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Helmet Issues Use Your Head!

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Helmets are hot, sticky, stinky, uncomfortable things!

Helmets are hot, sticky, stinky, uncomfortable things that reduce the pleasure that one gets from riding a motorcycle. After all, the vast majority of us ride them for pleasure, not out of necessity.

And the hoopla would have us all believe that wearing a helmet makes a rider invincible, and not wearing one leads to certain violent, messy death. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

When California passed their mandatory helmet law, which increased helmet usage from 30% to 99%, the death rate went from 17.6% per wreck to 16.9% per wreck, statistically significant, but not amounting to a popcorn fart in a hurricane in the grand scheme of things. The expected drop in the percent of fatalities just didn't happen. Why not?

Cars. Automobiles hit motorcyclists and squish them like bugs. In the US, the vast majority of fatal motorcycle wrecks involve cars. It is typical for a motorcyclist hit by a car to have no fewer than FIVE deadly injuries. In California, the percentage of fatalities due to head injury went down, and the percentage of fatalities due to spinal injury went up just about enough to make up the difference. This leads some to the silly conclusion that helmets cause spinal injuries. But the real deal is that when hit a by a car, deadly spinal injuries are inflicted as well as deadly head injuries, as well as deadly internal injuries, and there's only one box on the certificate to pencil in the cause of death. If the corpse has a good-looking head and a broken spine, the physician writes "spine." If the corpse has a mashed head, the physician writes "head." The corpse is just as dead.

The reason that helmets are so useful in protecting racers is that CARS don't hit 'em.

So whether you choose to wear a helmet or not when you ride, be aware that the most likely thing to do you harm is an automobile, and if one hits you, there's a good chance that you're gonna die, helmet or no.

Ride aware, and please don't get hit by an automobile.

Dave Tharp
Sidecar ListAdmin

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