Motorcyclist dies on ride protesting helmet law

[Evo]

There *is* a reason why you should wear a propper helmet when riding a motorcycle.

Police say a motorcyclist participating in a protest ride against helmet laws in upstate New York died after he flipped over the bike's handlebars and hit his head on the pavement.

Troopers say Contos would have likely survived if he had been wearing a helmet.

Continued...

http://news.yahoo.com/ny-motorcyclist-dies-ride-protesting-helmet-law-143217859.html

 

[micromass]

I feel sad for his relatives But really, don't wear a helmet because there is a law, but wear one because it is common sense...

 

[khemist]

Oh, the irony.

The second comment on the article:

I don't wear a helmet because there's a law, I wear a helmet because I understand physics.

 

[blade123]

I used to believe in the whole "let people do whatever they want, it's their life", but if someone kills themselves it doesn't just affect them.

What about a father? Should a father be allowed to ride without a helmet? It's easy to say "well, if he kills himself it's his own fault", but what about his children? His wife? His parents? His friends/brothers/coworkers?

What about an unemployed 20 year old? No responsibilities, but he still has friends and family. It's so selfish to ride with no helmet, because if you get killed, you're wreaking havoc and really screwing up everyone around you for no good reason...

 

[Evo]

Even worse, IMO, is if you don't die and become a vegetable or a quadraplegic, then your family has to suffer every day knowing you are trapped inside a non-functioning body or brain, not to mention the financial devastation.

 

[I_am_learning]

Even worse, IMO, is if you don't die and become a vegetable or a quadraplegic, then your family has to suffer every day knowing you are trapped inside a non-functioning body or brain, not to mention the financial devastation.

If you don't wear helmet --> direct death more likely
If you wear a helmet --> you become vegetable or quadraplegic more likely

What do you think?

 

[Jack21222]

I used to believe in the whole "let people do whatever they want, it's their life", but if someone kills themselves it doesn't just affect them.

What about a father? Should a father be allowed to ride without a helmet? It's easy to say "well, if he kills himself it's his own fault", but what about his children? His wife? His parents? His friends/brothers/coworkers?

What about an unemployed 20 year old? No responsibilities, but he still has friends and family. It's so selfish to ride with no helmet, because if you get killed, you're wreaking havoc and really screwing up everyone around you for no good reason...

Still shouldn't be a law. That's FAR too slippery of a slope.

Should a father be banned from eating cheeseburgers? Should a father be forced to go to the gym thrice a week? Etc...

Riding a motorcycle without a helmet is idiotic. It should also be perfectly legal, because it's a victimless crime.

 

[micromass]

Still shouldn't be a law. That's FAR too slippery of a slope.

Should a father be banned from eating cheeseburgers? Should a father be forced to go to the gym thrice a week? Etc...

Riding a motorcycle without a helmet is idiotic. It should also be perfectly legal, because it's a victimless crime.

No, it's a good law. It prevents people being killed, and it's an easy thing to do. Really, what's easier than putting on an helmet??

In the same reasoning, putting on seat belts should be a law. Really, nobody is being hurt by such a law!

 

[Evo]

If you don't wear helmet --> direct death more likely
If you wear a helmet --> you become vegetable or quadraplegic more likely

What do you think?

No. It protects your head, so brain injury is less likely, not more likely.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

No. It protects your head, so brain injury is less likely, not more likely.

unless your brain is fine, but your neck is broken. bikers should wear neck protection :D

 

[Evo]

Still shouldn't be a law. That's FAR too slippery of a slope.

Should a father be banned from eating cheeseburgers? Should a father be forced to go to the gym thrice a week? Etc...

Riding a motorcycle without a helmet is idiotic. It should also be perfectly legal, because it's a victimless crime.

Victimless crime? You don't know anything about how our system is set up, do you?
It should be a law because the population as a whole pays through the nose when some idiot gets killed or disabled through their own ignorance.

In the US, if you die, Social Security pays death benefits to the spouse and any unmarried children under the age of 18 years.

