Watch Your Head

Jacob Sullum | June 21, 2006

A motorcyclist returning from a rally sponsored by a group that opposes helmet laws died in a crash on Monday. It would have been a perfect advertisement for helmet laws, except that he was wearing a helmet at the time of the crash. (ABATE, the sponsor of the rally, emphasizes that it is pro-choice, not anti-helmet.) As the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration points out, "Helmets cannot protect the rider from most types of injury." They do reduce the odds of getting injured or killed, but they are less effective than seat belts in that respect. In my column today, I noted that it's not clear a helmet would have prevented Ben Roethlisberger's facial injuries, as many of his critics seem to assume. Even more questionable was the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's invocation of the basketball player Jay Williams, who suffered a severe leg injury in a motorcycle crash, although it's true that, as the Post-Gazette points out in the lead, he was not wearing a helmet.

[Thanks to Daniel McKleinfeld for the tip.]

Comments

|6.21.06 @ 3:48PM|#

You expect the PG to make sense? That rag is only suitable for keeping dogshit off the floor.

|6.21.06 @ 3:56PM|#

No, the ABATE rider's death is an advertisement against drinking and riding (as if we needed another -- here's looking at you, Kennedy clan!), not for helmet-wearing.

It's hard to see how Ben could've knocked out his teeth and broken both jaws if he were wearing a full-face helmet (the sort I have worn every time I've ever gotten on a motorcycle). Granted, a beanie-style wouldn't have done him any good -- except for preventing the large gash in the back of his head that caused so much blood loss.

Me, I advocate letting morons who want to ride helmetless (or seatbeltless) do just that -- but legislatively require they have adequate MEDICAL insurance to cover care reasonably likely to result. Also, legistalively limit their legal rights against others in accidents that result in injuries they could've avoided with those safety mechanisms.

|6.21.06 @ 3:59PM|#

Just in Breaking news. New york state says condoms are mandatory for sex. Plans for No-knock raids across the state.

|6.21.06 @ 3:59PM|#

"They do reduce the odds of getting injured or killed, but they are less effective than seat belts in that respect."

A helmet won't prevent motocycle injuries but a seat belt on a Motorcycle will ? This is getting silly, Jacob Sullum. I strongly recommend to people who are foolish enogh to drive Motorcycles on freeways without mutant superpowers that they wear helmets and Kevlar exoskeletons.
No, I'm not arguing for legislation but WTF ?
This is the kind of thing that kepps libartarians out of office - that was a joke. A JOKE.

|6.21.06 @ 4:00PM|#

So.... Williams should have strapped a helmet to his leg? Trying to figure out their tortured logic...

|6.21.06 @ 4:02PM|#

I thought a helmet was just a brain bucket...less for the DOT or coroner to clean up.

|6.21.06 @ 4:03PM|#

SM, most motorcycle accidents occur when some bastard in a cage pulls out to make a left turn right in front of you. Without any intersections, the freeway is one of the safest places to ride.

|6.21.06 @ 4:11PM|#

Speaking of head injuries, I am glad that Ann and the rug hummper seem to be gone.

|6.21.06 @ 4:14PM|#

That's it, we need to outlaw motorcycles. All you hear about them is how they are either causes of death and dimemberment costing taxpayers money, or else they are associated with low down hoodlums like the Hell's Angels.

How many more deaths and crimes will be needed before we remove these evil machines from our roads?

Jeff P|6.21.06 @ 4:33PM|#

Still waiting for the slightest hint of actual evidence that a pair of low-tension nylon seatbelts inhibits physical injury in a car crash...

MP|6.21.06 @ 4:37PM|#

Well, on another thread today I learned that we are all interconnected and that society is the way it is. So suck it up people and accept the nanny state!

|6.21.06 @ 4:46PM|#

Jeff P -

Have you even been in a head-on collision?

I think you mean to say "actual evidence that seatbelt use (or madatory seatbelt laws) contribute to a lower overall rate of injury or death."

|6.21.06 @ 4:50PM|#

Shelby, you had me until you began to demand legislation.

