G oog le BadWeB | Login/out | Topics | Search | Custodians | Register | Edit Profile

Buell Forum » Quick Board Archives » Archive 0211 (November 2002) » Do YOU wear a helmet? » Archive through February 09, 2002 « Previous Next »

Author Message
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Blake
Posted on Friday, February 08, 2002 - 04:27 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

I know this subject has been debated ad nausium. I'm just curious about the views of Buellers/BadWeBr's. I don't want to debate helmet "laws", just whether or not wearing a DOT/SNELL approved full face helmet is a good idea.

Following are some excerpts from a similar thread on ATC's discussion forum...

Quote:

A hopefully thoughtful answer

Posted by Dan S. on 02/06/02:

In Reply to: Do you wear a helmet? posted by eco on 02/06/02:

I wear a helmet most of the time (a Shoei Synchrotech, a great lid for a guy who wears glasses). But not always. On some occasions I wear a bandanna around my head and a set of prescription goggles (real motorcycle quality, not the cheesy ones sold in the back of some bike rags).

I accept that riding with a helmet reduces my risk of head injury. I must, however, weigh that risk against both the reward (comfort, enjoyment) of riding without the helmet, the actual degree of risk reduction, and the remaining risk to reach my decision.

On that: the overall risk of being killed while riding is about 1/1000 per year (0.1% death rate). Having a license, some experience, and being sober reduce this risk by at least 50%, perhaps more. That gets me to 1/2000 per year (0.05% death rate). About 1/3 of all motorcycle fatalities result from head injuries, so if I assume that helmets are 100% effective at preventing fatal head injuries (an assumption highly favorable to the helmet), I can estimate that my risk of death drops to perhaps .036%/year if I always wear a lid.

But...first, I note that the risk of riding, even with a helmet, is considerably greater than the risk I remove by electing to wear one. I must therefore ask, if I am putting on a helmet to reduce my risk, does the helmet reduce my risk enough to make the risk acceptable? Is the risk already acceptable, even without the helmet? The annual death rate among adult US citizens is about 1%/year. So, by riding, even without a helmet, I still have a 95% chance of dying of something other than a crash this year (disease, heart trouble, cancer are the big three). To me this says that riding, with or without a helmet, simply doesn't pose enough risk to be at the top of my "modify this behavior to stay alive longer" list. (Note here that I don't smoke, I'm not particularly overweight, I exercise regularly and have very good cholesterol and blood pressure; otherwise my risk of death from "natural causes" would be even higher).

What about the "social burden"? It's largely a crock. The cliche of the guy who becomes a vegetable as a result of a motorcycle crash is mostly fiction--the nature of a motorcycle accident with head injury is that the victim tends to either recover or die. Most of the "vegetables" today are the result of botched surgery, gunshot, drowing or suffocation, not the kind of blunt trauma associated with a bike crash.

Further, if we accept the "social burden" argument for helmets--that is, you don't HAVE to ride without a helmet, therefore, to the lid should be mandatory to save society money--then we must also accept the same argument for the outright banning of all motorcycles. After all, 2/3 of the fatal and serious injuries in motorcycle accidents are to something other than the head (the most costly, of course, are crippling spinal injuries). Since nobody really HAS to ride a motorcycle, by this argument bikes should simply be outlawed.

And in a consistent world, if we're going to outlaw an activity that increases your risk of death by about .016%/year, we should restrict all other activities that are riskier--say farewell to alcohol, tobacco, fast food, etc...

As for insurance, I think it's unfair to single out this one activity for denying coverage. We should either develop an individualized risk profile and premium for each person (e.g., I pay relatively little for insurance against smoking-related illness, a littlemore because I ride a motorcycle, and a lot because my parents had heart disease--those hereditary factors are always the biggest indicator), OR simply average out the risk and minimize the overhead of offering insurance by giving everybody the same coverage (no exclusions) and charging the same premium.

That's my two cents.




Ahhhh, statistics

Posted by Blake on 02/07/02:

In Reply to: A hopefully thoughtful answer posted by Dan S. on 02/06/02:

Dan: I'm not sure where you got your stats. They certainly are scary. One out of every 1000 motorcyclists dies in a motorcycle related accident every year?