If I were to die each child under the age of 18, 19 if they are in school will get $1,552 a month EACH. My spouse would get $2,070 a month. The benefits are capped at $3,620.00 a month, but that is coming out of the social security taxes that everyone pays. That is a LOT of money to pay because someone was too stupid to wear a helmet. Healthcare is a whole other discussion.

So, yeah, unless there is a law that says that morons that don't wear helmets will not have death benefits paid to their family or medical care provided unless they can pay for it, then the law should be that they wear any gear that may prevent unnecessary death or injury that I have to pay for.

 

[rhody]

How ironic (and moronic I might add) I am with you Evo, riders call it, All the gear all the time, (ATGATT), I always wear helmet, leather jacket, armored gloves, (even in sweltering weather). If I am going for a long twisty ride, armored boots as well. Many long distance touring guys wear full leather as well, and some have gone down, and most have escaped without serious injury. The longer you stay on a bike over great distance, the higher the probability something or someone will get in your way, and in a bad way.

Rhody...

 

[Evo]

How ironic (and moronic I might add) I am with you Evo, riders call it, All the gear all the time, (ATGATT), I always wear helmet, leather jacket, armored gloves, (even in sweltering weather). If I am going for a long twisty ride, armored boots as well. Many long distance touring guys wear full leather as well, and some have gone down, and most have escaped without serious injury. The longer you stay on a bike over great distance, the higher the probability something or someone will get in your way, and in a bad way.

Rhody...

Yes, motorcyclists have nothing between them and the pavement, they need all of the protective gear available. Kurdt paid around $1,000 for a state of the art helmet, gloves, boots, and leather gear. You don't see race car drivers without protective gear and the protective units inside their cars. They want to be around to race again. As long as I am financially responsible for them (motorcyclists), they will wear whatever protective gear I can get made into law. I would just as quickly let dumb people go with nothing if I didn't have to support them and their family.

Seriously, why would anyone *with a brain* get on a motorcycle without a helmet? What, it's going to muss their hair?

 

[Ken Natton]

For me, the seat-belts issue is an excellent demonstration of the point. I’ve just tried to do a little web based research on the numbers, but the simple truth is, these numbers should surprise no-one. Before seat-belt wearing became compulsory in the UK, researches showed that six out of ten people ignored the advice to wear seat-belts. I have to include myself among that number. It became law to wear front-seat belts in 1983. I’m sorry if this next point is a little difficult to absorb, but statistics then showed that a significant number of front-seat deaths were caused by the victim being struck by an unbelted back-seat passenger. It became law to wear back-seat belts in 1991. The result is that the UK now has among the best car accident statistics among industrialised nations in the world. And those ‘best’ figures are that only about 8 or 9 people are killed on the British roads every day.

This from our Office of National Statistics:

The UK has a good record for road safety compared with most other EU countries. In 2006 it had one of the lowest road death rates in the EU, at 5.4 per 100,000 population. The UK rate was also lower than the rates for other industrialised nations such as the United States (14.3 per 100,000 population), Australia (7.8 per 100,000 population) and Japan (5.7 per 100,000 population).

Now, if you asked the average Briton to ride in a car on busy roads with no seat-belt, they would look at you with horror. Not because it is law, but because it so obviously an unnecessarily dangerous thing to do. Sometimes, a little nanny state legislation can have powerful results for the good. It should not be necessary to produce any statistics to support the idea that riding a motorcycle without a crash helmet takes that same point and multiplies it several fold – not in terms of raw numbers because there are far fewer motorcyclists than there are car passengers, but in terms of the extremity and the unnecessary nature of the risk.

I do accept that the raw costs to the state and to the health service of unnecessary injuries to people not prepared to take sensible precautions are a real issue, and I understand that tax payers have a right to criticize that. But removing the benefits or the health care from those not prepared to take those sensible precautions is not the answer. I don’t want to overstate the point, but it is one small part of the broader point that societies with wide inequalities are not peaceful societies. Visiting destitution and hardship on those unfortunate enough to be dependant on someone too foolish to take sensible precautions is not a course of action likely to make a better society. Surely it is far better to introduce a little legislation to protect the foolish from their own foolishness.

