Motorcyclist protesting helmet law dies when he hits his head...

The ultimate irony is in dying, he became a poster boy wearing helmets.

His ABATE brothers while shaken, still won't wear helmets.

 

He's sure to gain entry to this year's Darwin Awards with that stunt.

Does anyone remember a TV ad with a pumpkin being tossed out a car window? I don't recall if it had a face carved into it, but it wasn't wearing a helmet. The results were predictable: 'This is your head. This is your head on pavement.'

I'm all for mandating helmet use for riding bicycles and motorcycles - and maybe even cars - but letting the idiots kill themselves is tempting. How much is your head worth?

 

Most 55 year old men with unspecified family are no longer eligible for a Darwin Award.

 

Does anyone rempber the old Bell Helmet ads from the 1970s? Something like "If you have $30 head, wear a $30 helmet."

How about adding a line to that..."If you have SFB, don't wear a helmet."

 

This reminds me of the dude near the bay area, who after hearing about the Japanese earthquake and the approximate arrival time of the impending tsunami, went out to the ocean to see it first-hand, only to get swept away by it, and die.

 

The one I read about was near Crescent City, almost to Oregon. Sounds like it was nice guy that had been getting his life together after a rough start.
Dustin Weber, California Man, Swept To Sea By Tsunami And Presumed Dead

 

I ride every day that I can, and nothing would be better than to be able to do so with shorts, flip-flops, and sans helmet. In a fair world, helmetless riders would be able to do so without worrying about LEOs ragging their sterns about daffy helmet laws.
In a fair world, first responders should be able to roll their eyes and drive past a rider that's turned their motorcycle into a donor-cycle. In a fair world, there should be insurance exclusions for riders (and drivers) who do not use proper safety equipment. In a fair world, we wouldn't need a Federal Government that regulates everything from window tinting, to flush toilets, to mattress tags.
However (comma!)
The world isn't fair.

Deal with it.


Motorcycle safety classes teach the ATGATT principle. All The Gear, ALL the time. I personally HATE wearing long pants, boots, gloves, and a helmet every time I ride, but I've seen what happens to riders who don't....and it's not just head injuries that you have to worry about.
So......I wear what I wear, and I ride like I ride.

 

That man is a fool.
Who paid for that man's education? Remembering it takes a village to raise a child, now the village has to foot the cost of raising a replacement. That's one reason there are helmet laws, protecting an investment.

 

I got in a debate with my wife about this topic last night. She felt that it's their life and they should be able to do as they please. My point was that riding w/o helmet is being selfish to their family's. Working EMS I've picked up more than my fair share of injured riders w/o protective gear and each one was upsetting. Perhaps the worst was a 16 y/o girl who was riding her bike w/o helmet and died because she was hit by a car. ER docs and we though if she had a helmet on she'd have walked out innstead of being carried out of hospital in a bag.

 

I agree. If they want to smash their brains across the road (literally) then OK that's their choice - but what of the people who have to deal with it and clear it up!

 

I see helmet use more as self-preservation than as an issue of personal freedom. It seems strange in a way that safety has to be legislated and enforced against people's will - how many would wear a seatbelt if they didn't have to?

 

Was in Colorado last September. Blown away seeing people ride helmetless I understand that people want their freedoms. Must save people from their own foolishness or naivete like driving without a seatbelt.

If you go down, no way to guarantee your head will not hit the ground. I've seen the watermelon display. Been down on bikes twice, once at 8 yrs old with Father and once in first year of riding at 28 y/o. Neither were major accidents, yet both times, the helmet was a difference between and face that came out fine and once that would have been badly scraped or broken. The other 70,000 miles riding went fine.

Sold last bike year ago. It was full gear all the way. I do understand if in baking heat of most of rest of country, full leathers are too much. I only feel comfortable like this on two wheels, even wearing only jeans gives me the creeps -



ABATE - towards education? Yeah right. Why don't they educate what happens when you do crash without a helmet. Bet they wouldn't have a road or drag racing league where they're all helmetless.

The argument that 'riding with helmets does nothing to prevent accidents' is beside the point. It's not that helmets make one a better rider. It's about preventing or minimizing head injuries or fatalities. That makes a smarter rider. Geez, here in CA, they let them get away with wearing the little skull cap type of helmets, they're DOT approved.

It's your head fer crying out loud, ABATE. Your melon is no match for pavement.

 

Colorado (and the other three fully helmet law free states) won't be so for long. Whether we like it or not, health care laws are going to make it impossible to ignore the fact that helmetless riders burden these same states with increased medical costs...just like smokers, drinkers, and other people who engage in activities that place them at odds with the government number crunchers. Motorcycle riders still comprise a relatively small segment of the population (12 percent?), otherwise the Federal Government would have stepped in by now and "mandated" helmet laws as a condition for receiving federal highway funding, like they did with seatbelt laws, the national speed limit, and the 0.08 percent BAC limit, and others.
It's gonna happen.
The only reason that smoking and drinking are still legal is that they're revenue generators for the government albeit probably not 'profitable' ones.

Right now the population seems to be satisfied with a humongous system of 'womb to the tomb' regulations that control everything from baby crib monitors to funeral home licensing.
Funny thing about laws and regulations though.
People never seem to mind them when they're directed at somebody else. I’ll betcha if my beloved government were to mandate 4,000 pound curb weight for passenger cars as a ‘minimum safe weight’ or a 24" minimum bumper height, or (as will happen soon) noise generators for hybrids---then a lot of people who are indifferent to helmet laws would be allllll over their legislatures like a hobo on a ham sandwich!!

Helmet laws aren't my fight though.
I have to wear one, not because the state or the military requires me to (as indeed they both do!) but because there are two types of motorcycle riders.
Those who have been down on their bikes...
and those who are gonna go down.

I just don't want to get coloring books and crayons for my 50th birthday.

 

Well, he saw it first hand, didn't he?

 

Also, if they're not killed but just injured, assuming they don't have insurance (which is a safe assumption), guess who foots the bill?

So you can like higher taxes or you can like helmet laws. You can't dislike both.

 

LOL .... ooops not supposed to laugh at calamity, but ... LOL , hahaha.

 

I forgot where it was. Thanks for looking it up.

He sure did.