Ok, I'll clear this up with a simple question: (But you have to really think about it and answer it truthfully)

If you were a stunt man and you had to crash a bike for a stunt, would you wear a helmet for that stunt or not?

If the answer is yes, then wear a helmet when you ride.

If the answer is no, I question your intelligence, but it's your choice!!!

 

Well again, I do support the right to choose. I'm not saying that there should be helmet laws. I'm just saying that people should have the validated facts to make their decisions, not just "conjecture". And the problem with all of the "studies" sited thus far is that they started out to prove that helmets don't save lives, not to ascertain the unbiased truth.

However, those are not necessarily "facts" either. For instance the first one says that a helmet impairs peripheral vision. So, I went to the garage. Stood still in one spot and noted the farthest item in my periphery I could see. I then put on My FULL FACE HD helmet without moving in the least and low and behold I could still see the same object in my peripheral vision. My full face helmet has ZERO influence on my peripheral vision.

Now if you want to talk sound, that of course is hampered by a full face, which is why I like the half lid for around town.

The unbiased truth is that my uncle, a former 1%'r is unable to care for himself at the ripe old age of 52, due to a MC crash 30 years ago in which a helmet would have saved him from the head trauma that had put him in a coma back then and is the cause of his lack of lucidity now.

 

good analogy denim!

 

I especially need to be careful of that false sense of security,the helmet makes me feel less less vulnerable and that's a bad thing but:

I wear a helmet and always will,I ended up with a small skull fracture and some inner ear damage form going without one a few years ago.If I had landed just a bit differently I would have been in bad shape.

 

this debate could go on and on for days and days.....its kind of like the laws agaist abortion.....there are always going to be people for it and against it....its not quite on the same scale as abortion but u get the point

 

Well, I figure I'm qualified to say something on this thread. I live in Florida, I don't wear a helmet and my wife and I recently survived a very bad crash. If we were wearing helmets would we have been better off? I seriously doubt it. The way the accident went down, I think we came out of it as good as we could have. Do I think a helmet could have actually caused us more injury? Possibly. My wife had no head trauma, but I did. When you go virtually head on into a drunk illegal mexican's car at a combined speed of over 80 mph and fly through the air for thirty-five feet, surviving it is a major accomplishment.
As far as this whole law thing goes.....NO HELMET LAW! For all you people out there with this "public burden" argument pertaining to medical bills, that is BS! Here in Florida we DO have a helmet law. Yup, you must be over 21 years old and have medical insurance in order to ride without a helmet ($10,000 minimum coverage). How about this? WTF?....If you wear a helmet while riding in Florida, you are not required to have insurance, period. Not on you or the bike! Not even liability! As for our cars, we are required to show "proof" of insurance to get our registration. The sad thing that I have found out is that no one checks to see if the insurance "proof" you provide is more than just a piece of paper. The state relies on the insurance company to tell them when your insurance lapses and even then they don't do anything to physically prevent you from driving the car that you registered with that insurance. Believe me, I know this to be fact. I'm living it! So, for those of you that are worried about having to pay medical bills for non-helmet wearing riders why don't you do us all a favor and worry about the estimated 15-27% of driver's right here in Florida that are driving with no insurance. That far outweighs any real or imaginary cost brought on by non-helmet wearing uninsured injured riders. And keep in mind that us legally insured drivers are paying more for our car and bike and health insurance because of all these a$$hole$ driving without it.
http://www.oppaga.state.fl.us/report...s/r95-15s.html
It is just amazing how many people I have spoken to that tell me that they too were in a wreck (car and bike) and the other person did not have insurance. Will I be wearing one when I pick up my new bike this month? Maybe, I don't know yet but it needs to stay my choice. It is my head, isn't it?.

P.S. http://www.newswithviews.com/Devvy/kidd14.htm
http://casey.hsmv.state.fl.us/intran...les/helmet.cfm <-----Florida helmet laws
http://home.ama-cycle.org/amaccess/l...t.asp?state=FL <------Florida bike insurance laws (or lack of)

 

First of all I could care less if you wear a helmet or not and the state could care less what I think about their safety laws, so with that having been said lets move on to the report.

