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TX has a pretty good setup. If you are over 21, you can ride without a helmet if you have proof of health insurance and have completed a motorcycle safety course.
Most of the time, I rode with my helmet on. Riding a sportbike with an aftermarket exhaust, the sound is pretty loud when you are high up there in the rpm range. Couple that with the wind noise, and it can get deafening. A helmet is safer of course, and it also keeps the volume down to a reasonable level for your ears.
Occasionally though, if I was just going to run to the store real quick or just down the street, I wouldn't bother with getting all my gear on.
FL requires kids to wear helmets on pedal bikes yet mom/dad can go helmet less on the highway? Logic?
I don't care if someone wants to wear a helmet or not, I just don't want to pay for them to be a vegetable sitting in a state hospital getting liquids fed to them through an IV either.
Compromise: No helmet crash = instant enrollment in organ donor program. You want to make bad decisions then we can let the hospital make a better decision for you when you can't.
TX has a pretty good setup. If you are over 21, you can ride without a helmet if you have proof of health insurance and have completed a motorcycle safety course.
Most of the time, I rode with my helmet on. Riding a sportbike with an aftermarket exhaust, the sound is pretty loud when you are high up there in the rpm range. Couple that with the wind noise, and it can get deafening. A helmet is safer of course, and it also keeps the volume down to a reasonable level for your ears.
Occasionally though, if I was just going to run to the store real quick or just down the street, I wouldn't bother with getting all my gear on.
I like the proof of insurance idea, makes some sense. Personally, i think if you're going to go w/o a helmet on a motorcycle your insurance should be higher so you don't jack up everybody's rates...but then, they'd start asking other questions like "do you wear jackets, pants, boots, does your home have modern electrical components, does your car receive a 5 star crash test rating..." and I'd start hating insurance companies even more.
According to the stats I've read on motorcycle accidents the majority of accidents are low speed intersection accidents, caused by not being seen by an automobile driver. Most of a deaths in this type of accident were due to no head protection. Other type of accidents were due to excessive speed and drunk driving, in these cases the rider would have died even if he had a helmet on.
It really doesn't matter to me if a person wears a helmet or not, I do wear a helmet, jacket, gloves and boots when I ride, I believe in ATGATT. At least if I die in a motorcycle accident,I'll be dressed for it.
Easy solution. If you don't want to wear a helmet, then sign an organ donor card that includes your agreement not to become a burden to anyone for financial support because of a head injury.
Strange how people that don't want to wear a helmet put on a seat belt when driving a car.
To be fair, though, no helmet is going to protect you from a full-speed collision with anything. It may help keep your cranial oatmeal in one bowl, however. If nothing else, that will make life a little easier in the folks who have to scrape you off the pavement.
I saw the aftermath of a motorcycle wreck one time on the Jersey turnpike. A guy clipped a guardrail going about 110 and flew through the air, striking an overpass abuttment with such force that he stuck to the concrete like a dead fly about twenty-five feet off the ground. It took them half an hour with a high-pressure hose to clean the blood smear off the concrete.
No helmet would have helped that daredevil. He was in the grave when he was still in the air.
This isn't the norm though. Most motorcycle crashes occur because of cagers not paying attention and turning left in front of us. As a 30 year police officer (now retired) I've been to dozens of MC crashes. Most riders survived their crashes, albeit with varying degree of injuries. But I believe with everything that the helmet law in VA has saved many of these riders. The ones who typically died were the ones where no amount of equipment will save them. Would you also vote to do away with seatbelt laws?
I'm another on the boat of being an ATGATT (that,s 'All The Gear, All The Time') rider. I simply don't get on a motorcycle without Sidi boots, Aerostich 1-piece suit, Helimot gloves and Arai full-face helmet. In most cases, my gear is worth twice what the bike is (for my personal bikes).
But the government should NOT be used to make nanny laws. That's just an abuse of power and punishes those who are above that 'lowest denominator' status. So I'm firmly against nanny laws... being helmet laws, seatbelt laws, etc... (means I'm also against anything "socialized", be it health care, pension/retirement). Each individual ought to be responsible for their own decisions and actions without a negative impact on the rest of us. Some junkie wants to OD and kill themselves? Why stop them.. the world will be a better place. Ditto with the motorcyclist who goes sans-helmet.
And it's not like you have to be Moving for a helmet to help you, I had an aquaintence in AZ that was moving his race-bike around to load it on a trailer, step on some sand when he went to stop, fall over at 0mph and smash his head. He was in the ICU and on full ventilator setup for the month that the insurance would pay, and then his family pulled the plug. Helmets Absolutely save lives (as do seatbelts). But it's NOT *MY* governments place, as MY appointed employees, to tell ME what to do. For those of you who are parents, that's akin to doing everything your children say. Or business owners to do only/everything your employees tell you.
The only way to make it work in this screwed up country though, would be to give the insurance company and hospitals a legal "out" if proof that a DOT certified helmet was worn.
And just for fun, one of the stats in the HURT report when it came to helmets, was that 60% of all impacts were to the Chin. Skip the full-face helmet and you're covering less than 50% of all situations in which a helmet would assist. So the beanie-wearing cruiser riders are already closer to helmet-less than protected.
This isn't the norm though. Most motorcycle crashes occur because of cagers not paying attention and turning left in front of us. As a 30 year police officer (now retired) I've been to dozens of MC crashes. Most riders survived their crashes, albeit with varying degree of injuries. But I believe with everything that the helmet law in VA has saved many of these riders. The ones who typically died were the ones where no amount of equipment will save them. Would you also vote to do away with seatbelt laws?
1. Regardless of how someone dies, they're still dead. It's hard to argue otherwise when you're a corpse. It reminds me of the old poem about yielding the right-of-way while driving:
"He was right, dead right, as he motored along,
But he's just as dead as if he were wrong."
2. You've got the wrong guy, officer. I believe in helmets on bikes AND seat belt in cars, and use both. Anyone who doesn't is at least a sandwich shy of a full picnic, in my book.
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What's your take on helmet laws?