 

[I_am_learning]

Why can't we ban smoking? and Ban the cigrate company?

 

[turbo]

No. It protects your head, so brain injury is less likely, not more likely.

According to a study by Jonathan Goldstein, PhD, Professor of Economics at Bowdoin College, wearing a full helmet actually increases the incidence of severe neck injury in a crash. Such helmets are pretty massive, and the rear edge provides a fulcrum that makes it more likely that your neck can break in a low-speed crash.

Disclaimer: as long as it was legal in Maine to ride without a helmet, I did so. Full helmets reduce peripheral vision and rob you of the binaural audio input that can alert you to the presence and direction of threats like cars and trucks. Unless it was blistering hot, my wife and I always wore heavy leather jackets and chaps on every ride. If the helmet law had been re-instated in Maine, we would probably have opted for Harley's "shorty" half helmets. Such helmets allow you to see and hear pretty normally. If I had been involved in high-speed "track days" like Rhody, I would have opted for a full helmet with a chin extension. When you're on a track, you don't need your peripheral vision as much and you don't have to worry about some car or truck running a stop-light and cleaning you out.

As of the time of Dr. Goldtsein's study, the DOT helmet standards were designed around an anvil-drop impact speed of 13.66 mph as measured on a head-form model, with no regard to possible neck injury. I don't know if that standard has changed since then, because I haven't kept up. According to his study, motorcycle fatalities are not strongly correlated with helmet use, but are actually correlated with driver age, speed, and blood-alcohol content.

Past a critical impact speed to the helmet, which is likely to occur in real life accident situations, helmet use reduces the severity of head injuries at the expense of increasing the severity of neck injuries. We now consider the qualitative nature of this tradeoff to discern if a helmet user forgoes either severe or minor head injuries in order to incur either severe or minor neck injuries.

Bolding mine.

http://www.bikersrights.com/statistics/goldstein/goldstein2.html

 

[Ken Natton]

According to a study by Jonathan Goldstein, PhD, Professor of Economics at Bowdoin College, wearing a full helmet actually increases the incidence of severe neck injury in a crash.

Okay turbo-1, I am going to be very wary of getting into an argument with you. I will offer this and say no more. Of course I accept your right to respond, but I shall say no more.

My feeling is that the study you refer to was set up with a prior agenda and its results are not dispassionate. I have found the following two reports which I suggest are more genuinely dispassionate about the data they present. Of course I have chosen which parts of the second one to present here on the basis of relevance to the discussion. A link is provided so that you may read all of it for yourself.


http://motorbikeclaims.org.uk/pages/Common-Motorbike-Accident-Injuries.html

The most common type of motorbike accident injury is to the head - a closed head injury where upon impact there is a violent movement of the head which causes the brain to move around in the skull, causing damage upon impact together with stretching and squeezing the brain tissue and blood vessels.

Other common types of motorbike accident head injuries to bike riders are from shearing forces which involve a rapid acceleration and deceleration of the head (similar to whiplash injuries in a motor vehicle).

However it appears that the most common type of injury to the bike rider is to the lower limbs.

In a study in the USA the most common diagnoses of all motorcycle related emergency department visits were:

- fractures (27%)
- contusions (16.3%)
- sprains and strains (13.7%)
- open wounds (12.1%)
- superficial injuries (10.7%)

On average there are about 600 bikers a year killed on our (UK) roads and 7000 serious injuries. Head injuries are the main cause of death and serious injuries. A bike rider is 45 times more likely to be killed in a road accident than a car driver.

http://www.motorcycle-accidents.com/pages/stats.html

Motorcycle Accident Causes and Factors

In 2006 about 4,935 people were killed riding motorcycles of different kinds (see above). A major Motorcycle accident study analyzed information from thousands of accidents, drew conclusions about the causes and looked for ways people can avoid accidents. The "Motorcycle Accident Cause Factors and Identification of Countermeasures," was a study conducted by the University of Southern California, with funds from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, researcher Harry Hurt investigated nearly every aspect of 900 motorcycle accidents in the Los Angeles area. Additionally, Hurt and his staff analyzed 3,600 motorcycle traffic accident reports in the same geographic area. Below are some of the findings.