There is one MAJOR flaw in your discussion. The stats reflect the fact that the majority of motorcyclists DO wear a helmet. The death rate and the deaths due to head injury would increase SIGNIFICANTLY if no one were wearing a helmet.

Still, just using your stats as is...

For an even more sobering perspective try calculating the risk over a lifetime of riding, say 40 years.

With a helmet: 0.036%/yr x 40 years = 1.44%. That gives you a 1/69 chance of dying on a bike over 40 years of riding if you wear a helmet.

If you don't wear a helmet: Hmmm, well we don't have stats to actually tell us what the death rate would be. Since most riders do wear helmets most of the time we have no way of knowing how many deaths were avoided thanks to helmets. It is VERY innacurate and completely biased, but let's use your stats for actual head injury deaths.

0.05% x 40 years = 2% = 1/50

You would have a 1/50 chance of being killed in a motorcycle accident if you wear/don't-wear a helmet as much as the average rider.

I would offer that without helmets the death rate would jump from 0.1%/yr to as high as 0.5%/yr, five times the actual rate you stated.

Your chances of being killed while riding would then jump to 1/10 over a 40 year riding career. How do those odds look to you?

The bottom line like you also imply is that we are all rolling the dice no matter what safety gear we use.

I'll take the 1/69 odds and leave the 1/10 bet for others less astute. Besides, I'm WAY more comfortable in my Shoei Z-II, than without it. WAY too many bugs in East Texas to go without a full face helmet.

That said, I ABSOLUTELY do NOT want the guberment tellin' me I gotta wear a helmet!

Blake (veryseldomrideswithoutalid)




Regarding Statistics (long)

Posted by Dan S. on 02/07/02:

In Reply to: Ahhhh, statistics posted by Blake on 02/07/02:

My stats were taken from the state of Illinois publication on motorcycle death statistics. It's a few years old. The numbers have probably gotten lower since then, largely because the riding population has aged and old farts like me don't take as many dumb chances as the younger guys (in part because I'm more conservative, in part because I've gotten better at recognizing the difference between a dumb chance and a smart chance).

The important thing to recognize is that Illinois has never had any helmet law of any sort (not even an under-18 or beginner law), and by an informal count on a summer afternoon, at least half the riders exercise their freedom of choice. I may not agree with them, but the point is that this sample is not one in which you can say that "the 5% that doesn't wear helmets has 99% of the deaths."

Some other statistical anomalies that suggest helmet LAWS are ineffective--first, the AMA periodically publishes the deaths/registrations figures from all 50 states. If you run down and group them by helmet law/no helmet law, you find no pattern emerges. The average death rate is the same for both groups (some years even slightly lower for the "no adult helmet law" group), the variance is about the same for both groups, and both groups include states that are significantly above and below the average. In terms of statistical meaning, this indicates no statistically significant connection between helmet law and death rates.

A second statistical anomaly comes from a study of states that passed/repealed helmet laws, and again the bottom line is that there's no consistent pattern. Some states see an increase in death rate after repeal; some have seen an increase in death rate after passage; some have seen reductions after each event. Even stranger, some states have seen fluctuations several times the maximum estimated effect of a law--remember the rule of 1/3: if helmets are 100% effective, then passing a helmet law will cut the fatality rate by no more than 1/3, yet in some states the rate dropped by substantially more. Go figure. Again, applying statistical confidence tests leads to the conclusion that there is no meaningful relationship between the passage or repeal of a helmet law and the death rate.

The third oddity came after Wisconsin repealed their adult helmet law. The governor was not a fan of the repeal, and ordered the state police to keep statistics on cause of death and injury, particularly head vs. other body part, and whether the victim was wearing a helmet. Now, if helmets are effective, then we should see a shift in the proportions--the group wearing helmets should see a smaller proportion of deaths/injuries because of head trauma, because the helmets are protecting them. At the end of the study, the results were again no significant correlation--the fraction of deaths, severe injuries and minor injuries to head vs. rest of body were within 1-2% of each other for the helmeted/non-helmeted populations.

What's going on here? My suspicion is that there are other factors that are so much more important to motorcycle safety--riding habits, alcohol/drugs, fatigue, road conditions, weather, training, attitude, and good ol' random luck, phase of the moon (I am NOT kidding; there are more accidents on a full moon, perhaps because more people are out on the road when there's light at night), to name a few--that the benefit of helmet use is simply lost in the noise.

