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Archive through August 19, 2005Davegess30 08-19-05  11:00 am
Archive through August 17, 2005Henrik30 08-17-05  10:19 pm
         

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Mikej
Posted on Friday, August 19, 2005 - 11:10 am:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

There's already too much subjectivity in what insurance companies pay out for (some are way worse than others), I'd rather things get more objective and fair.
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Whodom
Posted on Friday, August 19, 2005 - 11:14 am:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

Dave,

That's a valid argument for this whole line of reasoning- where do you draw the line?

OTOH, why should my motorcycle insurance rate be higher because someone else is badly injured because they choose not to wear a helmet? Same for auto insurance rates and seat belts.

There's no free lunch; we all end up paying for some people's excercise of their freedom of choice.
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Jeremyh
Posted on Friday, August 19, 2005 - 11:22 am:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

More DUI's than ever before might have something to do also with the rate at which folks are pumping out the babies these days......its like they are breeding for a write off or something.

As far as insurance.........well.......GOOD LUCK because you can't do squat about it.
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Panic
Posted on Friday, August 19, 2005 - 12:14 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

My objection is not to risk, but to the involuntary and unknown assumption of risk and financial consequences by non-participants.
I'd also like to see many more statistically valid factors included in insurance premium, health care, and pension assessment, but many of these are "racist", "sexist", etc. (women live longer than men but get the same pension = more money back; gays currently have far higher health risks than straights; people with felony drug convictions have about 1/2 my life expectancy, etc.).
I see this as a huge social problem, not only because none of these things are being addressed, but because the current social climate increasingly favors this error. In some cases, OBESITY is now a (protected) "disability", IMHO smoking is next (after all, it's an addiction, isn't it?).
Isn't anyone here a bit peeved about "eating disorder" diagnosed as a disease? Want to lose your seat on the school board? Ruin your medical career? Alienate all your friends? Request the stats on anorexia and ask whether 99% of the "patients" are not spoiled, vain, shallow, silly over-privileged female children of above-average incomes with doting fathers? (well, perhaps only 98%). Then go shoot yourself.
However: except for almost complete blindness, uncorrectable visual impairment is NOT a disability (yes, they can fire you, no you don't get SS, no affirmative action, no special "limited capacity" jobs). I mean, it's only fair - not as if you had a REAL problem, like heroin, which DOES qualify you for public assistance and medicaid.
Many health plans cover liposuction, breast enhancement, rhinoplasty, tummy tucks etc. "to protect the emotional health of the (female) patient", but schizophrenia, dementia praecox, bi-polar disorder etc. are NOT covered - too experimental, too controversial, not enough popular support. Perhaps a few more Ann Coulters (psychotic stick-figures) and they might change...
These things have nothing to do with science or medicine, it's almost 100% popularity based ("will people like me if I sponsor this bill"?).
Until they do it fairly (never), I want LESS public money spent on the improvident.
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Oddbawl
Posted on Friday, August 19, 2005 - 07:21 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

I keep reading a lot about this "freedom of choice" Now I may be outta line (I usually am) being in a different country and all, but up here driving/riding is a PRIVILEGE not a right. You wanna play, you play by the rules. Common sense dictates I'm better off with a lid on my head while smacking pavement, so what's the issue? There are monumental "Freedom" issues facing societies all over the planet every day, and this is a pretty silly one if you ask me. Your energy is probably much better spent on one of the others.
On a more strikes home kinda note, no 23yr old guy should have to decide whether or not to sign a "Do Not Resuscitate" order on their father due to a PREVENTABLE traumatic head injury.
Don't do it to your family guys.
That's it, you can tell the Canuck to mind his own damn business now...
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Ceejay
Posted on Friday, August 19, 2005 - 10:13 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

Oddbawl has the only good argument for a law and probably the biggest reason for the implemetation of seatbelt and helmet laws, other than the all seeing/knowing eye, family, the only reason I started wearing one-had some kiddos, but I usually still feel like a detriment to society anywho.
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Panic
Posted on Friday, August 19, 2005 - 10:43 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

Riding will be a "privilege" that they can grant or withhold only when they stop extorting tax money from me to pay for the roads.
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Oddbawl
Posted on Friday, August 19, 2005 - 10:48 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

Try doing the ton in a 50 zone then tell me about what they owe you for paying taxes. BTW should people that don't drive get a tax rebate then?
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Chellem
Posted on Saturday, August 20, 2005 - 12:04 am:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

It's been said before on this thread, but I'm sorry, if I don't want to wear a helmet, I shouldn't have to. EVERYTHING is dangerous. Waking up in the morning is dangerous. Driving on the NJ Turnpike is dangerous - I think commuters should probably pay higher insurance rates too.

My point is, if everyone participates in dangerous or unhealthy acts, then everyone gets to share the costs. But what about, you say, people who never even leave their house? Well, houses can be dangerous - gas leaks, stovetops burn people, hot water everywhere, slippery bathtubs, I mean, it's a miracle anyone survives.