The underlying question that the report in a very convoluted approach seems to ask is: does the protection provided by wearing helmets save lives and reduces the severity of injury? ABATE clearly uses bad science in their case for not wearing a helmet, i.e. more fatalities with than without helmets. The only objective or scientific approach to answering this question is analyze all the accidents within a study group, not just the fatalities, with the focus on head trauma and report the results. Clearly deaths and injuries resulting from non-head trauma have nothing to do with the question around helmet protection. If ABATE wants to make a case that wearing helmets causes accidents as their report could lead one to believe, then again the statistics used does not paint the whole picture or support good science.

In conclusion the ABATE agenda is clearly political and not scientific, therefore I would caution anyone from making a safety decision based on politically crafted report. As a common saying goes: “Just tell me the results you want and I can find the ‘facts’ to support it.” Riders are entitled to all the facts objectively presented when making decisions on how much risk they are willing take.

 

Nice one Milt I hope you don't teach your children to talk
like that? But if you do it is not a surprise to me the way
people are teaching their children to act these days!!!

You don't have to wear a helmet ever, neither does anyone else
because even though I wear one:

"I'M DEAD AGAINST US BEING TOLD WE HAVE TO WEAR ONE"


WHY???

Because of not wanting politicians to have total power over us
telling us everything we can and can not do, I'm against the man
having total control of our lives.

I'm not against helmet laws because a bunch of DUMB AZZ's say
it is safer to ride with out a helmet, only a total MORON would buy
into ABATE's STUPIDITY" and I'm far from being that stupid"

You and anyone else is free to buy into ABATE's DUMB AZZ thoughts
and think helmets are unsafe, this is a FREE COUNTRY which is exactly
how I want it to stay!

I have a friend that I grew up with and started motorcycling together
over 40 years ago. He has NEVER owned or wore a helmet riding a
motorcycle EVER in 40+ years he knows motorcycles are much safer
if he/we wear helmets. We use to go to rallies against helmet laws
together he without a helmet me with my helmet, we stood together
against THE MAN for the right reasons, not ABATE's DUMB AZZ stories
that not wearing a helmet is safer on a motorcycle! To this day he and
I both think ABATE is a group of total DUMB AZZ's that are trying to
fight the right war the wrong way! They have lost sight of the fight
against the man and are trying to make the genral puplic believe that
riding a motorcycle without a helmet is safer then wearing a helmet.
Please" if anyone buys into that crap their IQ is less then their shoe size
and should not be on the streets anyway! Thats like saying your for
everyone going out on the streets driving drunk because it will be safer
that way! (DUMB AZZ) again if anyone believes that"

My best friend I grew up with rides 40,000 to 100,000 miles a year
which is about the same as me.

He rides all over Canada and all over the U.S. without wearing a helmet
EVER he does not care if he gets tickets for it all day long, he will never
wear a helmet till there are no helmet laws anywhere.

WHY DOES HE DO THIS????

Because he is fighting the fight everyone else does not have the guts
to fight, anyone who will not take their helmet off and never put it back
on helmet law state or not, that believes ABATE is correct about not
wearing a helmet is safer is a coward, they are scared of the man and
what he will do to them for not obeying the law that is being forced down
their throats. My best friend does not believe that ABATE is correct, but
he is fighting THE MAN every day by having enough guts to stand up to
them and not do what they tell him to do and he is doing it the right way
for the right reasons (YOURS and MY FREEDOM TO CHOOSE)


Most every motorcycle rider I've ever talked with about helmet laws says
they do not like THE MAN telling them what to do, whether they wear
helmets or not most 95% I talk to hate helmet laws.

Changing the helmet laws to being our choice is easy, get every rider in
the country ( 65% or better would do ) to stop wearing their helmets for
3 months and never pay the ticket without going to court first which would
bury the courts so deep in paper work and over load the system so bad
they would have to fold up the helmet laws just to be able to use the courts
again for more important problems this country has!

The problem with this is, the same so called BAD AZZ BIKERS that want
helmet laws to go away along with other stupid controling laws does not
have the guts t

 

What you're interpreting from what you read as them telling you not to wear a helmet is actually them telling the legislators why they shouldn't mandate one.

 

That made me laugh. It's flawed logic though. If you were going to crash a bike on purpose, you know that you may suffer head injuries if that crash would impact your head. Riding without a helmet is taking the risk that you're not going to be involved in an accident in the first place.