Motorcycle Accident Study findings:

16. The typical motorcycle pre-crash lines-of-sight to the traffic hazard portray no contribution of the limits of peripheral vision; more than three- fourths of all accident hazards are within 45 degrees of either side of straight ahead.

35. The likelihood of injury is extremely high in these motorcycle accidents-98% of the multiple vehicle collisions and 96% of the single vehicle accidents resulted in some kind of injury to the motorcycle rider; 45% resulted in more than a minor injury.

36. Half of the injuries to the somatic regions were to the ankle-foot, lower leg, knee, and thigh-upper leg.

41. Seventy-three percent of the accident-involved motorcycle riders used no eye protection, and it is likely that the wind on the unprotected eyes contributed in impairment of vision which delayed hazard detection.

42. Approximately 50% of the motorcycle riders in traffic were using safety helmets but only 40% of the accident-involved motorcycle riders were wearing helmets at the time of the accident.

43. Voluntary safety helmet use by those accident-involved motorcycle riders was lowest for untrained, uneducated, young motorcycle riders on hot days and short trips.

44. The most deadly injuries to the accident victims were injuries to the chest and head.

45. The use of the safety helmet is the single critical factor in the prevention of reduction of head injury; the safety helmet which complies with FMVSS 218 is a significantly effective injury countermeasure.

46. Safety helmet use caused no attenuation of critical traffic sounds, no limitation of pre crash visual field, and no fatigue or loss of attention; no element of accident causation was related to helmet use.

47. FMVSS 218 provides a high level of protection in traffic accidents, and needs modification only to increase coverage at the back of the head and demonstrate impact protection of the front of full facial coverage helmets, and insure all adult sizes for traffic use are covered by the standard.

48. Helmeted riders and passengers showed significantly lower head and neck injury for all types of injury, at all levels of injury severity.

49. The increased coverage of the full facial coverage helmet increases protection, and significantly reduces face injuries.

50. There is not liability for neck injury by wearing a safety helmet; helmeted riders had less neck injuries than unhelmeted riders. Only four minor injuries were attributable to helmet use, and in each case the helmet prevented possible critical or fatal head injury.

51. Sixty percent of the motorcyclists were not wearing safety helmets at the time of the accident. Of this group, 26% said they did not wear helmets because they were uncomfortable and inconvenient, and 53% simply had no expectation of accident involvement.

 

[turbo]

Okay turbo-1, I am going to be very wary of getting into an argument with you.

You shouldn't be. I'm not a nut about helmet laws, and I am not a member of ABATE. I think that given the extremely exposed conditions that bikers are in (WRT cars and trucks) we have to let bikers decide what is best for their own safety. It's not a cut and dried case like seat-belt use in cars. Hell, I grew up in a time when dashboards were made of steel and there were NO restraints in any US car. The first time I even saw any concession to safety was in my uncle's new Rambler, that had a padded plastic-covered dashboard. Still, no seat-belts, as I recall.

 

[hypatia]

They are getting ready to repeal the helmet law here in MI. Insurance companies are gearing up to provide coverage. My son received a letter telling him his payments would be $300.00 per riding month, if he chose not to wear a helmet, but would remain at $68.00, if he wore a helmet.

 

[turbo]

They are getting ready to repeal the helmet law here in MI. Insurance companies are gearing up to provide coverage. My son received a letter telling him his payments would be $300.00 per riding month, if he chose not to wear a helmet, but would remain at $68.00, if he wore a helmet.

How can they tell? About the only way that the insurance company would have any information is if the traffic-cop said in his report that the operator was not wearing a helmet. And then, they would likely refuse to pay for any damages, so a big win for them. BTW, few bikers in Maine wear helmets (young people and first-year operators are required to wear them, and some do, regardless), but every time some biker dies in a crash the newspaper reports that the biker was not wearing a helmet ONLY if the biker was not wearing a helmet. No similar disclaimer is ever made for the bikers who were actually wearing helmets when they died. Lots of the people who die in crashes are young people on sport-bikes, and lots of those are wearing helmets, but insufficient (IMO) leathers and who crash due to speed, inexperience, and/or inebriation.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

About the only way that the insurance company would have any information is if the traffic-cop said in his report that the operator was not wearing a helmet.

