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Helmet Laws and Seat Belt Laws

I wear mine 99.9999% of the time....by choice. I don't need Uncle Sam telling me I have to.

That 0.0001% of the time it sure is a nice feeling...until that japanese beetle or locust hits your face at about 50 mph..... :eek:
 
no word of a lie, a guy in fredericton got hit by a bee in the face and it stung him in the mouth and he crashed and died. helmut no face guard.
matt rides so you can be sure as shit he wears won. i have no interest in being a widow because it feels nice.
 
I'm planning on getting my motor-driver's license (or whatever it's called) next year, and I'll definitely be wearing a helmet all the bloody time.

Besides, you're required by law (over here, at least) to wear one.

But what do you guys think about protective clothes when driving a bike? My girlfriend is very clear in it - she'll be getting her driver's license together with me, and she has professed never to ride a bike without wearing leather or kevlar. As for myself, I can definitely see laziness creeping in there, resulting in me getting on the bike in jeans and a tee (and a helmet, of course).

Imagine going down at 160 km/h (100 m/h) wearing just a pair of jeans and a tee. Denim is one of the worst fabrics to be wearing while driving a bike, as it will burn into the wound if you go down.

Protective clothes are not required by law - so how do you guys feel about that?

Cheers
 
matt has all the gear. kevlar with metal plates in some places. i think he looks dead sexy all geared up.
 
I can guess - I always see bikers on warm days kitted out in full leathers/kevlar etc and think they are mad. Better that than seriously hurt though :(
 
A close family member came off his motorbike on a residential traffic island (ie: low speed) when a woman hit him with her car. He had to have skin grafts over 10 years to fix the damage. And he was wearing full protective leathers. Bitumen is very unforgiving.
 
yeah yeah yeah...everybody knows peole that have been hurt, or killed on motorcycles. Same goes for cars too though.

So if I can provide data that shows that a large percentage of human bodily damage, and/or the major cause of death in most automobile accidents is head injury, will all of you decide that a law needs to be implimented that all occupants in an automobile need to wear helmets?
 
I'm not sure about all the facts in this article... Especially the bit about the reduction in people wearing helmets after they became compulsory.

Cycle helmets should not be compulsory
Douglas Carnall , BMJ

Cyclists are advised to wear helmets but legislation to make them compulsory is likely to reduce the number of people choosing to cycle and would not be in the interests of health, concludes the BMA's Board of Education and Science.

International evidence shows that the compulsory use of helmets results in a fall in the number of cyclists. The Australian state of Victoria made the use of helmets compulsory in 1990, and in the following year deaths and head injuries among cyclists fell between 37%and 51%However, 40%fewer adults and 60%fewer children continued to cycle after the introduction of the laws.

About one in five cyclists in Britain currently wears a helmet. This proportion would have to be increased by promotional campaigns encouraging voluntary action before legislation could hope to be effective.

Some cyclists are opposed to wearing helmets. Research by the European Cycling Federation found that non-cyclists tended to be most in favour of helmets. In fact, a much greater number of lives would be saved if pedestrians and car occupants were encouraged to wear helmets.

The board's previous reports have concluded that the benefit to health of regular exercise from cycling outweighs the British cyclist's comparatively high risk of trauma. In countries such as the Netherlands and Denmark pedestrians and cyclists form a much smaller proportion of those injured or killed on the road, though helmets are little used. Instead, these countries have concentrated on safety programmes to reduce motor traffic speeds to 30 km/h in urban areas and separate cyclists from fast moving traffic.

Properly fitted helmets manufactured to accepted standards can reduce the severity of head injury in a crash, though the tests on which these standards are based mimic a fall from a cycle rather than collision with a fast moving vehicle, which is most likely to harm an adult cyclist.

Children are more likely to simply fall off their bicycles and may therefore derive more benefit from wearing a helmet. However, the costbetween £12 and £90and the necessity of replacing helmets every few years as the child grows may be prohibitive.

