Riding Without a Helmet

[Brntrt]

Nice, I down to buying only ABS bikes for the street, but I'm sure someone will jump on that pretty quickly. Don't feel bad, I once rolled a brand new bike off the showroom floor at dealer A on Saturday, and rolled it into dealer B on Thursday as a trade in. That one hurt a little, but life it too short to ride the wrong bike. Good luck with the sale.

Agreed

 

[Dirt_Dad]

Agreed

Of course I intended to say life is too short to ride the wrong bike. Sometimes my fingers are just a little quicker than my brain. It's a curse. Looks like you understood the meaning.

 

[Mike the engineer]

Wow. Riding without a helmet. Its a no brainer. Of course you should ride with a helmet. Not only is it protection for your head it looks cool. Just my thoughts. Ride safe all.

::010:: ::003::

 

[Madhatter]

i have spent most of my life in the concrete business, skulls lose every time.....atgatt is the way.... chicks dig good looking gear .... yea its hot, yea its cold, and sometimes inconvenient.... and we all make choices.... i choose gear.....

 

[Toto]

I did not read through this whole thread...but
If you are driving fast enough nothing is going to save you.
If you bump your head hard enough to break your neck, well the head injury without the helmet will probably kill you.
It is the medium to low speed get offs that may be perfectly survivable, with or without injuries that will be null and void if you crack your bean on the pavement and die. or worse , if you don't have a helmet on.
That's not saying anything about expensive and painful facial and dental injuries.

 

[shrekonwheels]

Not sure if it was posted up or not, but the Hurt report, arguably the most comprehensive study to date confirms that your odds increase with a helmet, as noted they are by no means a guarantee, but they help.
http://www.webbikeworld.com/Motorcycle-Safety/Hurt-study-summary.htm

I did my share of non helmeted riding when I was younger, I got tired of bugs, rocks, and of course the weather, for that alone a Full Faced Helmet is worth it.

 

[Balmorerider]

Don't know about where you guys live, but, here in Tallahassee, I see more guys riding without helmets than do. Most of the Harley riders that do ride with helmets seem to pick those half shaped things. Seems to be more show than substance. Anyway, this is probably a stupid question but, if you get into an accident, you might save your head but, your crippled to a degree that you don't want to live so, what's the point of a helmet? I once road around the country on my BMW, a disillusioned vet. Never had a mishap. Then, one day, in a small rural town, going to pick up a date ( my wife and true friend of 36 years), I hit a car turning in front of me going approx. 70-75 mph, I catapulted 30 something feet through the air from impact and landed. Landed on all fours. Never hit my head. Ruined my boxing career from shoulder injuries but, walked away. Which brings me to this. When it's your time -it's your time so, does a helmet really matter?

Riding without a helmet?? F-ING STUPID! So is riding in shorts, t shirt, wearing sneakers, btw. ATTGAT all the time!!

 

[JRE]

I worry less about the crashes than the debris I've gotten hit with while riding. Rocks, cigarette butts, bugs, etc. When I hear about single bike accidents where the rider "lost control" and wasn't wearing a helmet, I often wonder if they were hit in the head by something which caused them to lose control.

 

[Velvet]

Riding without a helmet?? F-ING STUPID! So is riding in shorts, t shirt, wearing sneakers, btw. ATTGAT all the time!!

+1 ::008::

 

[Balmorerider]

+1 ::008::
[/quot

Forgot to add this for "this-takes-the-cake-stupidity"....riders who have their helmet strapped to the back of the bike. Now that is a very special level of dumb!!

 

[timothy.davis]

Back in 1978 I was riding my 1976 KZ 900. I was very fatigued from hours of riding and stopped to get some coffee. Resuming riding I was doing pretty well until the road turned left and the kick stand I had failed to put up objected. I am not sure fast I was going when the bike hit the ditch and I was thrown out on the road. I remember the grinding sound of the helmet on the pavement then that brief moment of awakening reality before the pain starts. The back of the blue jean shirt I was wearing was pretty much gone from the elbow, across the back, to the other elbow. The skin underneath was pretty well gone too. The three quarter helmet I was wearing looked like someone had taken a belt sander with 50 grit paper and ran it from ear to ear across the back of the helmet. I am very doubtful if I would have had that brief moment of awakening reality if not for the helmet. Wearing a helmet and protective gear is not even a debatable subject for me.

 

[Checkswrecks]

In my one big accident, I was perhaps 500 feet from where we lived in LA when a Toyota station wagon coming the other way turned left across my path. I hit him immediately behind the back wheel, and have a flash memory still of looking down at the roof of the car. I landed on my head and literally cracked the plastic helmet I was wearing. The cheap helmet clearly saved my life in a typical 30-ish mph get off.


When my Mom had a stroke, the brain injury center we went to for therapy was full of young guys with motorcycle injuries and having had no helmet was a constant theme.



I used to have a helmet with the chin bar and face shield horribly ground. I've been to enough accident scenes involving facial injuries that I also know better than to wear an open face helmet.


