I spent most of the day yesterday in New Hampshire and I saw between 20-25 motorcycles on the road throughout the day and I didn't see one single person with a helmet on including a few passengers. I'm a former rider who's life was most likely saved by a helmet at the very least it saved me from a serious head injury so my first instinct is that hemets should be mandatory but then I think of the N.H. state motto which is 'live free or die'. I know we have a lot of folks here who currently ride and some who used to ride so I was wondering what your opinions are, do you think helmets should be mandatory?

 

All I know is that I'm here because I was wearing a helmet.

 

I ride and I am in NY state. It would be wonderful to ride with out a helmet but the risk is too great and yes there should be helmet laws in all the states in my opinion.

2 days ago on a fairly well traveled road near me there was a very bad bike accident actually a truck ran over the biker crushing the guy and his bike he needed to literally be swept off the pavement. It really makes you think. There was no mention of this accident in any of the local news papers.

 

Should safety be forced on people? Given that there are so many stupid people, probably.

 

I'm not so sure that the issue is simply that there are so many stupid people. I think that oftentimes people (both smart and stupid) simply don't act in their own best interests. I know that this is a slippery slope, but in the scheme of things, I don't think helmet laws really deprive one of freedom and self determination.

Think back to when Jackie Stewart campaigned for more safety on the F-1 circuit. Think about the flack he got, yet realize how very much safer F-1 racing has become and think about how many greats were lost in the past.

Think about the seatbelt laws. Realize that most everybody acknowledges that seatbelts save lives, yet many people still don't use them.

Think about cigarettes. Everyone, including smokers, accepts the fact that it is a bad unhealthy habit, yet people continue to smoke. Worse still, young people, knowing the facts, start to smoke.

Sometimes, left to their own devices, people just don't act in their own best interests, and that said, mandatory helmet laws seem reasonable.

 

We have a term for the young people we see riding without helmets: organ donors.

 

In Canada helmet laws, 98% seatbelt usage and $1.20 dollar a litre (approx $4.00 a US gallon) gas are the norm and since we also have universal health care as a tax payer I do not want to have to pay for someone whose personal freedom statement of not wearing a helmet has landed them in the vegetable ward for life. And even if we did not have health care the thought of riding without a helmet puzzles me, Bugs/rocks/rain/sand and dirt are just some of the thinks flying around out there. I was hit by a hard shelled insect many years ago and it nearly knocked me off the bike, luckily it hit me in the helmet dead centre on the forehead and I was able to hang on as it was only my legs that caught the handlebars and stopped me being thrown off and I would have landed on my head for sure based on eye witness accounts. Some people thought I had been shot based on the sound of the bug hitting my helmet

 

I have ridden for more than 20 years and been autocrossing for 16. I feel naked walking out my front door without a helmet!

You will never catch me on a bike without one, but I disagree with the government telling me I have to wear it. Maybe there should be a law that prevents law suits by or for those that choose to ride without.

 

It confuses me that people will wear a helmet on the expressway at 70 mph where it probable won't help, and refuse to wear one in city driving where it probably would help.

I think Darwins law comes into play at some point here.


dvh

 

There's a motorcycle helmet law in California, but not next door in Arizona. I would never ride on the street without my helmet but I have putted around our camp in the desert without one, going about 10 mph. I know I should always wear one but once in a while I don't.