Let the helmet-less riders of the world self-insure! A few days being cared for by Igor the Knife out back of the Crap-City Bowl-A-Rama where the bikers go to drink and fight will do more to encourage helmets and safe riding techniques than any exhortations of the nanny state will.

It is like these idiot "mountaineers" who consistently put themselves up on some peak without proper training, gear, or even the slightest clue on how to survive the mess they have gotten themselves into; but then extend open arms to the eight million dollar helicopter and trained rescuers who show up and save their stupid asses.
Let a few more of them cut off their own fucking arms and maybe they will think twice.
Note that my solution does not restrict anyone's freedoms, does not require government mandate, nor does it "cost society".
Freedom has a flip-side: people have to take personal responsibility for the choices they make. The world is a dangerous place, if you choose to gravitate towards more danger, be prepared for potential consequences...including dying!

The idea that government must intervene in order to save us from ourselvesis anathema to liberty.

|6.21.06 @ 4:55PM|#

I wonder if Jason Irvine fully appreciated countersteering. I didn't in my early years of riding.

Shelby,

I switched to a full face helmet after a friend of mine dropped his bike at > 100mph (the bike was totaled, thanks for asking) and showed me the remains of his full face helmet.

MP|6.21.06 @ 4:58PM|#

cecil,

According to madpad, yours isn't reality based thinking. You must accept the eight million dollar helicopter rescues as an part of our interconnected social fabric and then deal with practical, not rational, solutions.

|6.21.06 @ 5:04PM|#

MP: If I am interconnected to some jack-ass who hasn't been endowed with enough sense to recognize danger and a) avoid it or b) be prepared to accept the consequences of it, than I guess I have been wrong all along...Now that I have that settled, I am going to do a BASE jump off my office building, land in a vat of lard, cross eight lanes of traffic on my hands and knees, drink a fifth of jack Daniels and call 911.

Old madpad really got you going, heh? :)

|6.21.06 @ 5:32PM|#

Okay, Ann Coulter's gone, but I'm still getting the carpet-humper AND now a bonus ad for some group that wants me to save the UN. Wouldn't the best way to save the UN be to float it out into the Hudson and sink the whole stinking, filthy thing?

Jeff P|6.21.06 @ 5:50PM|#

dlc: I have been in two head on collisions, and two at other angles. Each in a different car. Each car I've owned (including the current one) have seatbelts that, even when adjusted to their snuggest setting (and I am by no means a thin man) can be extended to the steering wheel with a simply hook of the thumb and a little pull. The shoulder belts are even worse, as I can reach to the opposite side of the car while it's on.
Wedging suspenders into the stem of the head rest would provide more tension/stopping power. Even better, install a built-in restraint vest into the seat material. Anything but the current system. They are useless. And every bit of gov't data on line throws out mildly lowered injury numbers instead of explaining how the things are supposed to work.
I will concur that they keep you in your seat if you roll over, but that's it.

|6.21.06 @ 5:58PM|#

Each car I've owned (including the current one) have seatbelts that, even when adjusted to their snuggest setting (and I am by no means a thin man) can be extended to the steering wheel with a simply hook of the thumb and a little pull. The shoulder belts are even worse, as I can reach to the opposite side of the car while it's on.
Is this a joke? Or do you honestly not know how seatbelts actually work? Yes indeedy you can pull the damn belt halfway across the car with a gentle pull. It's designed that way so you can move around while wearing it.

Have you tried a hard yank? It locks the belt right up. I got into a lovely 50mph crash on a freeway a few years ago. I had the benefit of an airbag (was in the front passenger seat). My cousin, riding in the back, had only her seatbelt. I can assure you -- by the deep bruising alone -- that her seatbelt locked and held her in place.

How the hell can you have actually driven with a seatbelt and NOT know the bare basics of how they work? Do you just not ever use it? That's all I can think of -- you can't wear a seatbelt for more than a few days without noticing that a hard yank locks the belt.