But if you are reading this, I doubt you are one of the people who needs convincing.

 

[Mikeybikey57]

The whole helmet issue is a bit of a non starter on this side of the pond, as helmet wearing has been compulsory since 1973 but even before that law was brought in, I always wore a helmet. This was reinforced when riding home from work one summers evening and being first on the scene at an accident where a young lad riding a Honda CB200 had been t-boned by a myopic pensioner in a Jaguar.

The rider had no helmet on when he head butted the cars B pillar at 50mph and had died instantly. It could be argued that wearing a helmet may not have made that much of a difference to the outcome of the crash. However, seeing him laid on the road, his skull cracked open like an egg, with his blood and brain scattered over the roof of the car, the idea of always wearing a helmet when riding was permanently burned into my mind.

 

[squarebore]

This is a really old thread and probably a troll at that. A lot of people are too stupid to know what is good for them and although they may whinge at the time, their families are thankful when they survive because of smarter people making choices for them. If you don't like the rules of the society you live in, move.

 

[2112]

A lot of people are too stupid to know what is good for them and although they may whinge at the time, their families are thankful when they survive because of smarter making choices for them. If you don't like the rules of the society you live in, move.

::026:: well put. People need saving from themselves at times. Helmet laws are one of those times. Ignoring the obvious benefits in an accident what about natural phenomena like hailstones, how much would they hurt !

 

[klunsford]

I have riders all of the time make fun of me for wearing all of my gear. Don't care, I feel naked if I don't have it on and I enjoy riding so much that I would rather have the helmet and gear on that not ride. Be safe and don't tempt fate... I have been riding for 40 + years and a good portion of that on Police Motors. I have seen just about everything that can happen to someone on a bike. From skinned knees to many, many fatalities. Like I said, don't tempt fate. It is unsafe enough out there without doing things that won't help you at all... ::009:: I guess I'm done now... ::025::

 

[Ramseybella]

Jim,

Don't take this the wrong way but you stated as a "disillusioned vet".

I take it you have been in combat and when in that situation you take every precaution to protect yourself from enemy attack?
You never know when it's coming and it comes fast you get hit your FU**ed brother.

As long as I have been riding 30+ years three times no helmet on long open highway As soon as traffic starts building it was helmet time.

Stupid time I did this was in Texas from Florida to New Mexico on my 1100 Gold wing cruse control on sitting on the passenger seat and basically steering with my feet 90 mph, I thought I was cool 22 years old and being stupid. ::005::

Last crash was so quick I didn't realize my head hit something and busted up my right leg.

Seen one to many bike crashes in Florida, one guy completely lost half his head from his jaw up and his body twisted in ways I didn't think ones body could.. It was a wake up call..

It's hot it's confining and it's hard to see but damn sure can save your brain from the food processor..

I am a helmet user and I will never argue with folks that wish not to use one, I just let them find out the hard way or loos a friend or family member.

Or go to a VA hospital and see the poor guys who sustained head trauma from IED's it's the same damn thing.

 

[trikepilot]

Not certain I see much of an issue here. Wear your helmet or don't - but accept the responsibility and the consequences of the decision.

Helmet laws just make Darwin work a touch harder. I have always ridden ATGATT by choice and now that I work in the OR witnessing folks being put back together with some frequency... that is not likely to ever change.

 

[EricV]

Congrats to Mike the Engineer for re-trolling a 4 year old thread. ::012:: good job Mike, ya hooked a bunch of 'em. If it wasn't intentional, please double check the dates on the last post before adding a new reply.

The OP made the following statement

Anyway, this is probably a stupid question but, if you get into an accident, you might save your head but, your crippled to a degree that you don't want to live so, what's the point of a helmet?

If you crash so badly that you're crippled to a degree you don't want to live, you were probably doing something incredibly dumb or not paying attention to your surroundings. Sure, stuff happens. I've had deer strikes and cars w/o brake lights stop suddenly, right when I was doing a head check to see if the other lane was clear, and other stuff. But some of my decisions made things worse, others better. Thankfully I've learned to make better decisions.

As an ATGATT rider since about '93, and someone that spent a decade before that riding w/o helmets, I've come to look at it like this: We are the end result of all of our decisions. "your time" is a result of those decisions too. The decision on what route to take, what bike to take, how you ride, what gear you wear and just to take a left instead of a right at that intersection coming up... all of those lead to that moment. Motorcycling is a dangerous activity. Most of us appreciate that there are things we can do to increase the odds of us coming home safely. Rider training, good protective gear, maintenance on the bike, etc. are all tools we use to push those odds up in our favor more.

In Greek mythology, the three sisters known as the Three Fates or Moirai; Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos each had a task; Clotho wove the thread of a person's life out of the ether, Lachesis measured out the length of the thread, but it was Atropos that cut the thread. How long the thread was measured, and where it was cut was not a pre-determined amount, but rather a function of how a life was lived. Or the sum of the choices made, to state it another way.

 

[Goldwing]

I'll keep this simple.........I think its pretty stupid to ride without a helmet.