I live in Florida, and there is no helmet law because of Bike Week, Biketoboberfest and so on...but I believe that people should ALWAYS wear helmets. I don't care if it's uncomforatable, because hitting the asphalt is going to be a lot more unconforatable and painful. I'm a highschool student, probably one of the few who feel this way about wearing helmets, but living where it all happens(15 miles south of Daytona Beach where all the bikers are) I've seen some nasty stuff, 80% of the time the riders were not wearing their helmets or gear and died because of it. As for a story, here's one my friend told me after his first day of school this year:

"I was on the bus going to school, and we were at a red light. There was a guy on a gixxer 750 next to the bus. When the light turned green the guy on the bike started to go, got just ahead of the bus--and then a woman driving a car (who was speeding) nailed the rider. He flew for like 15 feet and when he hit the ground he rolled for a bit then stopped and didn't move. I thought that he was dead but after a few seconds he twitched. He was wearing matching gear for his bike, but after he hit the ground the jacket, pants, and gloves were pretty torn up. His helmet was almost split in two."

After I heard this I looked in the local newsjournal (the Daytona News Jounal) and checked to see what happened to the unlucky rider. He lived, though he did have a concusion from the impact (after all the impact did crack his helmet)but because he was wearing his helmet he walks today.

Hope that helps for your paper and good luck!

 

I think everyone who rides should be required to wear a helmet. You are 37 times more likely to die when you are on a motorcycle compared to a passenger car, and 6 times more likely to be injured. Basically you have a great chance of dieing than being injured while riding. Thats enough for me to wear a helmet and gear at all times.

 

It's obvious to me that you should always wear a full face helmet, along with other gear, if you're going to ride. But I'm not as sure that it's a good idea for the government to be forcing adults to do 'what's best for them.' Even with gear, riding is dangerous, and so is skiing, sky-diving, eating fatty food, and smoking. And these are all allowed on the theory that people can decide for themselves how much risk they will accept.

The indoor smoking bans were justified as protecting the health of workers, like bartenders, whose workplace safety is jeopardized by other people's smoke. You would need some rationale for why it's in the public interest to require helmets - like because society as a whole will bear the extra medical costs that could have been avoided if a helmet were used.

 

I strongly agree but there should be some system in place for people that do wear helmet, if their are in a wreck insurance will take care of damages depending on your plan. And for the people that do wreck that don't wear helmets, that survive, tough sh*t, insurance doesn't do anything for you and you have to pay all damages.

 

my buddy highsided at a pretty quick rate of speed

he was wearing full leathers and helmet

his only injury other than being sore as hell the next morning was about 1/4 inch of rash where the stiching on his alpinestart wore through while he was sliding

i have talked to people that have had to get asphault scraped out of wounds because they went down while wearing nothing

we made seatbelts a law, why not helmets and jackets

(for the record, i think we should ban mesh as well because of the false sense of security)

 

My buddy's brother sliped on some gravel turning at a stop light. He hit his unprotected head (at less than 20 miles per hour) against the curb. He now has a permanent residence a nursing home unable to care for himself. Even a cheap open face helmet would have allowed him to walk away from the incident with little more than a scratch. Enough Said!