Motorcycle Fatalities Down in 2009

[Sarris]

All of Florida gets them. They've been so thick on my windshield I've had to look over it to see the road.

TRUST ME, she may not know it yet, but she WILL get a windshield or a face shield for the "love bug season"

:biggrin: :skull: :biggrin: :skull: :biggrin: :skull: :biggrin: :skull:

[Easy Rider]

Originally Posted by Sarris

TRUST ME, she may not know it yet, but she WILL get a windshield or a face shield for the "love bug season"

Yep. Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "I hate those f'ing bugs." :crackup

[diffluere]

Yeah I have a little windshield, the SlipStream Spitfire haha. http://www.motorcycle-superstore.com/pr ... shield.jpg

I don't like the way the big ones look. I am pretty sure I annihilated an entire species of bugs on the way back from Leesburg yesterday. I had them all over the windshield and the shin area of my jeans. It rained today but tomorrow it's motorcycle washing time!!! The rain is all the Jeep gets for a bath.

I wear a full face helmet with the visor closed so the bugs stay out of my eyes. A few huge ones have hit me in the face and had I had the visor open, it could have been dangerous and really painful!

Now if I was smart enough to wear gloves, I could avoid getting hit in the hands with bugs that feel like rocks but leave nasty goo on me...ick.

[burkbuilds]

I've got a full windshield on my bike and I still get hit with bugs, and bird crap, so I always wear a helmet with a face shield. I got a direct bird crap hit about two weeks ago that was so big, and directly centered on my face shield that I had to pull off at the next exit, find a gas station, take my helmet off and wash it! Helmet "saves your brain", helmets "break your neck" I don't care, I just don't want to take a direct hit from buzzard poop in my face! If I could figure out a way to have a face shield without the helmet, I'd probably do it in the middle of the summer when it's over 100 degrees here, but that doesn't seem likely, so I wear a helmet, with a full face shield, year round.
As diffluere noted, it also helps to knock a few decibels off the sound as well, and even with my full helmet I'm thinking I'm gonna start wearing some type of hearing protection with it because the last couple of two hour trips I've been doing have ending with "ringing" in both ears and that's damage I would prefer not to incur.

Danny, as to your earlier question about how wearing a helmet could possibly cause someone's death, well, somewhere on here about a year ago I posted some papers I had to research and write for a class and I chose Mandatory helmet laws as my subject. I went into my research convinced that wearing a helmet would increase your chances of survival in a motorcycle accident, but by the time I finished my research I was convinced that it's a statistical wash, if you don't wear the helmet then you have a slightly higher risk of dying from a head injury, if you do wear a helmet, you have almost exactly the same increased risk of dying from a broken neck. When mandatory helmet laws are passed the number of fatalities usually drops not because fewer people who are in a motorcycle accident die if they are wearing a helmet, but because fewer people ride motorcycles when mandatory helmet laws are in force and thus there are fewer riders out there having accidents, but the same number of deaths per number of accidents stays pretty much the same before and after the helmet laws are passed or repealed. There are just a lot of people out there that refuse to ride at all if they are forced to wear helmets, so the overall number of deaths drops and that is the stat the government always uses to "prove" that helmets save lifes, but all it really proves is that motorcycle riding is dangerous and if less people ride motorcycles fewer people will die in motorcycle accidents. So I'll have to come down on the side of the people that say the government should just stay out of it and let the individual decide, otherwise, one of these days somebody is gonna notice that you are about 30 times as likely per million miles driven to die on a motorcycle than in a car and they'll ban motorcycle riding period.

So, why do I wear a helmet? Well, as previously stated, so I'll have something to hang my face shield on that keeps the bird crap out of my face and the helmet keeps my head nice and warm in the Winter too!

Having said all of that, does the helmet offer you any protection? YES! If you go sliding down the road on the side of your face, you will wish you had worn a helmet, and it might mean that you'll still have an ear on that side of your head and your teeth and nose somewhat in place afterwards, but I am not convinced that it will save your life. Same thing with the gear, will it keep your skin in place? Absolutely, at least a heck of a lot better than without it, but will it keep you from having massive chest trauma and dying from it, doubtful, broken limbs, probably not, but in a minor wreck, one that you probably wouldn't have died from anyway the helmet and the "armor" will absolutely give you a much better chance of walking away from that accident without a major, painful, disfiguring, damage to your hide! But I still think it should be your choice to make not some government officials call.

[Water Warrior 2]

Good grief BB. That makes too much sense and is far too logical. Are you sure you are from this planet ?

