you keep spreading falsehoods, stop it please - Edit 1
Before modification by moondog at 06/07/2011 02:50:51 AM
You can't tell me that a biker with his eyes behind a visor and his ears tucked in a helmet has as much road awareness as a bareheaded one, and the smaller and quicker the vehicle the easier it becomes to avoid accidents than survive them.
wrong and wrong. helmets are specifically designed *NOT* to restrict vision. even when i wear my full-face helmet with the visor down i still have my full peripheral as if i was wearing sunglasses. since it's perfectly acceptable that my vision is just fine when i'm wearing sunglasses behind the wheel of my car, why would my helmet cause me to be somehow incapable of seeing the road properly?
also, the limited hearing is a specious argument because of the fact that helmet or not, your hearing is not going to be any better or worse once you get up to speed. it's either the wind in your ears at 60mph or it's the wind in your ears at 60mph with a helmet on. i'd argue that roughly 70% of bikers who wear helmets wear open ones which do not cover your ears at all.
the questions of vision and hearing are the types of things the protesters of the original article like to spread to justify their lack of helmet use. i have no problem if someone wants to not wear a helmet, but to pretend that wearing a helmet is somehow *less* safe than not is incredibly disingenuous.
one more thing: the smaller and quicker your vehicle, the more likely you're going to lose traction when trying to make evasive moves to avoid accidents. there is no way around this fact because only having two wheels on the road makes you have terrible stability when you are not moving forward or sitting still.