Darwin Award Candidate!

[Lordbenny]

Motorcyclist in crash helmet law protest dies after hitting head on the road!

Ooops

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/03/us-motor...

[julian64]

Darwin award candidates are people who do something unknowingly so stupid that they remove themselves unwittingly from the gene pool.

The chap checking the inside of the petrol tanker with a lit match is an example. Too stupid to make it to reproduce if you will.

A motorcyclist who chooses not to wear a helmet is patently aware of the fact he is increasing his risk, he's even taking part in a demonstration to that effect! The demonstration is that the biker should eb allowed to gauge the level of risk not the government.

If you make the mistake of applying the Darwin role to anyone who chooses to do something dangerous you might as well apply it to, parachutists, walking to the north pole, climbing any mountain, those who choose sports cars instead of volvo's, in fact crossing the road in the morning rather than just staying under the duvet all day. In fact almost every time someone chooses to do something that isn't sitting in bed all day under the duvet.

[Benbay001]

julian64 said:

If you make the mistake of applying the Darwin role to anyone who chooses to do something dangerous you might as well apply it to, parachutists, walking to the north pole, climbing any mountain, those who choose sports cars instead of volvo's, in fact crossing the road in the morning rather than just staying under the duvet all day. In fact almost every time someone chooses to do something that isn't sitting in bed all day under the duvet.

I think you will find that a large number of the Harley crew in America actually believe its safer without a helmet. You should read some of the comments on youtube videos

[MarJay]

Riding without a lid improves primary safety... IE you're less likely to ride like a pratt when you aren't wearing a lid.

Obviously this guy proves that on the road anything can happen, but who is to say that if he had have been wearing a lid he wouldn't have been killed? Or perhaps worse, he might have been paralysed from the neck down...

[Regiment]

MarJay said:

Riding without a lid improves primary safety... IE you're less likely to ride like a pratt when you aren't wearing a lid.

Obviously this guy proves that on the road anything can happen, but who is to say that if he had have been wearing a lid he wouldn't have been killed? Or perhaps worse, he might have been paralysed from the neck down...

The doctor who received him?

"The doctor felt that the death could have been prevented if he simply had been wearing a helmet," Jureller said. "He hit the brakes, lost
control, was ejected and struck his head on the road. He suffered a skull fracture."

I bet a lot of the other riders who he was riding with will wear a helmet now. Just seems stupid to not want to wear a helmet, i'll never be trusting enough of my bike, the road, me or other road users that i'd ever want to take a risk.

[antspants]

julian64 said:

If you make the mistake of applying the Darwin role to anyone who chooses to do something dangerous you might as well apply it to, parachutists, walking to the north pole, climbing any mountain, those who choose sports cars instead of volvo's, in fact crossing the road in the morning rather than just staying under the duvet all day. In fact almost every time someone chooses to do something that isn't sitting in bed all day under the duvet.

I'm not sure whether the risk of crossing the road is higher or lower than that of muscle wastage, bed sores etc, but agree with the rest

[Lordbenny]

julian64 said:

Darwin award candidates are people who do something unknowingly so stupid that they remove themselves unwittingly from the gene pool.

The chap checking the inside of the petrol tanker with a lit match is an example.

Sorry to contradict you on this but IMO not wearing a helmet on a bike is up there with the example you have given above! Yes, I understand that he 'knowingly' decided not to wear it but I still think he deserves to be added to Darwins list of fools!

[Fer]

MarJay said:

Riding without a lid improves primary safety... IE you're less likely to ride like a pratt when you aren't wearing a lid.

Does that follow the logic that we should remove the driver's airbag and replace it with a big spike? That would make drivers less likely to drive like pratts, and if the spike was big enough it would stop learners crossing their hands on the wheel too.

[Whitean3]

Fer said:

Does that follow the logic that we should remove the driver's airbag and replace it with a big spike? That would make drivers less likely to drive like pratts, and if the spike was big enough it would stop learners crossing their hands on the wheel too.

Or you accidentally stab yourself in the chest if you have to sneeze whilst driving...
I have to agree that it would be common sense to wear a helmet on a motorbike- what I don't get is the number of bikers I see over here riding in shorts- a 15 mph crash would be enough to rip all the skin off your legs.

[balls-out]

These issues are not simple and black and white.
I would hazzard a confident guess that riding lidless is less statistically likely to end in premature death than smoking.

[Lordbenny]

balls-out said:

These issues are not simple and black and white.
I would hazzard a confident guess that riding lidless is less statistically likely to end in premature death than smoking.

Smoking how many a day? Biking in what kind of conditions and for how long! I would expect its closer than you think!

[balls-out]

MarJay said:

Riding without a lid improves primary safety... IE you're less likely to ride like a pratt when you aren't wearing a lid.

Obviously this guy proves that on the road anything can happen, but who is to say that if he had have been wearing a lid he wouldn't have been killed? Or perhaps worse, he might have been paralysed from the neck down...

