be strong enough to break your neck or your skull without a helmet? I find it hard to believe that there are not accidents where the impact would be enough to kill or at least injure you without a helmet but would not be strong enough to break your neck with one.
I am cynical enough to believe this, although the fact that one segment has a hidden agenda for wanting helmet legistration is not an argument that the legislation is bad.
Duh! :smack: Why would a company that depends on the business of motorcycle ridesr take a chance on alienating a significant part of their market?
Duh! :smack: Liability insurance only covers damage to other people’s property! This is a complete nonsequitur.
Interestingly all the statistics quoted by either side in this argument address fatalities but not the extent of non-fatal injuries. I would put forth the hypothesis that fatal accidents are the pathological case and it would be more instructive to look at non-fatal injuries. I would like to know if helmet laws reduce brain-damaging head injuries without increasing paralyzing neck injuries.
I’m really trying to see where you’re coming from on this and I can’t get it. To set the scene, we’re talking about frictional forces here, not impact. If a force is strong enough to roll your helmet to the point of injuring your neck, why wouldn’t it be strong enough to roll your head if you’re not wearing a helmet? The covering on a helmet is relatively smooth and regular and doesn’t deform easily (remember, friction, not impact), whereas the covering on your head is soft and malleable. I would think that your head would have more friction with the road than a helmet, and develop more friction as it deforms. It seems like the “bit of road rash” you are talking about here would be a severe abrasion to the skull at best, twisting your head Linda Blair-like at worst.
I just looked this up at this site and found that yes there maybe some loss of vision, but at most 5%, not enough to effect much if anything.
of course, but I still don’t see much difference with or with out a helmet for noise. The only time I rode sans helmet was a few months ago out near Sturgis. I tried to ride and after a few miles I couldn’t hear. I was suprised since I thought it would be quiter, it’s not.
Then this is fatigue and not from wearing the helmet, it’s just being in the saddle too long.
This is apples and oranges. On a motorcycle you are moving, usually 50-70mph. Sitting in the tropics you are not moving. On a bike you will be moving and the sweat will evaporate faster. As a matter of fact on the Lond Distance Rider mailing list most seem to agree that in high heat it is best to close vents to keep evaporation to a minimum. Also the ammount of water you drink will help. I usually drink a good 1-2 liters of water every 3 hours or so. Drinking one small bottle of water every hour or so is not going to cut it in the heat.
>> Bare headed I get feedback from the sounds of my mufflers
>> reflecting on the cars by me and I hear their own motors. I
>> lose a lot of this when I am wearing a helmet and turning my
>> head around very fast is not so easy.
So, statistically, would people with convertibles who modified their car’s exhaust to be louder will be involved in less accidants? If true, we can suggest laws to force people to keep their car windows open with car radios off. Nah…
FYI, I have rode both with and without helmets when young. I would not ride without a helmet now.
James
Actually law enforcement friends of mine call all motorcycle riders “organ donors”. I would never ride a motorcycle without a helmet, but I never ride motorcycles.
I say YES, and use all the other protective gear too, long pants or chaps, Leather Jacket, and gloves. I wouldn’t want my brains smeared on the pavement.
You have heard it all before, but just want to register my vote for a “YES” to snug-fitting, full-face helmets, always. As a long-time rider and racer I can tell you I have seen/experienced the benefits.
My Stupid little helmet story: Had a tranny lock up and after a long, wild slide, went down. Tumbled and slide, but head never hit the ground, even with the extra weight of a “heavy” Arai Signet. Point: Extra weight had no effect on my neck, and even if the weight of the helmet made my head hit the ground, the helmet would have taken the impact.
On a nice, easy (well, not too easy) trail ride up Sunrise Mountain in Vegas, and on the way down had the front tire wash out which tossed me left directly into the rocky bank, with the bike pinning me there. When I got up, I looked at my old, trusty Simpson helmet that I have had nearly forever, and found a huge, nasty gash in it! Biggest, nastiest gash ever put in that helmet after over 10 years of racing in it. This was a crash at walking speed!
Ah well, carry on, but I wouldn’t ride without the helmet.
I make the point that guys who race bikes seem very happy to wear helmets despite them having extensive crash experience.
You reply with:
Yes ok fine, that relates to your points about lack of periferal vision, and loss of hearing. My post though was aimed at your other point which is where you say that helmets are unsafe during the actual crash.
You say here (later):
Surely the above situation relates as much to racers as to road users? In fact it seems that in a simple lose-the-front-end fall, track riders are able to slide along on their backs and keep their head off the ground quite happily. Much more so than someone on the road with cars, trees, fences, etc to hit. In a high-side all bets are off and you land how you land.
There doesn’t seem to be any great debate in the racing fraternity about whether they should be wearing helmets or not, yet surely they are just as likely to have the weight of the helmet pull their head onto the ground. Or the helmet grip and twist. Or a helmet in a face-first impact force the head back.
It would seem that these people would rather have a helmet on during the crash. Why would that be?
Finally, do you really think that in a face-first impact with the road, you’re going to be concerned about breaking your neck? Do I need to find a link to one of those ghastly websites that showcase photos of injuries? Photos with cute understated names like “Roadrash”?
Ok, we are going to seriously tone down the rhetoric in this thread. By, like, two degrees of magnitude.
In particular, we are going to stop with the “helmet advocates are (this kind of person)” and "helmet opponents are (that kind of person) unless you have an independent, credible citation. For the record, “all the bikers I have met who…” is not an independent, credible citation.