ha, there is no escaping darwin's plan.

it always bothered me my aunt called my bike a murdercycle the first time she saw it, granted, my cousin let his friend ride his gsxr1000 (first bike) who proceeded to lose control of it, low side it into a guard rail and break it into 3 pieces. probably a good thing, b/c my cousin would have been dead by now.

my pov, hey, im gearing up, whether or not im the only one in the group that does. what i tell them, hey, its not my skin. i do have quite a bit of people, esp in the summer, ask me why i wear all that 'crap'. i just laugh, walk away, and let them figure out the point. hell, just recently my friends parent's told me, man, you're all ready to crash arn't you? kinda pissed me off, but oh well, at least im ready.

 

See....those kind of comments are irritating. I think a good reason for why people say this is the statistics are staggering in terms of fatal and near fatal accidents. Now, I am not saying that a helmet is going to stop that. BUT, it may at least reduce the severity of these injuries and in turn reduce the horrible stats people look at.

In addition, we give at least a LITTLE respect even to a squid if he is wearing at LEAST a helmet. Imagine if every person driving saw us all with helmets on....Harley guys included...perhaps they wouldn't think that we are all 18 yr. old punks (no offense to those 18yrs. with a brain who gear up ) out joy riding and stunting.

Listen I hate stereotypes and holy crap are we stereotyped. A helmet law doesn't do ANY harm to you. If you are pissed because someone is MAKING you wear a helmet...you're slightly stupid in a short bus type of way. All the helmet law will do is possibly save more lives and at the very least, hopefully change some peoples views on bike riders.

 

I've only skimmed - so if I've missed it, I apologize.

But you guys are aware of, "what the big deal is," right?

The, "big deal" and why the government thinks it isn't your decision is because who foots the bill when someone's dumb *** has to get stitches or any medical attention that mayhave been otherwise avoided by wearing a helmet?

 

Haha, Rrasco you reminded me of a story.

back when I was working in LE my sheriff and two captains were walking by me in the parking lot as I was getting ready to leave in the morning. I had everything (was December) on, leather jacket, boots, gloves, balaclava - anyway...

He looked at me and said, "I guess you plan on dropping that thing, don't ya." Him and the cpts. chuckled as if they were funny funny guys.

I looked at him in the most sincere manner and said, "Is that why you tell us to buckle up before each shift?"

You could obviously see that he never thought about it like that. That's something you guys need to realize. When "civilians" (non-riders, lol), see us in full gear, trust me - they're not thinking, "wow, those guys are really safe."

The exact opposite. If you wear anything more than a helmet it would appearthat the vast majority see it as a plan to fail... don't get it confused with, "being ready." No, they see it as the only reason we're wearing all this stuff is because we do stoopid **** on these bikes.

Making things worse is people out there proving them right.

 

Let's not try to turn this into a "freedom's are being taken away thread by the big, bad government" thread again.

Personally, I agree with helmet laws. Seat belts are law (and I think we can all agree it's a good one), so why not helmets? In a car you have 4 wheels, a safety-inspired design, air bags, glass, metal, etc. etc. protecting you from other vehicles and objects. Versus us on motorcycles have only us and whatever object we are to hit. Just the loss of traction could spell disaster for us, versus in a car its no big deal. So yes, helmet's should be law. Just about every motorcycle crash we've had this year has been a single vehicle accident and the victims have perished due to massive head trauma. I'm willing to bet each and every one of those people would still be alive if they were wearing proper helmets (and a law would have made that possible)

And not only that, but people are stubborn in their beliefs and opinions. (Like persuading a typical Harley rider to wear a full-faced helmet). These types of people only change their positions on their beliefs usually by encountering a life-changing event (near fatal accident, witnessing an accident, etc.) A Helmet Law keeps the type of people who only learn by life changing events alive to learn from it.

 

I get remarks from the general public (mainly older guys that used to ride) complementing me on wearing my gear. Even when I tell other non-riders that I ride a motorcycle, they ask if I wear a helmet..........I reply that I not only wear a helmet, but jacket, boots, gloves, etc. They usually reply with "good, you are smart one" or something along those lines. And working with customers all day long, I get that quite often.

What I don't agree with is that people are think we do stupid s**t when we are all suited up. It's the fact that we are on a sportbike to begin with that gives us an immediate negative image in the eyes of the public. All this thanks to all the guys who don't wear a helmet, who don't take MSF courses to learn how to properly ride and crash into other motorists, who ride 80 mph through neighborhoods, who wake up every living being within a 20 mile radius at 3 am with their ridiculously loud slip-on's cruising at 45 in first gear, etc. etc.

We already have a bad image in the eyes of the public just because of the bikes we ride, I doubt suiting up with proper safety gear negatively affects our image.............if anything it would only help it to be less negative.

 

Hmm, I seem to see the opposite trend here. I mean don't get me wrong, I'm not saying simply wearing gear is cause for ridicule, but I've certainly noticed, in my area at least, that there seems to be some sort of association with gear and people who wear it. And for some reason it's not positive.

I'm hardly saying to not wear gear - just making an observation.

 

As a side note, it's worthmentioning that thedozen or soactual stunters in my city wear all kinds of gear. Shin guards, motoX chest protectors or flak jackets, gloves, helmets boots - the works.

I was actually surprised last year - there was around 6 or 7 cats show up from a city north of here, Maryville. Everyone one of them but one guy had a streetfighter and were in full gear. Them boys could ride too.

/threadjack... or was it?

 

this is my thoughts on this. i tend to ride with a lid, more then not. i think it boils down to, A. your own personal choice, if you want to be dumb or smart, i will go on a solo ride at 4:30 a.m. to the beach with no helmet on, my choice, yet from 5:30 a.m. till 4:30 the next a.m. i have a lid on. and B, no law will make n e one ride with a lid. if they want to go with out they will.

 

First off, riding a motorcycle or car on the street is a privelage and not a right even though some would argue that's not the case. The Constitution has never been amended to allow us a right to drive. (OMG, how would we even think about taking away the license of an old person then!)Second, because tax dollars pay for road maintenance and much of our special services like ambulance and police forces, anything that is easy to use (such as a helmet) that could reduce the cost to me as a taxpayerI am all for it. As someone else pointed out, medical care is shared by everyone, even if you have insurance through your place of employment. If you think that costs aren't shared by everyone, you're crazy.

Oh well, enough rant. Helmets should be law in all 50 states and just like cars with seat belts, the govt should withold road funds for those states who don't follow their directive for safety.