And this brings me to the major problem I have with helmet laws--they represent an "automotive" solution to the question of safety, not a "motorcycle" solution. By this I mean, the people who lobby for helmet laws like to draw parallels to seat belt laws. But there's a huge difference--the car is, in effect, a "whole body helmet," a two-ton (or nine-ton, if you drive a Ford Excursion) suit of armor. If you're properly secured (belts, airbags, etc.) that lump of iron can take a hell of a whack. There's no way you can carry such armor on your person. There is a practical limit to wearable crush zones (that's the padding in your lid) and it's about one inch. Compare that with the three-four feet of crush built into the front end of a car.

So it's my contention that "passive" safety technology (the suit-of-armor approach) is so limited for street riders that it's just about useless--yet, it is the government's preferred approach, because it assumes a passive population (and the government loves a passive population). Far more effective, in my view, is an "active" approach to safety, which involves training people to recognize risky situations and make the slight adjustments needed to stay out of them. We all know somebody who's ridden a kazillion miles and never had a crash (despite the cliche that there are only those who've crashed and those who will, there are a lot of people out there who simply rack up the miles and don't crash)--and some of these guys, it seems, never even have a close call! And it's not that they ride like wimps--a lot of them are on sportbikes and have worn the edges off their tires. What do they know that we don't? And how can we learn??




Missing the truth for love of statistics.

Posted by Blake on 02/07/02:

In Reply to: Regarding Statistics (long) posted by Dan S. on 02/07/02:

Dan: Besides ignoring my point, you also fail to recognize that death isn't the only undesirable outcome that a helmet will prevent. A broken face, scrapes/cuts, chipped teeth, concusion, hideous disfigurement, and even brain damage are a few of the other undesirable consequences that a full face helmet is able to prevent.

You really need to try to understand my point in my post above. Using your statistics, death rates over a forty year career would be one in seventy for helmeted versus one in ten for non-helmeted riders. That alone should convince anyone of the merits of a helmet.

I wonder what the odds are for "serious injury" for helmeted and non-helmeted riders.

Also consider that what you are really saying when you state that "So it's my contention that "passive" safety technology (the suit-of-armor approach) is so limited for street riders that it's just about useless..." is... "I don't think I'll be involved in a serious wreck." Cause I think you will agree, that if you knew for certain that you were going to be in a serious wreck, you would elect to be wearing a helmet and full leathers at the time. So by not wearing a helmet, a person is simply gambling. It's that simple.

I agree, there are many OTHER factors affecting death rates for motorcycle riders. The best solution is to avoid a wreck in the first place right? But that is really a separate issue.

Like I said, while I choose to almost always wear a full face helmet, I am NO proponent of helmet laws. Let freedom reign!

I've had one serious wreck in my 24 year riding career; my dad has had one also. In both cases our helmets saved our noggins from significant injury. His probably saved his life.

Trying to justify the use of helmets by spouting statistics is silly. Use your common sense man. If your head is at risk of hitting something at high speed, it's probably worth having a helmet to protect your face and head.

You are not seeing the forest, just dwelling on the trees. Forget the helmet law studies and their statistics. There is so much more to logic and prudence than vague statistics. For the stats to be meaningful, we'd have to know the percentage of accidents for helmeted/non-helmeted riders for a significant population sample over a significant (more than one year?) duration. We would need to know how many total riders our data includes and the total miles ridden. There's no real way to responsibly take the few stats you've profered to a responsible conclusion.

I saw a kid fall 3 feet from a railing and crack his head open, nearly killed him. If he had been wearing a helmet, he would have walked away laughing about it. You are a smart guy, weigh the risks; if riding helmetless is worth the risk to you, then by all means do it. But, please don't delude yourself into believing that you are not significantly increasing your risk for serious injury or death.

This is a good discussion. I think I'll start a similar thread on the BadWeB quick board.

Later,

Blake
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Buelliedan
Posted on Friday, February 08, 2002 - 05:22 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

well you already saw my views over at ATC. Having watched Arvel go down hard and be saved by his helmet I am a firm believer in their effectiveness. Plus having another friend also walk away from a bad crash as well as my own crash experience recently I always wear a helmet now.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Blake
Posted on Friday, February 08, 2002 - 06:38 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

Well, I didn't read ALL the thread on ATC. My mouse clicking finger cramped up before I got through them all.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Road_Thing
Posted on Friday, February 08, 2002 - 06:53 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

Do I wear a helmet?

