Yeah, i can see it now...they went to an insurance company convention and polled 600 of them, or was a liberal green save the earth convention?

 

I agree. I've always believed the government has no right to protect a person from himself, ever. Outlawing things that cause accidents, which protects people from other people, is more legitimate. There is no reason to government needs to tell people that have to wear seatbelts or motorcycle helmets.

I'd sure as heck rather not get hit by some moron in a minivan on his/her cellphone, that live through getting hit because of a helmet.

Then again, legislators like to drive and talk on the phone - they don't like to ride motorcycles without helmets.

 

What point does it even make to say 111 riders were killed last year, while wearing helmets. Is that pro-helmet or anti-helmet.

Let's see - right across the state line in Illinois they have no helmet law (none for any age, I believe). I found this, "Illinois reported 110 fatal motorcycle accidents in nine months in 2008 and 113 in 2009." The article also reported 9 months in Michigan, which had 111 fatalities. Not a promising start for the "helmets save lives" argument.

So if the 2 states have about the same population (assuming I can't find a number of registered motorcycles on Google very quick), that would mean helmets aren't really saving lives.

But wait, Illinois has about 3,000,000 people more than Michigan. So motorcycle fatalities should be lower in Michigan, by about a third, even if everybody in both state wore, or didn't wear, a helmet. Yet the helmet state has a higher, per capita number of motorcycle fatalities than the no-helmet state.

Something's fishy.

How about this pro-helmet study I found: From 1994 to 1996, states with helmet laws experienced a median death rate of 6.20 riders per 10 000 registered motorcycles and states without helmet laws experienced a median death rate of 5.07 riders per 10 000 registered motorcycles (P=0.008). (didn't read it all, but I believe the initial statistic was even higher for the helmet-states) After they fiddled with the numbers and made some theoretical adjustments to the statistics, they apparently were able to say that their conclusion "weakens the claim that rider death rates are significantly lower in states without full motorcycle helmet laws." OK - no helmet states don't have "significantly" lower fatality rate? At leat, they were able to "weaken" that claim? Really? Weak.

So, not only does the govvernment want to take away some of your freedom to "keep you safe" - they don't even care if it really keeps you safe.

I have heard the argument that the class that makes laws in socety is threatened by people who do things like ride motorcycles, drink on te street, and all sorts of other things that the upper-middle-class don't approve of and, in reality, it all comes down to make those people they're araid of a little les threatening.

 

Spot on Brenn. And I wonder how many of the supposed 600 votes came via cell phones while driving...
I just heard some camp in NY is banning wiffle ball this summer, apparently it is too dangerous.
WTF is this world coming to with all it's nanny liberals thinking they know what's best for everyone else, and then implementing it into law via shady stats and deals?

 

In Michigan, you can kill someone with a car or truck and never spend a minute behind bars. If at-fault drivers in personal injury crashes had to do a minimum 30 days in jail, and at-fault drivers in fatal crashes had to do a minimum 1 year in prison, the streets would be a lot safer. A helmet saved my life back in '79, so I'll always wear one.

 

Imagine having a choice?!?!? Not here, our brainless leaders actually think they know whats best for me. Welcome to Canada, restrictive laws and out of sight taxation.