A rider died today

[fullmetalscooter]

Yep most whom don't wear them or wear fiberglass beans like the guy on the custom bike that pasted me on the right when I was riding don't care . Sad to see someone died for lack of hemlet. I m sorry for the people around that had to see the results and live with them.

[rocker59]

Originally Posted by Ritalin Boy

Next time you exercise your right to GET OUT OF BED IN THE MORNING, think not of what may happen to you but think of all the people who care about you or depend on you and imagine what it would be like for them to get the call or visit from the police to inform them you're dead. Or think of the young lady selling pizza who heard a horrific scream and got to watch a man die for really no good reason.

Fuck.

Fixed.

Living will kill you. No two ways about it.

[ABritOnMaui]

Originally Posted by rocker59

Fixed.

Living will kill you. No two ways about it.

yeah that makes sense, because there is a remote chance some things will kill you it justifies taking more extreme risks because getting out of bed is as dangerous as putting your wedding tackle in a lions mouth then kicking him in the love spuds.

What this boils down to is that some people just want to do what they want to do, which is fine, right up until the point it has consequences for other people. If you have rights you have responsibilities but people are quick to shout about rights, not so quick on the responsibility thing.

Honestly, I am ok with folks riding without helmets, its your call, but you have to admit it can have consequences for other people, you have to understand on some level we aren't going to be too happy when it all goes wrong. Be it if we are a loved one who just lost someone who otherwise would have lived, or somebody paying higher insurance, or somebody stuck on the wrong side of an island for 6 hours while the police have their investigation on the road because it was a fatality not an injury.

[John E]

a rider who's crashed that wished they hadn't been wearing a helmet.

I've crashed twice, both were low speed with minimal injuries to me and minimal damage done to the bike, hit my head on the pavement both times, I have absolutely no doubt that I would have been far more seriously injured if I was stupid enough to not wear a helmet.

[Ritalin Boy]

Originally Posted by rocker59

Fixed.

Living will kill you. No two ways about it.

Welcome to the party you douche.

I think we've found one who has nobody to love.

[NJ-Brett]

Maybe the states that allow you to ride without a helmet were low on organ donors?
Must be where a lot of organs come from....young healthy people with split open heads...

I have never hit my head street riding, but always wear a helmet anyway.
I do not see it as a big deal, it helps reduce noise and bug impacts.

[squad314]

I'm going to throw my $.02 CAD in here........I have ridden that stretch by the Funspot many times during Bike Week, all of them helmetless and loving every minute. I have also been a Firefighter for 24 years, many of those spent on a Heavy Rescue attending more MVA's than I could possibly count. Many of them have been motorcycle accidents and a number of them have been fatal. Because the Province I live in has a helmet law(Canada-wide actually) I have never attended a helmetless incident. Some of the incidents have been assholes acting as such but lots have been good riders minding their own business.......Doesn't matter, motorcycle accidents often result in severe trauma.

I am now on my second stage of motorcycling. After 11 years with no bike I picked up a beautiful Heritage Softail a couple of weeks ago. I have made the decision to wear a Shoei RF1100 when riding, matte black with dark smoked visor. In the past 2 weeks I bet I've been asked a dozen times "what's with the helmet". I think I'm still working on the answer but essentially it is just my choice. I enjoy the environmental protection offered by the FF(weather, bugs, debris etc) but I also take comfort in the added protection it provides. I really believe that reading ADV over the winter, particularly the "face plant" section has given me a deeper understanding of how quickly things can go wrong and the devastating consequences that result. Many riders who I am sure are much more skilled than I have shared their stories with us and some have stuck with me.

Perhaps at 43 and a wife and three kids who count on me I have decided that practicality is more important than image. Perhaps being the only guy I know who rides an HD with a FF gives me pleasure and scratches my internal rebel itch...... (I realize there are many, I just don't personally know any. On that, whenever I saw an HD rider going with a FF I thought to myself "now there is a guy who doesn't give a shit what others think and is just riding his own ride!")

I'm not smart enough to have the definitive answer as far as legislation goes, I'm just a guy that enjoys riding motorcycles but is aware of the hazards. I respect everyone's personal choice to wear what they want but feel strongly that they need to be educated and prepared to accept responsibility as has been mentioned previously in this thread.

I'm sorry you had to bear witness to this accident OP, it is obvious that it has impacted you deeply. As riders and human beings we all empathize with incidents such as this because for many of us "there but for the grace of God......".

Ride safe and have fun everyone.

[Krypt Keeper]

Originally Posted by Pantah

I say fuck them all. If they don't care, nobody cares. Not even those so-called loved ones. Motorcycles are mostly for idiots and the idiots have nothing to offer and nothing to lose.

Anybody into the sporting aspect of motorcycling wears protection because they expect to fall off the thing a lot. Fuck the others.

I don't expect to fall off my bike. I do however dress for the crash I might take suddenly. May chew the sides of my tires faster than the center and drag a knee here and there but there is a time and place for everything.

I do believe in freedom of choice, however not wearing a lid (full face Snell Approved) riding a bike is dumb.

[nick2ny]

Originally Posted by Forty Years Ago

I agree with you 100% but you know the ABATE folks are gonna flame you.

A week ago Sunday I went down hard on my pedal bike. Totally unexpected. Cracked my Giro helmet. Without it I would be dead.