[mrlmd1]

Sorry BB, but I don't agree with your statement or the logic of it that "if you do wear a helmet, you have almost exactly the same increased risk of dying from a broken neck".
Statistics can be played with, manipulated, interpreted or misinterpreted any way you want. And like those old tests, some things can be true, true, and unrelated. The helmet per se doesn't break your neck, or contribute to it. When your head and body hit something traveling at 30, 40, 50, 60 mph, you may get a broken neck from the trauma. You would have the broken neck maybe anyway. Or your head may have been totally mashed absorbing some of the impact so maybe your neck would not have been broken. You will get broken bones, fractured livers and spleens, the armored jacket and pants won't protect you from that. All bets are off in those magnitude accidents, the gear will not protect your body from that and was not designed to.The energy delivered in those crashes far exceeds the capability of the gear to protect you and is used as an argument that there is no reason to wear the gear because you will die anyway, of something else.
The helmet is designed to protect your face from road rash and your brain or skull from an impact equivalent to falling and hitting the ground from a height of six feet. I would like you to show me one report of a broken neck from someone wearing a helmet falling off the bike at slow speed, say even less than 30-40 mph. The helmet will not save you from any injury hitting a tree or wall at high speed and maybe you break your neck doing that, so what?, with all your other injuries, all the other multiple trauma, it makes very little difference. At least maybe your face will look good for the viewing. Just imagine the magnitude of the injury to your head and face without the helmet. We have had this discussion before, and just because something is written, especially on the internet, doesn't mean it's true or that proper logic was used to interpret the results. For whatever reason you guys want, either wear your gear or don't. It's not my skin you're saving, it's yours.

[burkbuilds]

mrlmd1, Well, first of all, I did most of my research using Peer reviewed Journal articles because that is the level of integrity required for the type of papers I was writing, not just Johnny know-it-all's opinions on the internet. If you want those stats, I've already quoted the research references in the papers that I posted, and you are welcome to look them up yourself instead of taking my word for what those Journal articles stated. I don't really disagree with your statements that the gear will protect you from scrapes and minor injuries, but just as you stated, in a major wreck they won't save your life and that is what I also stated. I also agree with you that statistics can be manipulated, and my contention is that is exactly what we usually see in regard to helmet use and the "reduction" in deaths from motorcycle accidents. When you actually read those statistics for yourself, instead of just reading someone else's "summary" of those stats, I think you will find that they don't support the belief that helmet use saves lives in an accident, what you will find is that when helmet laws are forced on riders, many of them just stop riding, and so the overall number of motorcycles on the road goes way down and the number of deaths decreases proportionally to the number of riders on the road. The same number of riders die per accident whether they have on a helmet or not though, that statistic just doesn't change and yes, there are some states that actually keep records of what caused the death and in those states the proportion of deaths due to broken necks increases with helmet use at the same rate that the number of deaths from brain injuries decreases with helmet use, so either way you die. It should be pretty obvious that if the overall number of deaths per accident remains the same and the proportion of those deaths attributed to neck injuries vs brain injuries is also a statistical wash then the helmet didn't save any lives. Now, again, having said that, YES, it certainly does reduce the amount of "surface" damage you receive in a non fatal accident, and I guess if it really maters to you how you look in a casket then you probably will look better dead if you were wearing a helmet when you died, but I plan to be creamated, so it doesn't really effect me personally. So why should the government make me do something that won't keep me from dying under the false belief that it will? Does that not create a situation where a lot of people are out there riding under the false belief that because they are wearing a helmet they are going to be okay in a crash? I think it does and I think that probably puts some people in greater danger under false beliefs of safety. Shouldn't we be more concerned with giving folks accurate information and letting them make a choice about their own lives than deceiving them about the potential risks and making them feel safe when they actually are partaking in a dangerous activity? I understand that riding my motorcycle is putting me at an extremely higher chance of dying in an accident than someone in a car, but I bet there are a lot of people out there that think, "I'll be okay, because I've got this super expensive government approved, and mandated, safety device called a helmet on", but they are not any less likely to die in an accident than a motorcyclist who is not wearing a helmet. Shouldn't they know the truth about the risk they are taking? I think they should know the truth, and I think that people who want to promote mandatory helmet use under the false impression that it will save their lives in a crash are doing them a disservice at the very least! I bet there would be some people out there that ride now that might not ride if they understood the true danger, but instead we go around telling them they will be okay if they just wear a helmet, so they think they aren't in danger of dying and they ride. I think people should be told the truth not some government propaganda and allowed to choose for themselves what risks they want to assume in life.

[mrlmd1]

I agree with a lot of what you say, I also have a few caveats.
I would like to know the estimated speeds of those accidents for one thing, as all accidents are not the same and they cannot be lumped together. And we had this discussion before - I don't agree with how the data was interpreted, there are a lot of variables missing from consideration. But we all get the point.

I think there should be some disclaimer on all the gear - ie, this jacket/pants/gloves may not protect you from serious skin abrasion sliding over pavement at over 20 mph for more than 50 feet, or some such thing, and, this helmet won't protect your brain/skull/neck from injury at an impact at over 20 mph, etc, etc. Put these things into proper perspective instead of promoting them as absolute "safety" devices. Still the choice is yours whether or not to wear them for whatever additional protection they provide. But without them, and without proper insurance, don't expect someone else to pay for your hospital care and recovery, your new skin, broken bones and neuro rehab.

[alantf]

Originally Posted by mrlmd1

the choice is yours whether or not to wear them for whatever additional protection they provide.

Not in some American states, & all of England/Europe it isn't :??:

[Water Warrior 2]

Good discussion here. I believe there will always be an instance where ATGATT will never prevent injury or death in even the most minor mishap. But also there will be an instance that ATGATT will perform beyond all expectations and save your ass from sure death or maiming. Riding really is a crap shoot but I like to give myself better odds of survival and a good chance of walking away from a minor mishap.
Sometimes I just have to clamp my jaws closed when seeing the lack of safety gear some folks have on. After all it is their choice and we do have and have earned that freedom of choice.