To those of you who don't want to pay for my head injury - ever had a few beers? Should *I* have to pay for your liver problems? Ever eaten a Big Mac? Should I have to pay for your diabetes or cholesterol or angioplasty? Unless you live your life PERFECTLY, then you have no basis to complain about how I live my life.
People should not have to sign their lives away for the PRIVELEDGE of riding a motorcycle, or riding a horse (christopher reeve) or skiing (governer someone). People live lives in a dangerous world. That's why we have insurance. That's why society allows for uninsured people. That's why it's ok to be fat, smoke, drink, and destory yourself.

If you'd rather live in a complete non-socialist capitalism, then I hope you never have anything bad happen to you at all. Because it only takes one thing.

Let me have some fun. Let me choose my own fate once in a while.

(And for the record, NOT wearing a helmet probably means I'll just die outright - it's those helmet-wearers who survive on life support.)
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Thunderbox
Posted on Tuesday, August 23, 2005 - 11:40 am:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

The helmet laws aren't there to protect anyone against those who have coverage for not wearing helments. It's there to protect us against those who don't give a and still don't were a helmet and there are far too many of those. When they get screwed up you can bet they don't pay. Tax payers do. So helmet laws protect the taxpayer indirectly. I like the law in Germany the best. Law says in a car you have to were a seatbelt and on a motorcycle you have to wear a helmet. If you have an accident and you aren't wearing the required gear then the other person who crashed into you is not liable for your head injuries even if he was at fault for the accident. When they get screwed up you can bet they don't pay.

Anyway who needs a helmet or a headlight or a brake light or tires that have tread and any number of things we have that are legislated. Get with it and wear a lid. Or maybe you are the kind who likes to take chances. Why not go down to the local brothel, on your bike without a helmet and do every body there without a condom on too. Life is to god damned important to waste it for a vanity thing like "I don't like helmets" I will think about you when I am still riding when I am 75 years old but not to much.
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Arbalest
Posted on Tuesday, August 23, 2005 - 02:11 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

Insurance USED to be about spreading the liability throughout a large risk pool of policyholders. The idea was that the payout would be less than the revenue generated by the premiums, less the overhead costs, leaving a reasonable profit. Insurance companies now write policies with the aim of AVOIDing risk. I actually had a Progressive adjuster tell me that their policy was to total every sport bike, thus taking them off the road.
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Nedwreck
Posted on Tuesday, August 23, 2005 - 02:22 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

I wear a full faced helmet coz I promised my mom she'd be able to give me an open casket funeral.

Seriously, I think that the wearing of helmets should be up to the individual if for no other reason than I can't stand for my government to meddle in my life any more than it already does.
Even if there were no laws telling me I had to wear a helmet, I still would still wear one, though.

Bob
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M2nc
Posted on Tuesday, August 23, 2005 - 03:07 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

The helmet law question is a tough one for me. I personally would wear a helmet most of the time, if there was a law or not. I also wear an armored jacket, long pants, boots and armored gloves, and still think I need armored pants (I have them for winter riding, too hot for NC summers). I have seen friends go down with and without protective gear and its not a question of surviving the crash as much as how much injury you sustain. Let's face it, a kid crosses the double yellow and you hit him head on at 60MPH, you are more than likely dead, but hitting a car that pulls out in front of you at 35mph, you will more then likely live, but the amount of gear will dictate the amount of injury.

I reference three cases where friends of mine have wrecked at slow speeds. In all three cases each friend was wearing difference levels of protective gear. NC requires helmets so they were wearing helmets.

In the first accident my friend was wearing an open face helmet and hit a car in the side that pulled out in front of him. One broken jaw later you would have thought he would of learned, but no.

In the second accident my friend was wearing a nice Shoei helmet, but no jacket. He was still learning to ride and pulled out into traffic at the same time as car pulled out from a parking lot across the road and behind him. He was distracted and ran off the road at about 30mph into a ditch where he high sided. One broken shoulder later, he now wears an armored FXRG Leather Jacket.

In the third accident, a friend following me down our favorite twisty road in the area. He rode to the outside of an obstruction on the road, got too close to the dirt and grass on the edge of the road and high sided at about 40mph. He was wearing a Joe Rocket Pheonix Jacket, gloves, full face helmet, long pants and boots. He pulled the bike out of the ditch and road it to a resturant where we trailered the bike back home. He was badly bruised and sore, but nothing broken.

I rode in Daytona with no helmet or gear because we were in town, riding slow and were afraid someone would steal our gear. I have to admit, it was much more comfortable in stop and go traffic to not have to gear up. I have talked to friends that stated it best, if I'm running down the street to the store, I do not want to gear up. So I guess I am on the side of letting the rider decide how much risk they are willing to take on when they hop on a bike. They are the ones that will have to endure the pain.
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Jlnance
Posted on Wednesday, August 24, 2005 - 12:54 am:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

I'm generally of the opinion that people should be able to make their own decisions. This makes it difficult for me to support helmet (or seatbelt) laws, though I would never go without either myself.

But I don't want to comment on the law, I want to talk about the decision. When talking about helmets or safe riding in general, I hear people say "I'm the only one thats going to get hurt." Thats only true if you don't have any friends.

Read the threads about Team or Gordon and realize that people would feel the same way about you if you got hurt or killed. So please, be careful.
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