MattCanada has a manditory helmet law… I grew up with it, so I don’t have the same feelings against helmets that many people south of the border have.
Elwood (and others) make good points regarding natural selection / cost of rehab (it really is only half a joke, just look at insurance pay outs) / and personal freedom.
My issue with the personal freedom line is this:
By allowing people to ride without a helmet you are setting them up to “conform” to unsafe peer and media based pressures (gotta look good after all, don’t want to be laughed at, etc). It is really easy to say “they made their choice”, but how educated is that choice really?
When someone who’s been riding for 20 years and has seen buddies die, he is making an educated risk assessment.
When Young Buck gets on his new bad-ass ultra-cool bike, is it? If he ever needs a helmet, he won’t get a second chance. Lots of people “learn teh hard way” when it comes to leather. Fewer people survive to learn helmets the hard way.
And Young Buck isn’t the only person paying for his mistake. His family and friends will lose someone they love, for ONE mistake he made. Wanna bet Mr and Mrs Buck have a thing against “murder-cycles” afterwards?
I was recently reading a bit about helmet laws in another country… darned if I can remember which (I think it was a commonwealth country, not that that really narrows it down). Basically, helmets are required so long as the person is under 30 years of age or has their restricted/learners license. That seemed to me to strike a good balance between the two view points.
I was also reading that years ago 17 states revoked their manditory helmet laws following the “freedom” argument. I believe they say a pretty noticible increase in the fatality rates of motorcycles where other states (who hadn’t changed their laws one way or the other) hadn’t.
I’d like to find both articles…
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“The two seconds between ‘Oh S**!’ and the crash isn’t a lot of practice time.”