Audio-motor reflex|6.21.06 @ 5:59PM|#

Uhh look, I don't know if you guys ever played with seat belts as a kid, but even the modern ones all work the same way.

When the belt is pulled out of the retractor roller at an extremely rapid speed, a centrifugal brake kicks in on the roller good for about 3000 pounds of force. The belt is held tight.

If you sit in a car and throw yourself at the steering wheel at just the small speed your stomach muscles can muster I bet you'll see real quickly just how fast and tightly they can stop you.

But don't take my word for it:

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/seatbelt.htm

|6.21.06 @ 6:07PM|#

If they want to ride without helmets, I say let them. Modern Darwinism at work. We need to dispose of the idiots somehow (damn you modern medicine for making natural selection so difficult)...

|6.21.06 @ 6:27PM|#

Thankfully, I haven't experienced any head-on collisions, but I have suffered many severe concussions, resulting in a fear of cutting my hair short, lest my head look really lumpy. Does that count for anything?

|6.21.06 @ 6:40PM|#

smacky, uh, those sound like fractures.

(Sarcastic response to follow, based on lingering astonishment at madpad's chronic need for direction and nanny-ing:)
Maybe madpad's doctor can fix you up with a prosthetic skull at the taxpayer's expense. I hope so, because I would feel so diminished as a person if you are suffering due to the negative effects of falling off your barstool.

Thank you smacky, nothing personal but boy do I feel better. ;)

Note: I always wear my helmet when I get drunk and fall down. And sometimes when it is really hot out, I use it as a cooler too.

Jeff P|6.21.06 @ 6:48PM|#

Can someone explain to me why the info on that How Things Work page isn't on a single seatbelt advocacy page, gov't or nanny-activist? I have asked a number of car mechanics, safety activists, and other folks for an answer and have never, until today, gotten one.

However, I've been driving for close to thirty years, and never once has a belt "locked up" on me.

I am going outside to the parking garage now, to get into my car and give the belt a series of hard yanks. As he parking garage is routinely partrolled by security, I hope they do not see me doing this and get the wrong idea.

|6.21.06 @ 6:56PM|#

Cecil:

I agree with you in principle. I'd support the medical-insurance requirement because I don't see how we're going to get around dealing with the injured idiots -- and at least this way we can be sure THEY pay for it, not the rest of us. (This makes the - to me reasonable - assumption we're not going to start kicking broke, uninsured brain-damaged fools out of ambulances, rather than providing treatment.) This way, you wanna ride helmetless, you flash proof of insurance and go your merry way.

The other legislation I said I'd support is to prevent the externality of injured morons trying to make tortfeasors pay for the additional injuries resulting from their own decision. Sure, the car driver should be held liable for the harm caused, but not (say) for any head-related damage, if the biker isn't helmeted.

Pretty much all of the above goes for seatbelts, too.

|6.21.06 @ 7:04PM|#

It is like these idiot "mountaineers" who consistently put themselves up on some peak without proper training, gear, or even the slightest clue on how to survive the mess they have gotten themselves into; but then extend open arms to the eight million dollar helicopter and trained rescuers who show up and save their stupid asses.
Let a few more of them cut off their own fucking arms and maybe they will think twice.
Note that my solution does not restrict anyone's freedoms, does not require government mandate, nor does it "cost society".
Freedom has a flip-side: people have to take personal responsibility for the choices they make. The world is a dangerous place, if you choose to gravitate towards more danger, be prepared for potential consequences...including dying!

Snaps, cecil. I have been saying this for years. Every summer around here, Dr. Darwin manages to pay three or four house calls to fools trying to climb Mt. Rainier. Several hundred thousand dollars in rescue expenses later (park ranger overtime, feeding stations and command centers for rescue volunteers, op expenses for helicopters, snowcats, and other rescue vehicles), they find what's left of their dumb asses crumpled up in a crevasse somewhere. Invariably, they've got a passel of young brats at home and were the sole breadwinners for their households, too. Oh, yes. And no life insurance.