Yes, invariably, even when just making a quick tune-up lap around the block. When on the FLHR, I normally ride with an open-face, but on everything else, it's full-face Shoei all the time. It's a habit I've acquired in 35 years of riding. I'm just not comfortable without one. And, as Blake will attest, we have bugs the size of hummingbirds down here in Texas, which makes the face shield (or the windshield on the Road Thing) a must-have item. I have had one fairly serious accident in my motorcycling career. I center-punched a Civic on a CB900F in Bakersfield about 15 years ago. Crash tested a Bell Star, and it passed. No injuries to the meatware. Damage to the vehicles? Call it a draw...

Having said all that, I think the decision to helmet or not ought to rest with the adult rider-it's his head, after all. I can go with requiring minors to wear helmets, to try to increase their odds of surviving their "apprenticeship" as riders, but that's about all the legislation I think we should have.

I also don't buy the "social cost" argument, for most of the same reasons expressed above.

My other "all the time" items of protective gear are boots and gloves. I'm not religious about the leather clothing, mostly because of the summer heat down here on the Gulf Coast, and also because a lot of my riding is leisurely cruising in the country-I'm willing to bet a percentage of my epidermis that I won't fall down on one of those rides.

r-t
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Elteem2
Posted on Friday, February 08, 2002 - 07:15 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

Riding my bicycle as a kid, I played with skidding thru turns make cool skid marks. I wound up unconcious on the ground with no real memory of the fall that put me there. At 16 riding a Honda 175, I took a street corner too fast and low sided. The helmet my mother insisted that I wear took a solid whack against the pavement.It scared me knowing what could happen going around a corner in 2nd gear could be much worse at higher speeds. I always wear a helmet now.

LT
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Spike
Posted on Friday, February 08, 2002 - 07:28 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

I wonder how much the statistics are affected by riders who wear "skull caps." Skull caps appear to offer zero protection from any type of injury. From what I've seen in states with helmet laws, riders who oppose helmets wear skull caps, and riders who agree with helmets wear full-face or 3/4 helmets. Assuming that riders who agree with helmets are going to wear a helmet even when the law doesn't require it, there would be very little difference in the death rates of states with helmet laws and those without.

In any case, I'll keep wearing my full-face helmet.

BTW- Anyone have any comments on the new Shoei TZ-1? I'm looking to replace my old RF700.

Spike
'99 Cyclone
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Xgecko
Posted on Friday, February 08, 2002 - 07:48 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

Do I wear a helmet??? YES I do every time I go out on two wheels. Lately I've been looking for a Full face bicycle helmet because I feel naked with my regular bike helmet. I've gone over the bars too many times on two wheels (most from a bicycle) to not know the good they do and I've hauled too many friends back off of mountain bike rides who refured to wear one. These days I won't ride with anyone who doesn't wear a helmet as I have seen too much of what the end result looks like (crime scene photographer). My choice is to wear a brain bucket.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Jb2
Posted on Friday, February 08, 2002 - 08:40 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

I have a Bieffe that I'm getting ready to make into a lamp. It has some serious rash that starts in the temple area of the left side and continues to the back side where there's a 3" crack through all layers of the shell. Another rider t-boned me at well over 60mph. The people who witnessed it said I flew about twenty feet and stuck to the pavement like glue with the bike on top of me. I rode away from the wreck...shaken...but I rode away.

Expressing and protecting your freedom is one thing. I'll stand in line to defend it with you.

But don't fool yourself... if you go down hard without a lid... you probably ain't going home.

JB2
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Kevyn
Posted on Friday, February 08, 2002 - 08:58 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

I wrecked once without a helmet, was found walking around in the street dazed with a goose egg lump on back of my head...ouch!

Wrecked again later in life with a helmet(Shoei RF 900)--serious rash all across the left temple area of the helmet...Uugh that woulda been my head against the pavement...

I like wearing a full face helmet...got a big bug in the eye(tore the glasses off) strafing a corn field and was instantly blinded--thankfully it was on a straight run with no other traffic because there was a serious loss of control at impact...