What, more than that, would they need? And I expect the policy makes it explicit that they would not cover injuries sustained while not wearing a helmet even if the injury were to the foot.

 

[Jack21222]

So, yeah, unless there is a law that says that morons that don't wear helmets will not have death benefits paid to their family or medical care provided unless they can pay for it

Sounds like a better law to me than a mandatory helmet (or seat belt) law. No benefits paid out to riders (drivers) killed or injured while not wearing a helmet (seat belt). I'd support that 100%.

 

[russ_watters]

According to a study by Jonathan Goldstein, PhD, Professor of Economics at Bowdoin College, wearing a full helmet actually increases the incidence of severe neck injury in a crash. Such helmets are pretty massive, and the rear edge provides a fulcrum that makes it more likely that your neck can break in a low-speed crash.

http://www.bikersrights.com/statistics/goldstein/goldstein2.html

Last week I saw that exact flaw in a drinking and driving study publicized by USA Today, so I'm sensitive to the need for proper controls. However, I'd be very surprised if that flaw exists in helmet studies, as I don't think they have to rely interpreting different populations in one set of data: they have before and after data. I haven't delved into this study yet to form a full opinion, though.

P.S. I ski without a helmet.

 

[1MileCrash]

He should have been wearing a helmet, end of story. It also isn't the role of government to prevent people from being stupid, end of story.

If I were a motorcyclist, I would always wear my helmet because I want to be safe, but I would certainly be against such a nanny-state law regardless.

Still shouldn't be a law. That's FAR too slippery of a slope.

Should a father be banned from eating cheeseburgers? Should a father be forced to go to the gym thrice a week? Etc...

Riding a motorcycle without a helmet is idiotic. It should also be perfectly legal, because it's a victimless crime.

Exactly.

Victimless crime? You don't know anything about how our system is set up, do you?
It should be a law because the population as a whole pays through the nose when some idiot gets killed or disabled through their own ignorance.

In the US, if you die, Social Security pays death benefits to the spouse and any unmarried children under the age of 18 years.

If I were to die each child under the age of 18, 19 if they are in school will get $1,552 a month EACH. My spouse would get $2,070 a month. The benefits are capped at $3,620.00 a month, but that is coming out of the social security taxes that everyone pays. That is a LOT of money to pay because someone was too stupid to wear a helmet. Healthcare is a whole other discussion.

So, yeah, unless there is a law that says that morons that don't wear helmets will not have death benefits paid to their family or medical care provided unless they can pay for it, then the law should be that they wear any gear that may prevent unnecessary death or injury that I have to pay for.

No, the correct answer is that social security should be replaced with individual investment options with no connection to federal government whatsoever.

Just because social security sucks doesn't mean we should automatically allow other things that suck solely because they prevent further detrimental suckage to the original program yielding the suckage.

 

[turbo]

He should have been wearing a helmet, end of story. It also isn't the role of government to prevent people from being stupid, end of story.

If I were a motorcyclist, I would always wear my helmet because I want to be safe, but I would certainly be against such a nanny-state law regardless.

The guy who died did not know how to properly control his motorcycle and flipped himself over the handlebars. He could have died even with a properly-fitting helmet. There is no way that we can reconstruct that.

I have been on the pavement exactly twice in 40+ years of riding. Both times from wheelying over backward on over-powered Japanese 2-stroke bikes. My wife and I have been forced off the road, forced into some pretty hard defensive moves, etc, by cars and trucks (and an ambulance) and we never went down. Maybe we were just "lucky" but some of those encounters could have been crashes if I hadn't had the ability to sense the dangers ahead of time (hearing and peripheral vision). Like I said earlier, I sold my last bike a couple of years ago, but if Maine re-instated a helmet law, we'd opt for shorty helmets or sell the bike.