The press always treats them as heroes, and devotes plenty of column inches to promoting the obligatory fundraisers for the grieving and unfortunately fecund widows. And then, on the same page of the paper (no joke, they did this one summer in the P.I.), they'll publish yet another snottygram from the sanctimonious Lifestyle Police about how junk food should be regulated like oxycontin because fatties are costing us money. Cognitive dissonance much?

I'm a fatty, and my mountain-climbing co-worker has been to the doctor more times in the last year than I've been in ten years. She's had four surgeries since I started work here, all for stuff she's ripped up and broken off during climbs. But yeah, her enjoyment of mountain climbing makes her a real f*ckin' hero, while my enjoyment of crab-stuffed salmon makes me the scourge of humanity. Makes perfect sense.

|6.21.06 @ 7:05PM|#

Now that I have that settled, I am going to do a BASE jump off my office building, land in a vat of lard, cross eight lanes of traffic on my hands and knees, drink a fifth of jack Daniels and call 911.

Cecil, you have to be smoking unfiltered Marlboros while you are doing this.

Seriously, Jeff, you've never had a seatbelt "seize up" on you, requiring you to unbuckle/rebuckle in order to restore oxygen to your brain? You must drive like a granny. Try going someplace where there are no other cars, and stomp on the brakes in an emergency stop.

|6.21.06 @ 7:09PM|#

Shelby, I think that the idiots should be kicked out of an ambulance for which they have no money, no insurance, or no family to pay for the services. The costs should be borne by those individuals who support the idiot's choice to ride w/o a helmet. Bikers pay for medical care of a stranger? Bullshit, you say (and rightly so), but given that model, people would wear the things, don't you think?
Of course, we are ignoring charity hospitals and the significant sector of society who actually believe they can guarantee their own salvation by giving aid and comfort to such imbeciles.

With regards to the lawsuit issue, your underlying notion of justice and rational assignment of costs is right on, but I would point out that the problem with the lawsuits isn't their existence, but that so many of them are successful. The civil bar has stretched the common law notion of reasonable care to such an extreme that the doctrine of contributory negligence has all but been eliminated.

Note: contributory negligence is a doctrine that states that if plaintiff is found to be negligent at all, plaintiff wins nothing. No divvying up reponsibility, no coddling.

|6.21.06 @ 7:12PM|#

But yeah, her enjoyment of mountain climbing makes her a real f*ckin' hero, while my enjoyment of crab-stuffed salmon makes me the scourge of humanity.

zero, you just made my day...

|6.21.06 @ 7:13PM|#

I was with a group once when a guy had to be helicoptered out of the wilderness after he'd injured himself. (Yeah, he'd been doing something stupid, but that's almost beside the point.) He was presented with a nice fat multi-thousand-dollar bill for the rescue and medical services he'd received.

The rest of us had to pack the jackass's crap back out for the rest of the trip. I felt like submitting a personal bill to him for my services as pack mule.

I have no idea if the money he had to pay covered all of his rescue expenses, but at least the rescuees are expected to pay *something*.

|6.21.06 @ 7:13PM|#

Random thoughts on helmet use:

In the words of Jeff Foxworthy: What are a Redneck's last words: Y'ALL LOOK HERE WHAT I CAN DO!

Or, with apologies to the original author: THINK OF IT AS EVOLUTION IN ACTION

|6.21.06 @ 7:18PM|#

Zero- you are my f*ing hero for being so f*ing funny today! I am stopping at Winco for a big goddamned ribeye to grill up tonight, in your honor, I will drown my potato in sour cream, drink Bridgeport IPA until I am delirious with caloric intake and top it all off with a pack of unfiltered Marlboros.

|6.21.06 @ 7:24PM|#

"contributory negligence is a doctrine that states that if plaintiff is found to be negligent at all, plaintiff wins nothing."

