OT Melbourne!

Report faults repeal of motorcycle helmet law
Study: 'Unhelmeted' deaths have soared in Florida
Sunday, June 18, 2006; Posted: 5:53 p.m. EDT (21:53 GMT)

MELBOURNE, Florida (AP) -- Motorcycle fatalities involving riders without
helmets have soared in the nearly six years since Gov. Jeb Bush repealed the
state's mandatory helmet law, a newspaper reported Sunday.
A Florida Today analysis of federal motorcycle crash statistics found
"unhelmeted" deaths in Florida rose from 22 in 1998 and 1999, the years
before the helmet law repeal, to 250 in 2004, the most recent year of
available data.
Total motorcycle deaths in the state have increased 67 percent, from 259 in
2000 to 432 in 2004, according to National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration statistics.
Records, though, also show motorcycle registrations have increased 87
percent in Florida since Bush signed the helmet law repeal July 1, 2000.
The debate over motorcycle helmet safety resurfaced last week when
Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, an advocate of
helmet-free riding, broke his jaw, nose and several teeth in an accident. He
underwent seven hours of surgery.
Physicians and insurance companies say helmets are crucial safety gear.
But Merritt Island motorcyclist and helmet law opponent Dave Carroll said
the helmet law debate is misguided.
"What causes most of the crashes is cars," he said. "Usually, it's the car
driver turning left at an intersection and causing an accident because they
didn't see us coming."

From http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/06/18/helmet.law.ap/index.html

 

Natural selection at it's best.

 

The report would also appear to show that riding a motorcycle while
wearing a helmet was much safer in 2004 than it was in 2000.

 

In aus.motorcycles on 19 Jun 2006 07:07:49 +0200

What, that registrations went up massively when the helmet law was
repealed, and fatalities also went up but by a lesser amount?

Zebee

 

Speaking in his first interview after the crash, Ben told reporters:

"Mmmf gwnna fffgh snoofgh znerz moofnoogrr!"


BTH

 

And you're implying[1] that helmets DON'T reduce trauma in most
motorcycle crashes?

If I'd been hemetless in the 1st and 3rd of my 3 significant crashes,
I'd have been killed in the first one, and had an nicely abraded skull
in the 3rd.

I reckon I'll keep wearing a helmet when I ride, and assume that anyone
who doesn't is somewhat foolhardy.


BTH
[1] In a rather tongue-in-cheek manner, I suspect.

 

In aus.motorcycles on 19 Jun 2006 03:08:51 -0700

Good god yes.

How many crashes involve the head at all?

For example, in the big survey done in Vic a while back they couldn't
get enough crashes involving helmets to get statistically significant
data.

Now, if you want to ask if helmets reduce trauma if the head is hit,
you won't get any argument from me. But that's not the same thing.

And the plural of anecdote is evidence? I expected better...

(In the massive number of times I've fallen off, the lid touched
ground a total of twice. Sure, I was glad I had it, but statistically
and injury wise I expect I'd have been better off wearing moto-x
armour. Is my experience more useful than yours?)

How many of those fatalities (which you will recall were *less* than
could be expected from the rise in registrations) were from head
injury?

How many fatalities are head injury only? Rather than say head plus
chest plus crushed leg?

In other words, did this law do anything except get more people on
bikes? Doesn't seem to have done. Now, if you can get some figures
to show there were people who died or were severely injured *only* to
the head in statistically significant numbers I might think
differently, but till then I have to go on the numbers given.

The first bit is fine, the second bit I can't accept. You are already
accepting a very high chance of severe injury if you ride a motorcycle
at all, let alone one doing more than 20mph. Heaps and heaps of people
will tell you that.

So all you are saying is the helmet equivalent of "anyone who rides
faster than I do is a loony".

I don't give a damn what anyone else wears as safety kit. I'm already a
loony as far as non-riders are concerned, already taking a suicidal risk.
Adding or subtracting any kit is just fiddling at the edges of that
massive risk.

So someone else makes a different decision to mine. I won't presume
to think they are foolhardy because I know they are just as foolhardy
as I am - they threw a leg over a bike, what they choose to wear while
doing it is merely a couple of digits to the right of the decimal
point in the risk stakes.

They judge the risk-reward differently to me, and they don't judge it
anywhere *near* as differently as does the person driving a car and
saying bikes are too dangerous.

So they aren't foolhardy, they just see it a bit differently. They
probably figure that the fun is worth the risk they see, just as I do.
And jsut as the bod in the car doesn't.

Zebee

 

If you'd been helmetless in your first crash,you wouldn't have had the
second and third ones.
It's all the helmet's fault...

Postman Pat

 

BT Humble wrote:

So, if you hadn't been wearing a helmet, the first crash would have
killed you, but, then, you wouldn't have had the second two crashes...

Doesn't that prove your better off without a helmet?

(Not wearing helmet reduces crashes by two thirds!)

regards,
CrazyCam

 

2 out of 3, in my case.

Why is that? I wasn't aware that I had a reputation for
well-thought-out, coherent debate!

It doesn't make a whit of difference to me whether you, aus.moto or
indeed the rest of the world accepts it or not - it's my opinion.

Absolutely. If I'm doing 2km/h, anyone doing 3km/h is a lunatic and
anyone doing 1km/h is an idiot.

I'm assuming that you're not doing any of these 3 things right now:

(a) Actively campaigning for a repeal of the compulsory helmet law in
NSW;
(b) Applying for a medical exemption certificate so that you can ride
helmetless;
(c) Preparing to move to Florida.

In which case, in my opinion, you're arguing... for no apparent reason.
No problem if that's your thing, but you're not going to change my
viewpoint, namely that wearing a helmet while riding a motorcycle is a
good idea.


BTH

 

But think of all the booth jokes you'd never have been able to tell!


BTH

 

What is your opinion on full face vs open face helmets BT?


G-S

 

In aus.motorcycles on 19 Jun 2006 22:36:07 -0700

Nah, but there's more to you than booth jokes. Isn't there?

Which is fair enough. But then so is mine... you get to think of them
as foolhardy, I get to think of you as intellectually weak and we both
get to think of beer.

Nope. I don't bother to campaign for helmet law repeal because it's a
waste of time. There's a strong medical lobby trying to stop anyone
doing anything that might hurt them (except go to hospital and get
operated on or fed the wrong drugs, docs aren't keen about mentioning
that) and it's a battle not worth fighting.

Doens't mean I don't think compulsory safety gear is the wrong
approach, just means I have better things to do with my time.

I've ridden helmetless and helmeted, full face and open face. If
riding helmetless was legal (as it was in SA when I did it at the
speeds I was riding) then I'd do it again. Not always, same as I wear
different lids depending on various things.

I aren't that interested in changing that opinion.

I'm just interested in people not having kneejerk reactions about a
snippet of a newspaper report that has almost no useful information,
but the information it *does* have doesn't support the conclusion that
repealing the helmet law is a bad thing.

Zebee

 

For blokes like you, it's hard to pick. Sure the full-face will keep
you out of view of those with weak stomachs, but it's not like scraping
your face along the road is gonna make you any uglier!


BTH

 

My ex-wife left me when she finally realised that I really didn't
actually have any of those "hidden depths" she'd read about in Cleo and
Cosmo.


BTH

 

<snigger>

Hammo

 

*ponders*

Do you think I should do a knock off of your 'rocks' picture for you to hang
in your booth?


G-S

 

Will it make you happy? ;-)


BTH

 

A world without booth jokes?
Let us spray that never happens...

Postman Pat

 

I was more hoping to cause pain and suffering in others
(sort of like the Santa Clem pic does!)


G-S