Thing of it is, if your not wearing a helmet and you have an accident involving another vehicle, it could go from just a simple accident to you getting killed or a vegetable. Now the operator of the other vehicle could be facing serious charges or at least a civil suit. Not to mention, typically injuries to the head without a helmet will be worse and therefore cost the insurance company a lot more. Lets face it, helmets have come along way. They don't impair your hearing, or vision, and good ones weigh almost nothing. If they make it where, when your not wearing a helmet, injuries you sustain cannot be held against anyone else, then go for it.

 

I race and have suffered several concussions wearing the best helmets money can buy, including 2 weeks ago, rear tire hit a piece of barbed wire on the track and blew. I was literally saying to myself how on it I was and how good I felt then boom flash of white light and pain In leg and shoulder. Would be dead without one several times. If someone stole my helmet I would walk or drive, to get a helmet. But if someone wants to not wear it and die in a 10 mph crash like Indian Larry it is not my business.

 

When I started riding we didn't need helmets. Now we're required to wear one. I think we should have a choice but that choice should be reflected in our insurance premium.

 

Another way such a comparison is "shallow" is that a minor fender bender involving a driver not wearing a seat belt will probably result in no real injuries. The same "minor fender bender" involving a motorcycle rider not wearing a helmet can result in life changing injuries.

 

Good idea!

They could greatly raise premiums for riders that chose to ride helmetless because head injuries can be very expensive. But because wearing, or not wearing, a helmet is so easily changed, it would be impossible to enforce.

Perhaps the insurance companies could refuse to pay claims for riders, that chose to get a policy for helmeted riders. and are injured while not wearing a helmet ?

 

That is my concern. Even if it doesn't go so far as "outlawing motorcycles altogether", they could require an exorbitant amount of insurance or impose other changes to make riding a motorcycle less appealing.

 

Fatalities are unimportant. The rider won't know he/she died. Nor will the rider know about hardships i.e. financial, emotional, etc. of rider's dependents that result because of accidents.

The REAL important thing IMO is a rider's life after they have survived an accident. And no one knows, or can know, how many incidents occur after which a rider is able to get up and ride, or at least walk, away because a helmet lessened their injury. Records can't be kept of the number of these events. I don't know if records are kept on the number of motorcycle accidents, that are reported to authorities, which didn't result in immediate death. All I have ever read is statistics showing the number of deaths.

I know that results of a rider's life, after surviving an accident, are not known. That would be too much to determine because it would have to include every facet of said rider's lives and take into account the potentials of a rider's life with or without an accident. And much of that would be subjective, not open to objective, determination.

Helmets are not meant to prevent "ROW violations, unendorsed riders, and alcohol use", they are meant to lessen the impact of those things.

 

I agree having an option is good. So is the freedom to choose. This is a good subject.

 

The great news is that no one will ever tell you that you can't wear a helmet!

 

I actually passed someone cruising north on the Garden State Parkway about 15 years ago who looked just like that, except for an obligatory "beanie" compliance helmet. Flip flops, foot steering and all. Massachusetts plates, IIRC.