The report recommends that the government should consider subsidising this cost, along with other measures to promote helmets manufactured to the highest standard (Snell B95). It also recommends that every child should be given the opportunity to learn cycling proficiency and that the driving test should be modified to test specifically for awareness of cyclists and other road users.
Click to expand...

EDIT: I think I can explain that statistic now, having looked at a few other links. Prior to the introduction of the new helmet laws there was an intensive advertising campaign, which from memory was very graphic. I think it is more likely the advertising campaign and the statistics that accompanied it that would have stopped people riding. Who doesn't ride a bike just because they have to protect their head? Anyone who so vehemently disagreed with the policy and went so far as to not ride a bike any more to get out of wearing a helmet would surely not wear one and break the law.

Another link stated that they are assuming a drop in the total number of cyclists because they saw that the number of head injuries dropped, as did the number of broken bones, and helmets can't have prevented both. But is it possible that the graphic advertising campaign encouraged people to ride more carefully? To stick to bike lanes, not to weave through traffic, etc?

Hmm... I'm no stats major, but these figures and the conclusions are a little tenuous for my liking.
 
Moto... I think you're being devils advocate now. What does it matter if it's illegal or not? Either way it's stupid, and sometimes the government steps in to force people to stop doing stupid things.

Let's look at some of the other things that are illegal...

- Smoke detectors are required in all new homes. Should we say that anyone without one is an idiot and just leave it at that? No! This way we ensure that all builders put one in, often wired to the power supply itself.

- BASE jumping (as you previously mentioned as being legal) is *illegal* in many places.

- Jaywalking. I could debate the wisdom of this one, sometimes, but it is usually only enforced when you dash across a street or cross against a set of lights.

And there are many more. Are our liberties infringed by these stupid things being illegal? I don't really think so!
 
And it still doesn't answer the question about the government's need, or role in trying to protect people from themselves....

Anybody here read the Darwin Awards that get published every so often?
Human stupidity is certainly not going away, but at what point is it neccessary to create laws to protect people from themselves?

Do we need laws to require helmet, knee and wrist guards for rollerblading and skateboarding adults?

Why should the government worry about me on a motorcycle when they should be worried about the national debt, Iraq, Iran, Social Security, Homeland Security, employment.......

I'd prefer they make an MSF coarse mandatory before allowing a license, or a tiered licensing system that keeps a first time rider from buying a 1000cc race type bike that'll kill him/her faster than anything else.
 
jenngorham said:
matt has all the gear. kevlar with metal plates in some places. i think he looks dead sexy all geared up.
Click to expand...
Yeah, those full-body leather outfits can be cool.

Cheers
 
Motokid said:
I'd prefer they make an MSF coarse mandatory before allowing a license, or a tiered licensing system that keeps a first time rider from buying a 1000cc race type bike that'll kill him/her faster than anything else.
Click to expand...

According to your logic, Moto, we shouldn't care about these people at all!!

What you're not considering is that it is in the government's best interests to look after these people. I'm not sure about other jurisdictions, but in Australia, any road accident is paid for by the TAC (Traffic Accident Commission). So if there are hospital bills, rehabilitation or ongoing care for brain damage that's a shitload of moolah! And that doesn't count the lost wages for that person, disability payments, retraining costs for new employment... etc.

Hence, a policy maker doing the math is going to see that it's more cost effective to create and enforce a law, than it is to allow people to let their own stupidity hurt them. It's pretty simple from the Government's perspective!
 
I am not playing devils advocate here because I truely believe the government has no business deciding if/when, or where I should wear a helmet.

If they are that concerned about the public health they should tackle smoking and drinking first. Then guns. Then maybe helmets. But I guess the motorcycling lobby is not pumping as much money into the political coffers as the tobacco, alcohol, and firearms lobby's are doing?

This law hits me in one of my passions.
 
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