No - riding like a prat because you are feeling safer (due to the helmet) is risk compensation. (and really not very bright as a helmet hardly makes the rider invunerable)
Primary safety is that you have better vision and hearing because of no helmet.
The reduction of road sh*t on your face and dead insects in your hair due the helmet is primary hygene...

[anonymous-user]

This is a Darwin Award candidate

http://www.austriantimes.at/news/Around_the_World/...

I know i shouldn't but

[RammyMP]

Lordbenny said:

Motorcyclist in crash helmet law protest dies after hitting head on the road!

Ooops

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/03/us-motor...

How ironic!

[BarnatosGhost]

Lordbenny said:

balls-out said:

These issues are not simple and black and white.
I would hazzard a confident guess that riding lidless is less statistically likely to end in premature death than smoking.

Smoking how many a day? Biking in what kind of conditions and for how long! I would expect its closer than you think!

Well, motorcycling kills much less than 1% of its participants. Granted, very nearly all of them wear a helmet.

Smoking kills, or is a partial cause of death (ready to stand corrected here) for about 20-30% of its participants.

So for your position to be correct, around 20-30% of motorcyclists need to have their life saved by their helmet at some point during their riding career. Doubtful, in my view.

[Blown2CV]

MarJay said:

Riding without a lid improves primary safety... IE you're less likely to ride like a pratt when you aren't wearing a lid

not technically true that. There is a thing psychologists called risk compensation, which describes how we adjust our behaviour to compensate for the variable level of risk we perceive from the environment. The assumption is that each of us has a preferred level of risk (or rather, a level that we are comfortable with) and we regulate what we do so that we don't go over it, but some of us like to keep closer to the preferred level than others (those tend also to be people where their preferred level is higher than others too). So, it determines why generally we as drivers feel its ok to drive fast on a clear road where we can see into the distance, but not on a busier road where we cannot. Another example is the rate of accidents dropped hugely for a while when they swapped the side of the road they drive on in Sweden (?) years ago. It also explains why the accident rate gradually increased as people got used to it. The safety of not wearing a helmet because it makes us driver more safely is wrong, because paradoxically it depends on us perceiving the act as unsafe and risky - which clearly those arguing the case for no-helmet do not.

[J4CKO]

I am all for choice but the thing is, I fell off my push bike the other week on a diesel covered roundabout and hit my head on the floor, I was being careful but st happens, I banged my head but I had a helmet on, I stunned me how hard it felt even with it on and I was a bit dazed, still have a few cuts and bruises, I am really glad I didnt hit my head on concrete as a even low speed fall onto concrete is a really hard impact and I managed to brace my head a bit to stop it being as bad as my shoulders and neck hurt.

Anyone who rides a bike of any sort without a helmet cant have had a bang on the head, same with shorts, I had cycling gear on and fell onto a wet road (i.e a lit of lubrication) at < 15 mph, makes me wince when I see guys on Superbikes doing high speed in shorts, a fall onto a dry road at higher speed doesnt bear thinking about, bad enough in leathers.

[julian64]

The argument for helmets on motorcycles was made and decided by a population, the majority of which had never ridden a motorcycle.

Unfortunately one of the problems of a democracy is that you have to assume the majority know best, even in cases were they demonstrably have no experience.

When you mix the deficiencies of a majority decision on a minority activity with the idea that the state should legislate to protect people from themselves then laws such as the seatbelt, crashhelmet, and eventually progression into the state knows best for the individual becomes not only established but condoned by otherwise right thinking people on forums like these.

Ridiculing someone as stupid for doing something that requires accepting more risk rather than not understanding the risk is frankly demonstrating that voting should not be a right in this country but something earned.

Either that or our current progression toward a nanny state is going to accelerate amongst the crys of 'I once knew someone who got splattered all over the road and if he'd been wearing a helmet we could have saved him'.

[Finlandia]

Fer said:

MarJay said:

Riding without a lid improves primary safety... IE you're less likely to ride like a pratt when you aren't wearing a lid.

Does that follow the logic that we should remove the driver's airbag and replace it with a big spike? That would make drivers less likely to drive like pratts, and if the spike was big enough it would stop learners crossing their hands on the wheel too.

Or the logic that compulsory skid/Mway/advanced driving training would just result in big-headedness and even more crashes?

[johnpeat]

The problem with this "people should make up their own mind and not be forced into doing stuff" idea is that people won't "make up their own mind" - they won't carefully weigh-up the pros and cons - they'll actually just do whatever is easiest...

In this case, that's not bothering with a helmet, or protective gear, because it's easier not to bother.

What happens then is they crash and lose a lot of skin/bone/blood and they expect someone to come along and fix it all for them.

We could, perhaps, loosen all the rules tho. Bikers don't have to wear basic, common-sense safety gear but if they crash, we leave them there to crawl back home and suffer and/or bleed to death...

They take no responsibility - we take no responsibility - there you go.