See link below. A biker protesting a new helmet law crashed during the protest and died from head trauma. Doctors said wearing a helmet would have saved his life...
*disclaimer* i had a nasty bike accident when i was 9, i was not wearing a helmet and i was badly concussed for several days. thankfully it happened in a forest and not on the road. so people not wearing a helmet while cycling or motor cycling really piss me off *end*
my mind really boggles when it comes to people like this, would that guy have driven a car with no seat belts or a ship with no lifeboats in to an ice field?
a helmet isn't like a water bottle holder or an ashtray, if you don't have a proper helmet you shouldn't bother sitting on a bike, with or without a motor.
If I rode a motorcycle (which I wouldn't, on a bet) I'd wear a helmet, but deeply resent being forced to do so on a bicycle. Given how many fiercely independent bikers I've known I think my resentment of helmet laws only a pale shadow of theirs. If people cycling without a helmet really piss you off I offer the same advice I give people who get really pissed off at women killing fetuses because they don't want to bear a child: Don't let them tell you what to do with your own body, and grant them the same courtesy.
wait what? what does compulsory helmet wearing have to do with abortions?
I told you what, but will try again: Wearing helmets and having abortions are both decisions that should be left to the people (and bodies) involved. That's why even though I believe in wearing motorcycle helmets and don't believe in abortion (except to save the mothers life) I oppose letting any majority dictate either decision to anyone. Sometimes, often, in fact, freedom means allowing others to do things you categorically oppose simply because you have no more right to run their lives than they have to run yours. I maintain that standard whether or not it happens to be personally convenient, because that's the difference between doing what's right and doing whatever you please. We've talked enough that I think it's safe to say you don't want your national majority imposing its will on you in most areas, so why does the fact you happen to be part of THIS majority give you the right to impose your will on others?
a properly fitted helmet should be a given when riding something two wheeled and roofless, granted a helmet won't help if a car or lorry squish you , its simple logic; especially when you cycle on roads, that sense of sticking it to The Man won't help if you come off a bike, moped or motorbike and smash your head open on a kerb or the road.
*again disclaimer* shortly after my accident a teacher at my school came off his bike, unlike me his happened on the road and he was wearing an ill fitting helmet, which came partly off and he spent a year being rehabilitated before he could teach again. if not for part of the helmet protecting his head he could have been even worse off.
so i have seen with my own eyes how necessary helmets are.
*again disclaimer* shortly after my accident a teacher at my school came off his bike, unlike me his happened on the road and he was wearing an ill fitting helmet, which came partly off and he spent a year being rehabilitated before he could teach again. if not for part of the helmet protecting his head he could have been even worse off.
so i have seen with my own eyes how necessary helmets are.
The necessity of wearing helmets isn't really in question here, but imposing that decision on others. You can cite all the examples you like of people being injured or killed because they didn't have a helmet and it won't change the fact that you have no right to dictate what they do with their own body unless they're doing it to YOU.
Maybe he would've driven a car without seatbelts; probably, if it were legal. I certainly would, and as a backseat passenger strongly preferred it in the days when my "safety belt" did little more than make me likely to be trapped in a burning vehicle or have my organs crushed or sliced when thrown against a lap belt. My body, my life, my choice; it's called "freedom". The trouble with people applauding govenment dictates on what people do or don't do with their own bodies is that they've forgotten there's no guarantee said government will always issue dictates of which they approve. Civilized governments don't allow incidental majorities to tell minorities what they must believe to save their souls or do to save their babies so it seems a little bizarre when they let majorities tell minorities what they must do to save their lives. In a country that just recently celebrated a government founded on majority rule IN CONJUNCTION WITH minority rights it's also rather hypocritical.
well then perhaps we should make drink driving and using a phone legal, can't have the minority who want to drive drunk and knock people over upset can we?
The difference is that those decisions cause a direct and dire risk to the lives of others; not wearing a helmet does not. In fact, if a biker came crashing through my windshield I'd prefer he WEREN'T wearing a helmet. Majority rule AND minority rights, not one or the other; the minority, even a minority of one, has inalienable rights, but your right to swing your arm ends where it meets my nose--including when you're strapping a helmet on my head against my will.
People do lots of stupid self destructive crap, but it's not your place, mine or anyone elses to infringe on their right to do so unless it infringes on ours more. It's difficult, if not impossible, to say bikers without helmets represent such an infringement for my own good. The government telling me what to do with my own body isn't good for me, anymore than it is for you or anyone.
Honorbound and honored to be Bonded to Mahtaliel Sedai
Last First in wotmania Chat
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Last First in wotmania Chat
Slightly better than chocolate.
Love still can't be coerced.
Please Don't Eat the Newbies!