Unless the negligence had nothing to do with the accident, of course. For instance, say I'm negligently speeding in Virginia (a state that uses contributory negligence, I believe), and a 747 engine falls out of the sky and lands on my car, I can still recover.

The thing is, (as I recall - I'm certainly no expert on tort law) contributory negligence goes only to causation - why the accident happened - and not to damages.

"Sure, the car driver should be held liable for the harm caused, but not (say) for any head-related damage, if the biker isn't helmeted."
Working out how much extra damage the lack of helmet caused would be a pretty tricky question (not to mention going against one of the basic principles of tort law).

|6.21.06 @ 7:31PM|#

Eion, you have brought up a good point to which I am now intrigued enough to try and resolve. I will do my research and return my reply.
That being said, ( I am no tort expert either), I think that the exacerbation of damages resulting from negligence on the part of the plaintiff can serve to reduce or eliminate damages, even if that negligence had no part in the causation of the event.
PL, can you help?

|6.21.06 @ 7:36PM|#

Eion, the example of an airplane engine falling is not a good one, if I can remember my MBE review...airlines and accidents caused by airplanes fall under a strict liability rubric. But, your overall point is well taken.

|6.21.06 @ 7:43PM|#

I am stopping at Winco for a big goddamned ribeye to grill up tonight, in your honor, I will drown my potato in sour cream, drink Bridgeport IPA until I am delirious with caloric intake and top it all off with a pack of unfiltered Marlboros.

Sounds like a fine Rabelaisian feast (minus the smokes). Bon appetit, man. Be sure and pick up one of these at Winco, too.

|6.21.06 @ 7:46PM|#

Jesus, zero, you are on fire today! LOL

|6.21.06 @ 7:49PM|#

zero, I'll get the fibrillator-thingy on my way home, but who is going to teach the whore I rent off of CraigsList how to use the damned thing?

|6.21.06 @ 8:42PM|#

Anybody remember the TV program, "Max Headroom"?
Didn't he have some sort of head-bashing experience?
Was the female romantic interest to die for, or what?
Wasn't she Kelly something?

(I'm also prepared to reminisce about the Professor Max Bicksford TV show starring Marcia Gay Hardin and ? Dreyfuss, that got cancelled too soon.)

|6.21.06 @ 8:46PM|#

"Thankfully, I haven't experienced any head-on collisions, but I have suffered many severe concussions, resulting in a fear of cutting my hair short, lest my head look really lumpy. Does that count for anything?"

smacky,
Have I told you I'm a phrenologist?
"Have Wildroot. Will travel."

|6.21.06 @ 9:21PM|#

zero, I'll get the fibrillator-thingy on my way home, but who is going to teach the whore I rent off of CraigsList how to use the damned thing?

I bet if you tell her after she's worked her magic that you don't have any money, she'll figure out how to work it fast enough.

|6.21.06 @ 9:28PM|#

However, I've been driving for close to thirty years, and never once has a belt "locked up" on me.

Perhaps Jeff has been driving old beaters for the past 30 years. For example, I distinctly remember that my Mom's 1970 Chevelle employed pairs of metal clips placed above the side windows to hold the shoulder belts. The idea was that you were to fold up the belt and fasten it to the interior roof of the car when not in use. Needless to say, the annoying and awkward nature of this system ensured that no one ever used the shoulder belt. Considering that the shoulder belt was non-retractable, we were probably safer without it - the thing would have likely killed us in a serious crash.

|6.21.06 @ 9:47PM|#

Jeff P wrote: "Still waiting for the slightest hint of actual evidence that a pair of low-tension nylon seatbelts inhibits physical injury in a car crash"

I was in a car that crashed into another vehicle at a roughly 30 degree angle and a combined speed of 40 mph. The car did not have airbags (early 1980s vehicle), but I was wearing the lap and shoulder belts. I walked away with a slightly sore shoulder. Do you think I would have stayed in the seat without the belts?

|6.21.06 @ 10:06PM|#

"if I can remember my MBE review...airlines and accidents caused by airplanes fall under a strict liability rubric"
I'm sure you can remember the MBE material a lot better than I can - of course, that's not saying much... ;)
I'm hoping to know it in a little over a month's time, and then forget it three days later.

