If your head is worth $50 buy a $50 helmet
If your head is worth more - Buy a BELL

"increase your odds to live to ride again" wear some protection.

my 2 cents

 

That doesn't make much sense. Of course a helmet would save you in some percentage of fatal crashes. Certainly, in cases where the rider dies from head injuries would be obvious - if they had been wearing a helmet, it would have made a difference.

Watch motorcycle racing and you see most of the guys who crash, even though they are crashing at very high speeds, not only survive, but walk away.

Wearing a helmet *might* help, depending on the crash. Statistically, it's about 50/50 - about half the bikers who die in a crash are wearing a helmet, half are not.

But it isn't just a matter of dying. Many riders suffer non-fatal head injuries, some of them permanently debilitating. A helmet would almost always be effective in those types of crashes.

Perhaps the more interesting statistic would be how many suffer severe head injuries. I suspect those wearing a helmet rarely do.

Speaking from personal experience, I walked away from crashing at over 100 mph because I was wearing my helmet (and all my other safety gear). In spite of that, and all of the above, I never wear one now. Most often it's jeans, t-shirt, boots and sunglasses.

In this debate, the facts are irrelevant. I would think anyone with an IQ over 10 and even the slightest bit of common sense would grasp that safety gear would lessen your injuries and possibly save your life.

The reality is, we all choose the level of risk with which we are comfortable constantly. It might be as simple as where we choose to cross a busy street (or that we would choose to do so at all), to choosing the activities in which we engage and their associated level of risk - mountain climbing, hiking in the mountains, skiing, skydiving, boating... yet it is only motorcyclists who are singled out with legislated safety gear. That's just wrong. There is no legitimate justification for it.

 

Seriously. A baseball player, while batting, has zero risk of sliding down the road on his face at 70 mph.

I used to teach the MSF course on the Navy base where I was stationed. If you look at head and facial injuries in motorcycle wrecks, the majority of them occur in areas protect only by a FF helmet.

As for personal experience - as the base MSF instructor, I would get police reports, and sometimes the helmet worn, from local motorcycle wrecks. Sometimes I got to meet the survivors. I had two very interesting real world examples.

#1 - Guy is riding a touring bike with a fairing, so, obviously, no need for a FF (said with sarcasm - the helmet is for the crash). He wrecks, slides down the road on his face, survives. He had no nose, no lower jaw. He was in the hospital for a very long time, many reconstructive surgeries.
- Lesson - if you are going to wear a helmet for protection from death and injury, wear a FF.

#2 - Guy buys one of those cool bass boat metalflake $25 helmets from K-Mart. He needs to move his bike during a party, so he hops on the roll it a few feet. He stuck the helmet on his head. He fell over. Somehow, the way he fell, one of the levers (clutch or brake), went through the helmet, and his skull, killing him. Zero MPH "crash".
- Lesson (thanks to Bell Helmet advertising) - If you have a $10 head, buy a $10 helmet.


I also had a real world example showing that a helmet doesn't always matter. Guy & his wife on a goldwing, cruising along a country backroad at maybe 90 mph. Takes a long sweeper to the left. He's going to fast so he ends up going to the outside of the turn. Luck him, there is a guardrail there, which he slams into and it keeps him upright. He slides along the guard rail and eventually stops. It seems everything is ok except maybe some damage to the bike.

Unfortunately, when he het the guardrail, his wife was thrown to the right. Still sitting on the bike, she was flopped over so her head went along the top of the guard rail. If you've ever notices, the guardrail posts stick up slightly above the rail. Hitting those posts repeatedly, her helmet, and head, were both gone by the time he stopped.

 

Isn't that most of them?

 

No helmet law here in Ohio. I always wear one. Last spring I slammed into the side of a car and was knocked unconscious with the helmet on. I know this will **** some people off, but I believe it saved my life or kept me out of a long term nursing facility.

 

Don't worry about it. It's a worthy discussion and I think you worded your original post just fine. First lesson of HDF for you - there are a number of "Bad *** Harley Bikers" who ****, moan, and whine like bitches. Lesson number two is there are some number who hold religious beliefs on things like helmets, apes, Harleys, loud pipes, etc. Facts are irrelevant. Common sense is irrelevant.

The most fun lesson on HDF though is that we have a large group of gay bikers on here. You can tell they are gay because they spend a lot of time worrying about what clothes other guys are wearing. Just like a group of women sitting together and checking out what the other women are wearing, apparently there are bikers who sit in biker bars for the purpose of scoping out the other guys who come in.

Hopefully, I have offended some people here.

 

Just curious if you're also one of those *extremely* rare people who makes *informed* decisions based on facts and reality.

I don't wear a helmet, ever. I like having the freedom to make that choice. I also like having the ability to make that choice knowing all the facts. ... and the facts have nothing to do with the choice I've made. If they did, I'd *always* wear a helmet - even when I wasn't on the bike!

 

I hear ya,who care what other people think,use your own common sense ,i wear mine always!!

 

Ohio's law is under 18 and 1st year riders must wear a helmet. I don't wear it unless it's cold

 

Geesh, I wish my state didn't mandate that I wear a helmet... so I could choose to wear one of my own volition!

My brother-in-law died in a motorcycle accident where he ran off the road and into a culvert. He was wearing a full face DOT-approved helmet. The bike ended on top of him with the left muffler melting a large portion of the chin guard. He died in that accident. While there is nothing really good that can be said, there is the fact that his face was not burned by the hot pipe. His mother did get to have an open casket funereal. I don't say this with any jest nor am I attempting to be morbid. It's just that's one of the things that struck me. BTW, he rode a HD Muscle and had less than 1000 miles on it. And, yes, I often ride by the spot where this accident occurred and I remember him. I wear a FF because that's what I choose. What you choose is of no consequence to me.