Motorcycle Rider Deaths and Helmets

[Thundril]

Maybe. I had parked on the grass earlier in the day, so suspect I had some mud on the mudguards.
There were people washing their cars so the road was wet and I was being extra careful as I turned the corner into my street. I was taken by surprise - maybe a small piece of mud dropped onto the tread the moment I turned.
If I had been going faster I'd have had a short wobble but stayed on.
I still don't know why it happened.

Harleys are built for 300lb beerbellied yanks with long straight empty highways and no need for motorcycling skills.
Here in wet muddy Britain, youda been better off with a Husqvarna!

[tbieter]

"Brittany Larson wanted to feel the wind in her long hair as she rode her motorcycle rather than stuffing it under a helmet.

Now her mother is preparing to bury her 22-year-old daughter, who suffered extensive head injuries Wednesday when she hit road debris and was thrown into the path of a SUV on Interstate 694 in Ramsey County. Once she says her final goodbye, Inge Black pledged Thursday, she will push lawmakers to mandate helmets for motorcyclists.

"I am on a rampage about this. We need to pass a mandatory helmet law. She would've had to wear one," said Black, who added that she had sparred with her daughter about getting a helmet.

Black said the two of them fought Tuesday over wearing a helmet and had shopped unsuccessfully for one that fit. Black had even offered to drive her daughter to work on the day of the crash, but Larson said, "'Oh, no, I'm going to ride my motorcycle.'"
http://www.startribune.com/local/east/157789085.html

Her death is not a tragedy in the sense of the word highlighted below. An intelligent rational adult, she surely engaged in a (primitive) risk analysis. Or she just decided to gamble with her life. Either way in freedom she made a rational choice not to wear a helmet.
I, a stranger, would not be justified in mourning her death and calling the event a tragedy.

Death is an effect of causality- it is without overall meaning.
She might well have died with a helmet as without one.
For her Mum the meaning is her excuse to rant to others.

Well said.

[chaz wyman]

Maybe. I had parked on the grass earlier in the day, so suspect I had some mud on the mudguards.
There were people washing their cars so the road was wet and I was being extra careful as I turned the corner into my street. I was taken by surprise - maybe a small piece of mud dropped onto the tread the moment I turned.
If I had been going faster I'd have had a short wobble but stayed on.
I still don't know why it happened.

Harleys are built for 300lb beerbellied yanks with long straight empty highways and no need for motorcycling skills.
Here in wet muddy Britain, youda been better off with a Husqvarna!

Well I like to, have a comfy seat; to make a lot of noise and take up a lot of room on the road- its safer that way.
Going fast is in my past - and I always have the car if I want to do that.

Fat Bob


Husqvarna


ARE YOU SURE?

COME ON!

[chaz wyman]

Death is an effect of causality- it is without overall meaning.
She might well have died with a helmet as without one.
For her Mum the meaning is her excuse to rant to others.

[/quote]

Well said.[/quote]

TA.

[Lynn]

I put it to you lads: What is the meaning of her death? I say that it resulted from a rational act of choice; however, chance, in the form of the obstacle in the road, intervened and was the proximate cause of her accident. Her death, under the circumstances reported in the newspaper article, has no inherent meaning.

A series of acts of chance, misfortune or stupidity which resulted in the loss of her life, adding to the road traffic accident statistics.

It was interesting to read that T. E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, died as a result of head injuries from his motorcycle crash in 1935, which then prompted research into the loss of life by motorcycle despatch riders through head injuries, ultimately leading to the use of crash helmets by both military and civilian motorcyclists.

My friend was taught to drive a car by her father as soon as she got her U.K. provisional license at 17. As sensible as she was, he was still terrified she would get a motorbike and end up having an accident. This allowed her to learn to be very aware of other road users, especially motorbikes. She always wears a helmet on the motorbike and thankfully has never had a serious accident on her motorbike or with another motorbike when she was driving her car.

Why would someone put themselves, and potentially others also, at risk just because there is no law for mandatory helmets or car seat belts or because they disagree with the lawmakers, well, laying down the law? Even if it looks silly, I'll wear a seat belt on a bus if it is available.

[Kayla]

do you antihelmet assclowns have any idea how dangerous paramedics work is

every time someone unnecessarily gets themselves injured or killed in a vehicle accident people have to come out and unnecessarily risk their lives

fuck you

[Thundril]

do you antihelmet assclowns have any idea how dangerous paramedics work is

every time someone unnecessarily gets themselves injured or killed in a vehicle accident people have to come out and unnecessarily risk their lives

fuck you

Well said.
It's not just your own life.
RTA paramedic is a tough enough job without having to deal with the jellied faces of wind-in-my-hair romantic egocentrics.