LoL. Be well, RAFOlk.
You can't make this stuff up: Helmet law protester dies in crash
- 05/07/2011 08:47:14 PM
872 Views
Kinda undermines his protest
*NM*
- 05/07/2011 09:01:50 PM
256 Views
*NM*
- 05/07/2011 09:01:50 PM
256 Views
How so? He wasn't demanding the right to survive crashes when only a helmet makes that possible.
- 05/07/2011 11:06:44 PM
543 Views
New York feels that people should have to wear helmets for their own safety
- 05/07/2011 11:20:36 PM
516 Views
He felt his own safety was his own concern.
- 06/07/2011 12:07:05 AM
457 Views
Who do you think would have ended up paying for his care for the rest of his life if the accident
- 06/07/2011 01:08:49 AM
601 Views
The same people who pay for everyone else whose actions render them vegetables.
- 06/07/2011 01:50:20 AM
712 Views
Maybe a more effective argument you could use against me would be pointing out
- 06/07/2011 02:33:21 AM
505 Views
*NM*
what a fricking idiot
- 05/07/2011 10:02:17 PM
684 Views
That's your opinion to which you're entitled.
- 05/07/2011 11:19:36 PM
925 Views
Anarchy, baby! *NM*
- 06/07/2011 12:58:23 AM
464 Views
Sorry, as an advocate of civil rights (which especially includes minorities) I oppose anarchy.
- 06/07/2011 01:18:19 AM
584 Views
The public's nose is on the line here too.
- 06/07/2011 01:47:08 AM
642 Views
So my increased ease of hearing/seeing vehicles and other hazards isn't worth $1200.
- 06/07/2011 02:25:53 AM
648 Views
I understand the pov, I had a BF who felt that same way. It's still much like childish defiance.
- 06/07/2011 01:26:15 AM
746 Views
In part it's a matter of principle, but if we really want to analyze it there's some deeper validity
- 06/07/2011 02:13:05 AM
611 Views
you keep spreading falsehoods, stop it please
- 06/07/2011 02:49:01 AM
784 Views
Sounds like your real argument is with the other bikers; I'm just reiterating their arguments.
- 06/07/2011 03:38:39 AM
711 Views
Uh Joel...
- 06/07/2011 03:38:24 AM
542 Views
Agreed, having others in the car does make a difference.
- 06/07/2011 03:47:53 AM
624 Views
Hence why your "I wouldn't wear a seatbelt in the back seat" comment didn't make a lot of sense
- 06/07/2011 07:38:50 PM
588 Views
- 06/07/2011 07:38:50 PM
588 Views
Depends on whether the driver, rather than the law, is the one insisting.
- 06/07/2011 08:06:24 PM
457 Views
You'd place your own comfort over other people's safety?
- 06/07/2011 11:37:00 PM
494 Views
It's more a comfort issue than anything else; it's not solely one.
- 06/07/2011 11:56:28 PM
972 Views
Re: That's your opinion to which you're entitled.
- 06/07/2011 05:18:12 PM
708 Views
Re: That's your opinion to which you're entitled.
- 06/07/2011 06:13:44 PM
774 Views
Hold the phone here...
- 06/07/2011 07:49:10 PM
872 Views
+1 *NM*
- 06/07/2011 08:42:14 PM
322 Views
You agree with him that the abortion debate is about a mothers convenience versus the babys life?
- 06/07/2011 10:48:52 PM
611 Views
im not bringing abortion into this, its a separate issue *NM*
- 06/07/2011 10:56:17 PM
308 Views
It's really not.
- 07/07/2011 12:20:10 AM
644 Views
i'm really not
- 07/07/2011 03:34:23 PM
715 Views
Fine as far as it goes, but public/private only matters to the extent others are affected.
- 09/07/2011 11:15:33 AM
679 Views
Holding the phone here might be good, yes.... 
- 06/07/2011 10:33:46 PM
699 Views
- 06/07/2011 10:33:46 PM
699 Views
See...that's the difference between you and me
- 06/07/2011 10:56:53 PM
802 Views
Apparently so; "completely anarchy as long as its regulated to one's body" sounds nonsensical to me.
- 06/07/2011 11:44:50 PM
805 Views
I'm with Joel. I always buckle up/helmet up, but I think such laws are asinine
- 06/07/2011 02:30:04 AM
468 Views
why not just ban motorcycles all together, they are much more dangerous than cars
- 06/07/2011 05:39:51 PM
482 Views
Helmets help save lives. 'Onest.
- 07/07/2011 04:40:42 PM
646 Views
So do not smoking, eating right and regular exercise, but we haven't made them mandatory.
- 09/07/2011 11:04:58 AM
653 Views