Dead? Was your crash harder than these ones (particularly the last minute)? Cracking a helmet doesn't mean that the helmetless alternative was death.

[nick2ny]

Originally Posted by opium89

Do you also feel that being forced to wear a seat belt is "legislating rights away"? How about keeping kids less than 4' off of roller coasters? Driving (riding) on public highways is a privilege, not a right, and those highways are most often paid for by tax dollars. Can you provide one, single valid reason for riding a motorcycle without a helmet? And let's not hear that "freedom" bullshit either. You're just as "free" to drink a gallon of bleach too, but unless you survive, it's not potentially my tax dollars paying for the emergency services crew, and the potentially millions of dollars keeping the helmet-less on a ventilator, or worse case..paying to clean said person's brains off the public highway. Perhaps I won't worry as much if Obamacare makes it 2014 when the mandate kicks in, but for now, it's my taxes footing the bill for the 16% of the population who are too poor or too stupid to insure themselves. This might be a bit of a generality, but my guess is If you're dumb enough to be riding around on asphalt at 70mph without a helmet, chances are better than average that you're too stupid to have medical insurance either. At very least, Texas requires these Darwin Award winners to be bonded or insured.

In New York state, you aren't allowed to ride with a full-face helmet unless the visor is completely shut. What do you think of that?

What's your BMI? IF you're overweight, can you provide one, single, valid reason for being overweight? What if they took away your right to buy soda, ice cream, fudge, and fries? There's no reason for those.

[ABritOnMaui]

Originally Posted by nick2ny

In New York state, you aren't allowed to ride with a full-face helmet unless the visor is completely shut. What do you think of that?

What's your BMI? IF you're overweight, can you provide one, single, valid reason for being overweight? What if they took away your right to buy soda, ice cream, fudge, and fries? There's no reason for those.

Again, because we cannot yet deal properly with one thing we shouldn't deal with anything? Why have any laws then? Lets have one giant rights fest free for all with no obligations to do anything other than we want. We can all ride around naked snorting coke and blowing people away. It will be a riot!

BMI is a pretty meaningless measure of fitness, it doesn't take into account %bodyfat. My BMI is 24.3. Bodyfat is around 8% I think. If they took away my 'right' to buy crap attempts at fake food I wouldn't mind a bit. You are right, you have a right to buy whatever food you want, as long as it is only you that suffers the consequences. However, this country seems to consider responsibilities a dirty word. Everybody wants to talk about their rights, nobody wants to take any responsibility for their actions, not helped by an army of ambulance chasers telling them everything is somebody elses fault so sue them.

[nick2ny]

Originally Posted by ABritOnMaui

Again, because we cannot yet deal properly with one thing we shouldn't deal with anything? Why have any laws then? Lets have one giant rights fest free for all with no obligations to do anything other than we want. We can all ride around naked snorting coke and blowing people away. It will be a riot!

BMI is a pretty meaningless measure of fitness, it doesn't take into account %bodyfat. My BMI is 24.3. Bodyfat is around 8% I think. If they took away my 'right' to buy crap attempts at fake food I wouldn't mind a bit. You are right, you have a right to buy whatever food you want, as long as it is only you that suffers the consequences. However, this country seems to consider responsibilities a dirty word. Everybody wants to talk about their rights, nobody wants to take any responsibility for their actions, not helped by an army of ambulance chasers telling them everything is somebody elses fault so sue them.

(Sorry, I see above in this thread that you already had this conversation with someone, don't mean to rehash it. Also, I didn't mean your BMI specifically, rather that rampant obesity is the real cost that isn't being looked at here, and means your health insurance is crazily expensive, and that lots of healthy people are unable to afford insurance as a result, plane tickets are more expensive, etc.). I don't think we should deal with either through impinging on personal freedom. Rather than outlawing >16oz sodas (like they're trying to do in NYC), I think we should--and did--stop corn subsidies. I think the corn subsidies, advertising targeted toward kids, too much reliance on cars and workweeks that are too long, and not enough nutritional education... those are the problems, not the availability of soda.

Maybe it's because I live in NYC, but I think that laws are getting out of control. And it blows my mind that people want MORE laws rather than more education, etc.

Also, without a helmet i don't like cracking 35 mph, and with one, the sky is the limit. How does that figure into your safety equation?

-Nick from speedlimitzero.com

[Quedok]

We all make choices in life. Some smart, some not so smart. He made one of those "not so smart" choices that he can't take back. It effects many people. Relatives, co-workers, friends and complete strangers. Tragedy strikes everyday and we as humans take risks.
His choice to ride without a helmet and gun his bike was a risk that cost him his life. I doubt very much if he even thought about it. He probably just did it. It might not have been "his time" but he made it his time by a not so smart choice.
Still, it's very sad.

[g®eg]

Originally Posted by nick2ny

In New York state, you aren't allowed to ride with a full-face helmet unless the visor is completely shut. What do you think of that?

that's not exactly true.
you can be wearing Z87 compliant glasses under your shield w/ shield open.

[nick2ny]

Originally Posted by g®eg

that's not exactly true.
you can be wearing Z87 compliant glasses under your shield w/ shield open.

You're right. Is there any chance my prescription glasses are Z87.1?