Also, people who love you will feel it a lot worse than you do if you hit the tarmac at 70 without a lid..

[The Jesus Head]

do you antihelmet assclowns have any idea how dangerous paramedics work is

every time someone unnecessarily gets themselves injured or killed in a vehicle accident people have to come out and unnecessarily risk their lives

fuck you

Hush your profanity child !

[chaz wyman]

do you antihelmet assclowns have any idea how dangerous paramedics work is

every time someone unnecessarily gets themselves injured or killed in a vehicle accident people have to come out and unnecessarily risk their lives

fuck you

Wearing of helmets has almost no impact on the work of paramedics who deal with our shit every day in countries where people do and do not wear helmets.
Your remarks are irrelevant and hysterical.

2000 people die on Britain's roads every year. This is a record low, btw.
But there has been a helmet law for over 40 years.
The wearing of helmets does not impact on these figures in any significant way.

[chaz wyman]

I put it to you lads: What is the meaning of her death? I say that it resulted from a rational act of choice; however, chance, in the form of the obstacle in the road, intervened and was the proximate cause of her accident. Her death, under the circumstances reported in the newspaper article, has no inherent meaning.

A series of acts of chance, misfortune or stupidity which resulted in the loss of her life, adding to the road traffic accident statistics.

It was interesting to read that T. E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, died as a result of head injuries from his motorcycle crash in 1935, which then prompted research into the loss of life by motorcycle despatch riders through head injuries, ultimately leading to the use of crash helmets by both military and civilian motorcyclists.

My friend was taught to drive a car by her father as soon as she got her U.K. provisional license at 17. As sensible as she was, he was still terrified she would get a motorbike and end up having an accident. This allowed her to learn to be very aware of other road users, especially motorbikes. She always wears a helmet on the motorbike and thankfully has never had a serious accident on her motorbike or with another motorbike when she was driving her car.

Why would someone put themselves, and potentially others also, at risk just because there is no law for mandatory helmets or car seat belts or because they disagree with the lawmakers, well, laying down the law? Even if it looks silly, I'll wear a seat belt on a bus if it is available.

Bikers make the best road users.

The first test I took was a driving test in the US. The demands of the test were quite frankly pathetic. No 3 -point turn, no reversing round a bend; no hills start; no roundabout protocol. Basically you had to drive around for 10 minutes and show you knew what the indicators and your mirrors were for, then you did a multiple choice exam and only had to get 70%.

When next test was a British m-bike test which included compulsory basic training off road; figure of eight, control of bike at walking/running speed, life-savers and other observations; slalom; balance test; and so on. Once on the road I had to undergo a pursuit test with radio instruction where to go and so on,which included all of the things missing from the US test (above).
Riding a bike is a serious preparation for the road.
By the time I took my Car test in the UK the one thing my instructor noticed about me was that my observation skills were exemplary. This was due to my experience on m-bikes.
Simply enough if you don't keep your wits about you whilst on a bike you die.
I think it would be a great idea for everyone to have to do a year on a bike before they are allowed to drive a car. This would massively enhance their respect for other road users and would result in reduced accidents.

[Kayla]

motorcyclists' deaths rise when helmet laws are repealed here is one example http://content.usatoday.com/communities ... 9S9QVKTUhg

a helmet can make a difference between walking away from an accident and being dead

anyone who disputes that is basically in the same category of braindeath as young earth creationists

[chaz wyman]

motorcyclists' deaths rise when helmet laws are repealed here is one example http://content.usatoday.com/communities ... 9S9QVKTUhg

a helmet can make a difference between walking away from an accident and being dead

anyone who disputes that is basically in the same category of braindeath as young earth creationists

First, no one is making that claim.

You were bitching about paramedics. I said helmet law has no significant impact on their work. They are dealing with 32,000+ road deaths per year, only 4000 were m-cyclists, many of who were actually wearing helmets.
If you had taken the trouble to follow that in-link you might have noticed the poor level of evidence which failed to cross reference a state by state analysis; or increase in motorcycling that can also account for those numbers.
So no, helmet law does not make a significant impact on paramedics. With so many deaths, what difference does a few more bikers actually make? You could even argue that scraping a dead biker off the road, rather than a broken living one that you have to care for, actually makes their work a fuck of a lot easier.
Your problem is that you like to lash out, before you think things through.

