Posted on 02/04/2005 8:21:40 PM PST by FoxInSocks
RICHMOND, Va. - It's been a tough day for highway safety advocates at the Virginia General Assembly.
The House Militia, Police and Public Safety Committee endorsed legislation allowing motorcyclists 21 and older to ride without a helmet. The vote was 12-to-7.
The panel also rejected a series of bills to continue the use of photo monitoring systems at dangerous intersections in six northern Virginia localities and Virginia Beach. Those pilot programs allow police to use cameras to catch drivers who run red lights.
The programs are scheduled to expire July 1.
Another bill rejected by the committee would have expanded photo-red statewide.
The motorcycle helmet bill will be up for a vote on the House floor early next week. Similar bills have failed on close votes on the House floor three years in a row.
Yep.
Harley's have a nasty habit of being too bulky to get away from when you bail.
Not so much that, I never had any trouble getting off when it was the right thing to do... even ended up standing on the bike once.
It is back to two out of three multivehicle accidents being caused by an inattentive cager, the left leg is the one that gets it most often, by a slim margin, just imagine getting cut off by a left-turning cage...
Oddly, the extremities take most of the abuse, actual orthopedic head injuries are pretty far down the list. Even with a helmet, subdural hematomae can be a problem, (sometimes, a skull fracture is better, it lets the pressure off), because of the way the brain sloshes around due to the sudden stop.
I've never understood why motorcycle riders have to wear a helmut and Equestrian's do not. You know, if Christopher Reeves had worn a helmut.....oh, nevermind.
Yea, don't need to imagine that scenario. I've been lucky though.
Been rear-ended at a stoplight, not a scratch, bike totalled.
Been cut off by those inattentive left turners, a few scratches, minor damage to bike.
I wear a helmet primarily so I can see as I'm blitzing through traffic at 90. (watch the flames on this post!)
'English' riders have those fuzzy hardhats...
I think helmets should be required for driving in a car as well. I mean, it's safer. And a nationally mandated 35mph speed limit too.
I have been down going forwards and backwards, never got tagged by another vehicle, but that was one of the times I laid it down--to keep from getting plastered.
Three stitches in my cheek (my glasses frame caught the road and cut me--my forehead was within 1/4 inch of the pavement--a helmet would have caught in the road and turned my head face down to the pavement or snapped my neck), and a little road rash, but otherwise no worse for wear.
I generally take my time and pay attention.
You funny! I can see Sammy Hagar singing, "I Can't Drive 35!"
Sure.
" they should all be required to make a deposit to pay for the body removal when they get hit"
That includes never handing over a deposit!
Yep, life sure is risky. I think we should all be forced to have risk insurance with ever increasing rates for every year we live, cradle to grave. That should just about cover it. Blackbird.
I wonder when Virginia is going to allow motorists to have radios in their cars capable of receiving microwave frequencies (i.e. radar)?
The driver, if not the passengers, must be kept in place by a belt or other clasping device. Airbags do not serve that purpose.
Yes, you are in charge of your own life. Of course when you use the PUBLIC roads it might be best that you have some sort of asset available to be tapped to clear your remains from the pavement.
The death and injury rates have DECLINED! Ergo, safety has improved.
I make it a point never to be the first through an intersection after a light change without first checking left and right. Yesterday a gentleman infront of me at a stop light had to slam on his brakes for a left turning bozo who failed to yield. When the light turned green, he turned left, right in front of the two traffic lanes going straight.
Well, that may be true. I don't think I have been susceptible to brainwashing techniques, but who of us would know, right?...:)
I have worked in healthcare for 20 years. I know why motorcycles are called, in the venacular of some health care personnel, "organ donor generators". I have seen the results of a little bit of road rash and a lot of cranial impact. Believe me, it is not brainwashing.
I personally think the sad result of of a brain death injury on a motorcycle can at least have some positive result if that unfortunate persons organs can be harvested and given to someone else.
However, the person who is only maimed, and requires 24x7 total care for the remainder of what counts as life because they didn't want to wear a helmet because it infringed on their right not to wear one, or because a helmet just doesn't look cool doesn't even have the redeeming quality of organ donation. What that requires is that all of us foot the bill for it, it won't be cheap, is is often, but not always preventable.
As I said before, I believe people should have the right to do what they want, as long as it doesn't affect or hurt others. If they want to hang from the ceiling while fornicating with goats, if it doen't hurt me, I don't care.
For society to pay the cost of what is often a preventable crippling injury caused by the refusal to wear a helmet, falls out of the category of freedom. We are being forced financially to support the burden of someone else's idea of freedom. And that is not freedom.
Just my opinion, yours may vary.
Personally, after 10 years of riding BSA's, Triumph's, BMW's, dirt bikes, and Honda Dreams - and including two years total as a paid motorcycle messenger - I have second thoughts about riding again.
It's not that I don't trust myself, it's that people in cars don't "see" motorcycles even when they're looking directly at them. Auto drivers are just not cognitively aware of motorcycles in the same way that they are of other cars.
In countries where there is a much higher ratio of bikes to cars (e.g., Asia) this isn't as much of a problem.
But I still want one of those new Bonnevilles.
If helmets are 'dangerous' please explain to me why they are used for motorcycle racing? Helmets have caused ZERO spinal injuries on racing circuits. Almost every racer takes multiple falls each season. If what you are saying is true, they would all be dead. Clearly this is not happening.
Well, now you have the liberty to be in fear!
Finally! Thank G-d above!
I worked for a motorcycle messenger company in DC off-and-on for a couple years (pre-fax and pre-email). 9 hours a day, 5 days a week in urban and suburban traffic.
One of the most important things you learned was how to properly dump your bike.
The fleet was all BMW's (refurbished R-90's, R-60's, etc). There were always one or more in the shop, and the most common repair was replacing the cylinder guards or valve covers, which on the horizontal-cylindered BMW tended to get bent or ripped off pretty frequently. Once I dumped, rode several miles, and felt my boot getting soaked with oil. Looked down and the entire valve cover was missing, completely ripped off and jagged metal where it had been.
Those old BMW's were robust machines, to say the least. The bike made it a couple more miles back to the shop.
Oh yeah, the gyroscopic effect of the horizontal cylinders made it easy to lean too tightly into a turn, another good way to scrape off your valve covers, your boots, and your footpegs.
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