 

[dlgoff]

I live a couple of miles out from the little town of Perry, KS where I became acquainted, down at the pub, with a Lobbyist for http://www.abateks.org/" headquartered in town.

ABATE? Never heard of it?

Think of it as the ACLU for motorcycle riders.

http://www.cycleconnections.com/articledetail.asp?TypeID=6&ID=295"
Anyway, he would spend hours at the state capital and was very active in helping prevent the helmet law from being enacted in Kansas (I have no opinion of the subject however). This has been several years ago and he has since moved. But they are still active in anti-helmet law.

 

[rhody]

I live a couple of miles out from the little town of Perry, KS where I became acquainted, down at the pub, with a Lobbyist for http://www.abateks.org/" headquartered in town.

http://www.cycleconnections.com/articledetail.asp?TypeID=6&ID=295"
Anyway, he would spend hours at the state capital and was very active in helping prevent the helmet law from being enacted in Kansas (I have no opinion of the subject however). This has been several years ago and he has since moved. But they are still active in anti-helmet law.

Don,

I liken your post to the feelings stirred by those who wish to protect their right to bear arms and who support the NRA. I have no problem in keeping a weapon to defend myself, for hunting, or sport competition. The same feelings are probably held by your Lobbyist acquaintance. His feelings are deep seated, almost at a DNA level if you will. He is passionate about his cause and his work helped to prevent the helmet law being passed in your state. That being said, as I stated before, I always wear a helmet, think it is stupid not to wear one, yet, unless his right not to wear one reaches in my pocket to pay for it, don't have a problem with putting himself and his family at risk to enjoy his "cherished" freedom of expression. As Hypathia stated:

They are getting ready to repeal the helmet law here in MI. Insurance companies are gearing up to provide coverage. My son received a letter telling him his payments would be $300.00 per riding month, if he chose not to wear a helmet, but would remain at $68.00, if he wore a helmet.

If the guy is willing to pay the 232 $ per month in order to enjoy his "cherished freedom", and is willing to risk putting his family at risk, and the extra premium he pays means mine with wearing a helmet is not going up, he is free to do so. I don't have to agree with it or like it. In the end, doesn't it all come down to: "interfering with natural selection" anyway ? Some of these people will be killed, thinning their numbers for the future, no ?

Rhody...

 

[dlgoff]

...The same feelings are probably held by your Lobbyist acquaintance. His feelings are deep seated, almost at a DNA level if you will. He is passionate about his cause and his work helped to prevent the helmet law being passed in your state.

Now for the big surprise about "Weasel". And I know he wouldn't mind me saying; him being proud of himself about it and all.

Before coming to Kansas he worked for the NSA. He said they did a great job providing him with superior training for his missions. Now I'm not sure why he left them (just decided to quit I think), but afterwords went to George for work but he had no other experience and couldn't get a job. So he resorted back to his training and started robbing banks. I guess he was good at it since he said he did it for years before getting caught. Spent time in a federal prison then came to Kansas. And the guy was a genius, IMO.

Off topic I know.

 

[rhody]

Now for the big surprise about "Weasel". And I know he wouldn't mind me saying; him being proud of himself about it and all.

Before coming to Kansas he worked for the NSA. He said they did a great job providing him with superior training for his missions. Now I'm not sure why he left them (just decided to quit I think), but afterwords went to George for work but he had no other experience and couldn't get a job. So he resorted back to his training and started robbing banks. I guess he was good at it since he said he did it for years before getting caught. Spent time in a federal prison then came to Kansas. And the guy was a genius, IMO.

Off topic I know.

Off topic again, you meant Georgia, right ? Wow, worked for the NSA, left for unknown reasons, can't find work, robs banks, doesn't get caught for years, then spends time for it, and comes to Kansas, lobby's for anti-helmet law and helps getting it passed, one creative thinker, way outside the box for sure. I bet a libertarian too, but that is just a guess on my part. Passionate, genius, quite an interesting character.

Ok, before Evo breaks out the banning gun, what about my last statement about interfering with natural selection, does anyone have a problem with that ?

Rhody...

P.S. I also wear a helmet while skiing just started last year, great placeholder for my HD Contour camera.