Posted on 11/16/2010 3:37:26 PM PST by WOBBLY BOB
Yes, we are very sure of our “facts.” They come from PennDot’s traffic reports.
Look at the source of the so-called “research.” The medical community is like the anti-gun community. When they run into facts that don’t fit their fiction, they create new fiction to generate false facts.
They did that to us for years, the legislators saw through it and got tired of it.
OK. Please post your data for the years prior and years post the 2002 helmet law change in PA. I won't hold my breath.
You really jumped the shark on that one!
You stepped into that one big time:
Statewide, the number of motorcycle deaths was:
156 in 2003,
158 in 2004,
205 in 2005,
187 in 2006,
225 in 2007,
237 in 2008 and
207 in 2009,
according to PennDOT.
that is odd since in FL they have gone down.
DOTs are notorious for manipulating data. ie if emt’s take off helmet for emergency treatment the accedent is recorded as no helmet.
You also have a cadre of busy body doctors who routinely lie about dangers to support their own personal agenda’s or solicit money for trauma centers.
Interesting that you quote an economist's opinion on the safety benefits of helmets. But you did a very bad job of quoting. It was 13 mph, not 16. Also, please cite where the good professor said that neck trauma 'climbs significantly'. Thank you.
Please cite your source for this 'fact'. Thank you.
Most accident helmet impact speeds are less than 16 mph. Helmets save lives.
Your comment is odd since data shows they went up.
http://ajph.aphapublications.org/cgi/reprint/94/4/556.pdf
Your statement is odd since in the years before the law change, deaths were relatively constant at around 175 per year. In the year it passed it spiked to about 250 (1/2 year with law change) and went to about 300 then first full year after. It then continued up to over 500 deaths per year.
Which is why they wear them. Motorcyclists who ride without will tell you they do not like the extra weight, heat, hearing attenuation, and fatigue involved in wearing a helmet on a hot summer day.
Riding situations change from the prairies of North Dakota to the more intense traffic snarls of major urban areas. Applying one-size-fits-all mandates does not address that, and in many instances makes as much sense as a one-size-fits-all helmet.
I don't have time to go through ten years of debunking "safety" studies right now (not one of which studied accident avoidance--the only way to avoid injury on a motorcycle), nor explain what 35 years in the saddle has taught me.
I just know that the one time I went down and had to seek medical attention, the problem would have been made far worse by having a helmet on.
As long as the fixation remains on surviving crashes rather than avoiding them, the problem of "accidents" will remain.
Maybe the NTSB should study more than six accidents before they reccommend mandates.
Which gets back to letting the people riding decide what they think is the appropriate safety equipment for them and their environs, rather than squander taxpayer dollars on foregone reccommendations based on ridiculously inadequate data sets.
Dear SeeSac,
And helmets kill and helmets cripple. Proven.
Ever hear of an injury called: Axinal Rotation?
Its where the helmet twists the skull so fast that the brain is severed from the cranium. End result, vegetative state for LIFE.
I’m really tired of dealing with med students who don’t know what they are on about.
I’ve been in this for over 30 years.
And you?
Tomorrow, I’ll dig through all my old stuff and educate a know nothing.
My cousin is a quad. Full face did it to him. Care to offer your expertise on how that happened?
Australia and England almost banned the full face without use of a NECK brace. Med STUDENTS got hot and prevented that.
Wear a helmet, get a HALO. Maybe you don’t understand the implication.
The heaviest part of your body is your head.
The weakest link in that chain is: YOUR NECK.
So lets put an additional two pounds on your HEAD and let it twist around YOUR NECK in an over the hood head dive at 50 MPH.
My guess is that you have never ridden except for around town.
Thanks and good night.
Dear SeeSac,
And helmets kill and helmets cripple. Proven.
Ever hear of an injury called: Axinal Rotation?
Its where the helmet twists the skull so fast that the brain is severed from the cranium. End result, vegetative state for LIFE.
I’m really tired of dealing with med students who don’t know what they are on about.
I’ve been in this for over 30 years.
And you?
Tomorrow, I’ll dig through all my old stuff and educate a know nothing.
My cousin is a quad. Full face did it to him. Care to offer your expertise on how that happened?
Australia and England almost banned the full face without use of a NECK brace. Med STUDENTS got hot and prevented that.
Wear a helmet, get a HALO. Maybe you don’t understand the implication.
The heaviest part of your body is your head.
The weakest link in that chain is: YOUR NECK.
So lets put an additional two pounds on your HEAD and let it twist around YOUR NECK in an over the hood head dive at 50 MPH.
My guess is that you have never ridden except for around town.
Thanks and good night.
From 1999 to 2003, we also saw changes in the riding demographic, as well as the advent of the cell phone. There was also a change in the frontal geometry of vehicles, to the more monolithic SUV frontal profile from a protruding bumper.
Keep in mind the cause of two out of three fatalities in a motorcycle and automobile collision is the failure of the automobile driver to yield the right-of-way, and do not blame multivariate causes on the presence or absence of a helmet.
Does your data indicate how many of the deceased not wearing helmets would have died from other trauma?
How about raw numbers?, it is easy to hide information behind percentages, as easy as it is to attribute correllative data to causation.
Sounds like you guys need some adaptation of the HANS device that the 4 wheel racers use?
It depends on the rider. I took my driving test on a big twin decades ago and passed the first time, and beat quite a few high performance cages light-to-light in the day.
Horsepower to weight ratio is still superior (even with CAFE standards), and I can go places the cars just won't fit through.
I'd say in competent hands, the Harley still can out-accelerate and outmaneuver the average cage--hands down.
HANS saves lives. No doubt about it. You are more in tune with reality than the nanny staters.
Salute!
BTW, one last post on this issue.
Dale Earnhardt was wearing a full face helmet. He died of a SKULL BASE FRACTURE. As I remember, it crushed between C3 and C4, causing primitive functions to fail. (To the uninformed, a skull base fracture is 100% fatal every time its tried; you CAN’T get that fatal injury if you are NOT wearing a helmet.)
He shunned the HANS protection as too cumbersome.
Wear a helmet, get a HALO. If you are lucky enough to earn one. And if you are, its yours for life.
Bottom line is this. A man consciously gets on a motorcycle with or without a helmet. It is HIS decision and only his decision. It is his head. It is his life and nobody elses. Nobody owns that man, and nobody has a say as to what risks he decides to take.
The government is so worried about “deaths per 100,000” miles or some such BS statistic that they forget that each of those lives belongs only to one person. It is not their responsibility to protect people from themselves. Period.
I've had dates like that, many years ago...
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