I like wearing a full face helmet of high quality with a good fit and excellent perepheral vision.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

FB
Posted on Friday, February 08, 2002 - 09:21 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

i've seen JB2 ride, and i don't blame him for wearing a helmet! (oh c'mon Jim, you ARE shop broke, right? :-)

when i bought my Buell in '96, i opted for a brand-new half-helmet, for several reasons. it didn't take long to discover that the air coming up off the fairing on my T'bolt would try mightily to lift the helmet off my head at speeds above about 30 mph.

plus, the grit and debris blown up by cars on the freeways (and the occasional big ol' bumblebee) made me see the light in a hurry, and a full-face Arai Quantum became one of my newest best friends.

i've done Sturgis twice, and sure enjoyed the ability to leave the helmet behind and cruise Main Street and Mount Rushmore and Spearfish Canyon and Deadwood a la natural.

i would prefer that i had the option of when to wear a helmet, this being America and all.

that said, i also believe fully that my noggin's gonna be around a lot longer WITH a lid than without, ESPECIALLY in "FFB" (Full-tilt Ferris Bueller) mode.

now then JB2: when you gonna install airbags on your fleet? :-)

XOXOXO, Ferris
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Blake
Posted on Friday, February 08, 2002 - 09:24 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

Where's no helmet todd? You still lurking todd? You know you wanna get in on this one. C'mon, be the first no helmet proponent in this discussion. I hope ole todd is still doing okay.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Jim_Witt
Posted on Friday, February 08, 2002 - 10:00 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

Blake:

2 mi nolage he hasent ben on dis site in years? R u tallkin bout dis Tod?

Cheers,
-JW:>)
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Loki
Posted on Saturday, February 09, 2002 - 07:47 am:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

I choose to wear one(full face) at this point in my life. Some years back it was another story.

I remember my mother saying to me "if you ever show up here without a helmet, you might as well go back home...." I was 28 at the time and had just seperated from active duty and moved back to my hometown. I tell ya, mothers, you gotta love em.

Loki
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Jmartz
Posted on Saturday, February 09, 2002 - 08:24 am:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

Oh great, my favorite motorcycle topic!

At 50, and having ridden since age 7, I will always ride w/o a helmet when I can. Since I live in a mandatory helmet law state that only happens when I attend motorcycle events in other states or when I make the 100 mile run to SC.

Until I moved to GA in 1986 I had managed through no effort of my own to always live in places where lidless riding was allowed. One thing was different though, the type of riding I did in the past was BT HD's choppers in the open road with no attempts to turn sharply or fast.

Having to wear helmets w/o choice renders that type of riding quite funless so I took on the style of this state. You get a "sport" bike, dress in full leathers, wear a full face helmet and tempt fate in the mountains. Lots of cars drive up there (this isn't the Ozarks) with many driveways and intersections and the way you advance on your friends is: CORNER SPEED.

I no longer drive slowly to enjoy the secenery, I'm too covered up to notice it. I no longer spend ednless hours cleaning the bike because riding with spirit has replaced posing. I could not care less about statistics feeling the wind is what I want and convertibles have a windshield.

If this activity is so dangerous the governmnet should outlaw it, along with many others. By the way, motorcycles comprise .25% of the runing ratio of vehicles in metro Atlanta at any one time, the fact is that the vast majority of head injuries occurr in cars but no one is proposing helmets for divers.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Jb2
Posted on Saturday, February 09, 2002 - 09:07 am:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

FB1, Yeah,...

- 3 Mopars in driveway. All have airbags.
- 3 Buells in garage. All set up for solo riding. No airbags allowed, not even you.
- BTW, are you still using your tail light for a skid plate or have finally learned how to ride a wheelie?

...I'm shop broke. :-)

Jmartz, So you only ride a Buell cause it's the "style of the state"?

I've made several accidental trips through downtown Atlanta. The first thing I noticed is I was the only bike on the road. Second, Atlanta is the last place I'd ride without a helmet. Third, a chopper is the last kind of bike I'd ride through that town. With all the debris(cans, fenders, tires) on the road I want the control a sportbike offers. That's just me.

JB2
« Previous Next »

Topics | Last Day | Tree View | Search | User List | Help/Instructions | Rules | Program Credits Administration