[burkbuilds]

I see your point, my point is, the actual statistics don't prove that helmets save lives. I have read them and studied them intensely, instead of just taking the word of someone who wrote an article with the preconceived idea that helmets do save lives, and then tells us that the statistics back that up, which they do NOT! So, if helmets do NOT save lives, then why should the government force anyone to wear one? I think you are assuming that the statistics confirm that they do save lives, go read them, the statistics are on the web free for you and me to read, so go read the actual statistics and see what they actually show instead of what somebody tells you they show! Most of the articles saying that the statistics show helmets save lives pull one set of stats from one chart and one from a totally unrelated chart (apples to oranges) and then say the statistics prove such and such. If you look at how many million miles traveled verses fatalities or number of bikes on the road verses fatalities then you have apples to apples comparisons, but most of these guys who quote the stats will take a stat where one year (made up numbers here) 100 people died in motorcycle crashes in Florida, then they passed mandatory helmet laws and only 78 people died the next year so it dropped 22%. However, they fail to mention that when helmet laws are passed, ridership, registration and million miles traveled stats drop by over 20% too. So, if 20%+ fewer bikes are registered, driven and driven less, then yes guess what, an equal number of fatalities occur. Then they come along and say, but when Florida repealed the mandatory helmet laws fatalities went up 22%, but they fail to mention that when helmet laws are repealed, guess what, registrations,sales of new bikes, and million miles traveled each year all go up by over 20%. So it is a wash statistically. The mandatory helmet laws just make a lot of people decide not to ride, so if your goal is to get rid of motorcycle riders on the road, then keep passing mandatory helmet laws, because a lot of people just refuse to ride if they have to wear a helmet. But statistically speaking, for an equal number of bikes on the road and miles traveled by those bikes the fatality rate is flat whether you wear helmets or not. If you want to save bikers lives then convince them of the three things that do contribute most to fatalities in motorcycle accidents, 1. Alcohol (over 60% of biker fatalities involve an elevated blood alcohol level in the biker that was killed!) 2. Excessive speed and 3. Unlicense (thus usually untrained) bikers, people who only have a license to drive a car, probably never took a safety course and certainly never even passed their states requirements to get a motorcycle license. Wearing a helmet or not isn't even in the top 5! Go read the statistics yourself!