Second, whilst it might be true that wearing helmets reduces the death rate of m-cyclists - so what?

It is highly likely that making car drivers wear helmets or making them fit crash cages inside cars would reduce their fatalities - so why are you not bitching about trying to save those 28,000 car driver that die on the reads every year.

For what it is worth I always wear a helmet even though their effectiveness of exaggerated. If others want to go bare-headed in the USA, that is not for me to say.

[tbieter]

I put it to you lads: What is the meaning of her death? I say that it resulted from a rational act of choice; however, chance, in the form of the obstacle in the road, intervened and was the proximate cause of her accident. Her death, under the circumstances reported in the newspaper article, has no inherent meaning.

A series of acts of chance, misfortune or stupidity which resulted in the loss of her life, adding to the road traffic accident statistics.

It was interesting to read that T. E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, died as a result of head injuries from his motorcycle crash in 1935, which then prompted research into the loss of life by motorcycle despatch riders through head injuries, ultimately leading to the use of crash helmets by both military and civilian motorcyclists.

My friend was taught to drive a car by her father as soon as she got her U.K. provisional license at 17. As sensible as she was, he was still terrified she would get a motorbike and end up having an accident. This allowed her to learn to be very aware of other road users, especially motorbikes. She always wears a helmet on the motorbike and thankfully has never had a serious accident on her motorbike or with another motorbike when she was driving her car.

Why would someone put themselves, and potentially others also, at risk just because there is no law for mandatory helmets or car seat belts or because they disagree with the lawmakers, well, laying down the law? Even if it looks silly, I'll wear a seat belt on a bus if it is available.

One day I saw a motorcycle that caught my fancy. I began thinking about buying one. I returned home and informed my wife of my thinking. She said: "Let me know before you buy one." I said: "Why?" She said: "So I can buy more life insurance on you." I gave it more thought. I'm 70, still here, and I carefully use two bicycles and a Kia Rio.

[chaz wyman]

I put it to you lads: What is the meaning of her death? I say that it resulted from a rational act of choice; however, chance, in the form of the obstacle in the road, intervened and was the proximate cause of her accident. Her death, under the circumstances reported in the newspaper article, has no inherent meaning.

A series of acts of chance, misfortune or stupidity which resulted in the loss of her life, adding to the road traffic accident statistics.

It was interesting to read that T. E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, died as a result of head injuries from his motorcycle crash in 1935, which then prompted research into the loss of life by motorcycle despatch riders through head injuries, ultimately leading to the use of crash helmets by both military and civilian motorcyclists.

My friend was taught to drive a car by her father as soon as she got her U.K. provisional license at 17. As sensible as she was, he was still terrified she would get a motorbike and end up having an accident. This allowed her to learn to be very aware of other road users, especially motorbikes. She always wears a helmet on the motorbike and thankfully has never had a serious accident on her motorbike or with another motorbike when she was driving her car.

Why would someone put themselves, and potentially others also, at risk just because there is no law for mandatory helmets or car seat belts or because they disagree with the lawmakers, well, laying down the law? Even if it looks silly, I'll wear a seat belt on a bus if it is available.

One day I saw a motorcycle that caught my fancy. I began thinking about buying one. I returned home and informed my wife of my thinking. She said: "Let me know before you buy one." I said: "Why?" She said: "So I can buy more life insurance on you." I gave it more thought. I'm 70, still here, and I carefully use two bicycles and a Kia Rio.

I would say that any bicycle is far more dangerous to ride than a carefully rider motorcycle.
Because you cannot keep up with the flow of traffic, and are also less likely to be wearing full protection on a pushbike, mile for mile you are placing yourself in a far more vulnerable position.
Why not go and get that motorbike whilst you still can?

[John]

I've got a friend who, many years ago, was very much against the compulsory wearing of helmets because he thought he lost some of the sense of freedom that he got from being on his bike. He changed his mind though after he slid along a motorway with nothing but his leathers and a helmet between him and the tarmac.

I suppose people should be able to make their own risk assessments where it doesn't affect other people but I'm not convinced that most people are particularly good at assessing risk so I suppose there's an argument for compulsion when the loss of freedom is considered minor and the benefits positive.

Personally though I never think twice about putting on a seatbelt and I wouldn't even consider riding a bike without a helmet.