The strict liability section of my barbri torts outline doesn't mention anything about airplanes - just wild animals, ultrahazardous activities, and products liability. As a common carrier, the airline certainly has a heightened duty to its passengers, but not to the driver on the ground.

I was going to use the usual "negligently maintained tree falls on speeding driver" hypothetical, but I figured that tort liability for a plummeting jet engine would be less contentious than for a falling tree.

"I think that the exacerbation of damages resulting from negligence on the part of the plaintiff can serve to reduce or eliminate damages"
There is a duty to mitigate damages in tort law, but my understanding is that it only extends to events after the injury - so if you're injured and you don't seek medical treatment, you won't be able to recover for any extra damages caused by your failure to do so. (Incidentally, this might well raise the same tricky issues as a damage offset for non-helmet wearers would.) I'll have a look into it.

|6.21.06 @ 10:40PM|#

Okay, vis-a-vis airlines, apparently strict liability used to be the norm (when flying was ultrahazardous), but the rule differs amongst the states and is moving towards negligence.

As to mitigation of damages, the imaginatively-titled "Damages in Tort Actions" says that "many jurisdictions have blurred the distinction between comparative or contributory negligent [sic] and mitigation of damages with respect to a plaintiff's failure to wear a seat belt". The law *seems* to be that contributory negligence states are less likely to admit evidence of non-use of seatbelts. Some comparative negligence states don't allow seatbelt non-use as a defence either, and some use it to offset damages (but it does not affect liability). Basically, as so many things do, it seems to vary from one state to another.

The Wine Commonsewer|6.21.06 @ 10:41PM|#

I haven't ridden in years but in my day I logged over a hundred thousand miles on pocket rockets. I can assure you that helmets aren't a be-all end-all but if it weren't for that AMA & Snell approved metallic gold Grant Daytona, that was ground flat on one side by the grooved concrete of the San Diego Freeway, there would be no Wine Commonsewer today. It looked like somone took a seven inch disc grinder to it.

BTW, It's really hard to get ground up Levi's bell bottoms out of asphalt burns.

I'm still against helmet laws.

Interesting that Hawaii has mandatory seatbelt laws but no helmet laws. Huge campaign right now to ticket non-complying motorists. CLICK IT OR TICKET signs all over the island.

Now, I really am going back to the beach. Really.

The Wine Commonsewer|6.21.06 @ 10:54PM|#

Wasn't Max Headroom played by Drew Carrey?

|6.21.06 @ 11:35PM|#

Nah, WC, it was Matt Frewer.

The hottie was Amanda Pays.

Kevin

|6.22.06 @ 1:28AM|#

Wait wait wait...I smoke Red 100s, and you're telling me that there are unfiltereds available? Give me the nearest store!

|6.22.06 @ 1:31AM|#

Mad Scientist,

"SM, most motorcycle accidents occur when some bastard in a cage pulls out to make a left turn right in front of you. Without any intersections, the freeway is one of the safest places to ride.

Sure, maybe that's a fact - there are all kinds of fools who should not be allowed to drive. But it doesn'nt hurt to wear praotection, right ? Yur less likely to get scrunhed on the freeway if you are wearing the HELMET and everything else.

|6.22.06 @ 1:45AM|#

I have my own medical. I carry full insurance on my my car, my bike, and my four wheeler. If I choose not to wear my friggin'seat belt, it's still only a $10 fine here in Idaho, and, I can't be stopped just for that. If I screw up and wreck by my own stupidity, I pay. If some other schmuck is at fault, he pays.

If I go without my helmet (as it is legal to do in Idaho) and wreck my own dang self, I pay (or die). If some other schmuck wrecks me, why should he not be resonsible?

