Feds say all motorcycle riders should be required to wear helmets

[Thymeclock]

Originally Posted by ShadeTreeMech

The law isn't to force those who have the wisdom to know when to protect themselves.

This law is to protect the morons, the young men, and the fools who also live among us and are too ignorant to know common sense or wisdom.

The Nanny State is not about protecting us from the actions of others. It is about the government supposedly protecting us from our own behavior. Government will forever dominate adults if it can take away their freedom to fail and interminably treat them like children, from cradle to grave.

Maybe you don't mind being dominated and treated like a child, but adult, free men and women find it demeaning and reprehensible.

[Frank Lee]

It's a line that needs to be drawn in the sand, as a total free-for-all is bad as is the opposite.

[ShadeTreeMech]

Originally Posted by Thymeclock

The Nanny State is not about protecting us from the actions of others. It is about the government supposedly protecting us from our own behavior. Government will forever dominate adults if it can take away their freedom to fail and interminably treat them like children, from cradle to grave.

Maybe you don't mind being dominated and treated like a child, but adult, free men and women find it demeaning and reprehensible.

If humans as a species didn't always demonstrate foolish self destructive behavior, these laws wouldn't have been made.

Adults act like children all the time. They refuse to listen to reason out of blinding pride. They don't know how to manage their money, eat too much junk food, and take drugs that eventually kill them. These are the basics of understanding our human race.

It is only logical that a gov't hired by the people to watch over us would make such laws. Were we not collectively a bunch of morons so frequently and so unwilling to accept personal responsibility we sue others for our own folly, gov't would be unecessary.

Sure I don't like feeling constrained by silly laws. But what do you expect? People are not collectively intelligent, they are collectively sheep needing a dog to herd them into submission and nip at their heels when they wander too far from safety.

[roflwaffle]

Originally Posted by dcb

The only slightly valid argument I have seen is that it increases health care costs, a very tiny amount. Far less than cars and drivers who are less able to avoid collisions in the first place and drive everywhere.

Don't forget about any increase in delays, time out of work, and probably the largest, lost GDP due to deaths that could have been avoided. That's the biggest reason (IMO) why most first world countries and even some second/few third world ones have some form of healthcare available to people who couldn't get it otherwise at little to no cost. Outside of sympathy cards and funerals, dead people don't contribute much to an economy, and dead helmetless motorcyclists are certainly part of that group.

[robchalmers]

I'm actually shocked that that isn't a law already! you mean in the states you can rind a 180mph crotch rocket without a helmet!!! NUTS

I commute on a pedal bike and destroyed three helmets on kurbs, streets and car bonnets - I wouldn't even go near a bike without one!

[Frank Lee]

5,290 cycle deaths in '08/303,000,000 U.S. pop '08= .00174%

[dcb]

we coulda kept some percentage of 400 of those dying and in rehab with helmet laws, wheres the outrage?

[NachtRitter]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

Just like for those "death trap" cars, here's some #s for bikes:

'07: 38.01 motorcycle fatalities per 100,000,000 miles, or 1 per 2,630,887 miles...

Unlike cages @14,000 miles/year, Kelly Blue Book says bikes accumilate 3000-6000 miles/year; NHTSA says 2411 for '00. Hmmm... well in the absence of better data I'll use the average 2411+3000+6000/3=3803... OK, 4000 miles/year, which is quite a bit more than I average.

2,630,887 miles/4000 miles per year = 658 years.

Bikes are about 10x worse than cages per mile (Car odds were 6,300 years of driving before getting nailed)

And yet, 658 years is how many lifetimes???

And that is why I oppose this proposed mandate as well. As always, wearing a helmet and other gear is always an option for those that feel the need.

Frank -

A few issues with your presentation of the stats:

• "Car odds were 6,300 years of driving before getting nailed" - while you can mathematically calculate it out this way, it is an invalid representation... it obviously can't be stated that way since no person or vehicle has been around that long and yet we still have fatal accidents now. Same with the motorcycle fatality rate... you're implying that a person would die of old age before getting into a fatal motorcycle accident, and yet all the statistics are for people under 600 years of age. The statistics are just that... not applicable to a single person, but applicable to the collection of all riders in all states under all conditions and all times of the day. An average, if you will. If we were to focus in on a rider that was killed at 16 years old, it would be a once in 16 year occurrence. If we look at a rider that is not killed as a result of a motorcycle accident (and dies of old age or any other cause), the motorcycle death rate is once in an infinite number of years occurrence (the rider was never killed due to a motorcycle accident during the year of the statistic, while adding to the motorcycle miles driven). Your own "chances" increase or decrease depending on how you ride, where you ride, what you wear, the weather, the time of day, the time of year, and so on.
• You're neglecting the non-fatal statistics. Traumatic brain injury resulting from an accident can be a worse fate than death itself. I can't claim that a helmet will prevent traumatic brain injury 100%, but stats do show it does help (see NHTSA report at http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811208.pdf).
• You're still using an argument "for" as an argument "against". As in "Yes, there were ~5,300 motorcycle related deaths in 2007, but that's not enough to make a law over." For you, that may not be enough deaths to be worth a law. For others, it may be far too many. Heck, some folks got their knickers in a knot due to 119 deaths attributed to the Ford Explorer / Firestone tires incident (Overview of The Crisis: Firestone Tire Recall-Ford Explorer), some for even fewer deaths. So if the goal of your post is to convince the reader that the proposed law is "bad", then IMHO you need a much stronger argument.

Operating a motorized vehicle in this country is not a 'right'. When you are issued a license, you are agreeing to abide by the rules, even if they change. Don't like the rules, you can either violate them knowing that you risk losing the privilege if you are caught, or you are free to give up the privilege.

[Frank Lee]

I can't apply the statistics to a single individual? That's what makes the numbers "real" and something to relate to. It's like talking about how much oil is in ANWR, or the national debt or something- the numbers are so huge and/or so foreign to our usual realm of experience that they mean nothing.

What is the best way to convey to an individual their odds of _______ , so that they can do a risk/reward analysis? Deaths/100,000,000 miles travelled is a fairly abstract and therefore useless metric for me because I don't have any relevant personal experience with 100,000,000 miles.

[roflwaffle]

Think of it like the lottery. A **** ton of people buy a ticket, but only one in a million, or whatever the specific odds are, actually wins, or in this case ends up dead.