BTW the nearest stoplight is 60 miles from here, so you might often see me or any of my neighbors flyin' down the state highway without any friggin' helmet. My only big problem is remembering to buckle/helmet up when crossing into Washington.

|6.22.06 @ 5:19AM|#

I get the impression very few of the posters on this thread have ever rode a motorcycle, with or without a helmet.

In case anyone is wondering, the primary reason a motorcyclist might *choose* to wear a helmet is bugs, not the law. You only have to slam into a swarm of juicy flies at 85mph once with only a pair of sunglasses on to get my point.

|6.22.06 @ 7:49AM|#

"The other legislation I said I'd support is to prevent the externality of injured morons trying to make tortfeasors pay for the additional injuries resulting from their own decision. "

By that logic, owners of BMWs should only be allowed the repair costs of a Civic. Why should the guy who actually caused the damage be responsible for the BMW owners' decision?

The choice of an expensive head repair is no more an externality than the choice of an expensive fender repair.

|6.22.06 @ 9:18AM|#

Next? Octavia Butler fell and injured her head...died. Helmets a must for all taller than average whilst in home.

Jeff P (typing with one hand, |6.22.06 @ 12:15PM|#

As a follow-up: I pulled at my shoulder belt with increasingly vigorous yanks until, finally, I got it to lock up.
Unfortunately I dislocated my shoulder doing so.

I hereby retract my earlier statements about saftey belts being ineffective, and replace it with the statement that they are actively harmful.

|6.22.06 @ 12:48PM|#

SM, it's definitely a good idea to wear a helmet. I always do (it's required in California) but even when I lived in Colorado with no mandatory helmet law I (almost) always wore a helmet. MC is right about the bugs. Insects, sand, gravel, and even rain are damned painful at 60 miles an hour without a (full face) helmet. If you're going on a long ride, you'll get a sunburn. If it's chilly out, a helmet will help keep your head warm. A helmet keeps your hair from whipping you in the face and becoming a dreadlocked mess. Helmets also reduce wind and exhaust noise, so that you're not deaf when you get to where you're going. Oh yeah, and they also come in handy if you get into an accident. But on the downside, they restrict your peripheral vision and muffle your hearing enough that I think you're less likely to have the time to react to a potential collision approaching from the side or behind. That added risk is probably negligible, but it's there. The worst thing about a helmet is that you feel one place removed from your bike. Trapped inside this little plastic sphere, you almost feel like you're playing a video game or watching a ride on TV rather than actually operating the bike. The more protective gear you wear the less you feel like you're the one on the motorcycle. It's difficult to explain. It's spooky. Your hands are insulated from the controls by gloves. Your feet are removed from the brake and shifter by boots. Leather pants and jacket keep you from feeling the wind your brain knows must be rushing by. You know you're out there, exposed, but your body doesn't feel like you are. After many a mile you get used to it. But one day you'll be in a gas station and need to move your bike away from the pump so that your riding buddies can get in. You'll putter 50 feet to a parking space without wearing the gloves or helmet. And you'll remember. THIS is what it's supposed to be like. It's only 50 feet and 10 miles an hour, but it's wonderfully different. Suddenly you're connected to the machine, part of it. The vibration in the bars is transmitted directly to your fingers. Your head is free to move in every direction. When you roll forward, the wind flows around you like your brain expects it to.

Even if there were no helmet law in California I'd still wear one 99% of the time. But every now and then, I'd like to go for a short ride without it.

Jeff P|6.22.06 @ 3:16PM|#

Any way we can make it mandatory for bikers to tuck their goddamned shirts in so I don't have to see their modern-primitive lower back tattoos when the draft pulls the fabric up?

|6.22.06 @ 3:58PM|#

Want people to wear helmets? Make the helmets cool. Like a Star Wars stormtrooper helmet.

|6.22.06 @ 4:18PM|#

I'm not sure how this affects the helmet law debate - Motorcyclist dies after hit by lightning (Via Fark)

Coloroda has no mandatory helmet law.
This man was wearing a helmet.