MA - Proposed legislation to make wearing helmets optional....

[scottieducati]

Hadn't seen this posted here, apolgoies if it has been.

Proposed legislation makes wearing motorcycle helmets optional | WWLP.com

Michigan overturned their mandatory helmet law a few years ago, and someone studied what happened after.

Injuries soar after Michigan stops requiring motorcycle helmets | Fox News

While I am all for the 'right to choose,' that right (IMO) begins and ends with a choice that only impacts the person making it. Not wearing a helmet impacts everyone, be it through higher motorcycle insurance or health insurance premiums... not to mention hurting family and friends of a rider killed or seriously injured because they weren't wearing a helmet. So unless you're riding on private property or a closed area, personally I am 100% against someone deciding all by themselves to be an idiot.

Comment threads on the first article include someone claiming to be an Eagle Rider (MSF) Coach making passionate arguments about better field of vision and hearing from NOT wearing a helmet and that those benefits increase safety... which I would absolutely LOVE to see data supporting.

Curious to hear the consensus here on NESR, I have my suspicions but would love to hear folks' thoughts for or against.

[Chippertheripper]

"There ain't no government like no government."

I will continue to wear one when: riding motorized things, pedal powered things, and sliding on snow on plastic and wood (should that ever occur again).

- - - Updated - - -

Oh, and tasting the licorice flavored Windows on the short bus too.

[RandyO]

higher motorcycle insurance or health insurance premiums...

an often made claim not backed by facts

not to mention hurting family and friends of a rider killed or seriously injured because they weren't wearing a helmet..

get a life, worry about yourself

[scottieducati]

an often made claim not backed by facts

Hmm that's weird... took a whopping 5 seconds to google and these are just the top 3 hits...

https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/insu...surance-rates/

https://coverhound.com/insurance-lea...urance-premium

http://www.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/p...ike/costs.html

From the last: A privately conducted California study put the average cost of hospital admissions for a non-helmeted rider at $17,704. Of this initial amount, 72 percent of the costs for hospitalization were paid by the State of California, with another 10 percent being paid by other tax-based sources.

Another study found that 57 percent of the patients listed a government program as the principal payer of in-patient hospital costs resulting from motorcycle crashes.

[RandyO]

like I said, claims without date to back it up, I don't see a single statistic on any of thos links

fact does not always follow logic

[scottieducati]

like I said, claims without date to back it up, I don't see a single statistic on any of thos links

fact does not always follow logic

And apparently neither fact nor logic is present within your brain.... I'm exceedingly curious what your definition of "statistic" is, as there are many present in those links... or even, the two I pulled out in my post above.

[myzx6]

I say let the people choose, if someone's dumb enough to ride without a helmet then so be it. Survival of the fit and such, if we keep having laws to protect idiots from killing themselves, eventually the population will be so large that you won't be able to turn around without tasting a fart and nobody wants that.

[Garandman]

I've never found MMA to be a particularly effective organization nor particularly interested in topics like lane-splitting. There were some parking issues in Boston they said were intractable: a couple of calls to MassPort and BTD indicated to me they had no real interest or ability to solve the problems. But a little Libertarianism would do Mass a lot of good and more would be better.

Comment threads on the first article include someone claiming to be an Eagle Rider (MSF) Coach making passionate arguments about better field of vision and hearing from NOT wearing a helmet and that those benefits increase safety... which I would absolutely LOVE to see data supporting.

The original Hurt Report [1981] debunked these claims thoroughly. Specifically within the 55 statements of finding:

47. The use of the safety helmet is the single critical factor in the prevention of reduction of head injury; the safety helmet which complies with FMVSS 218 is a significantly effective injury countermeasure.

48. Safety helmet use caused no attenuation of critical traffic sounds, no limitation of precrash visual field, and no fatigue or loss of attention; no element of accident causation was related to helmet use.

49. FMVSS 218 provides a high level of protection in traffic accidents, and needs modification only to increase coverage at the back of the head and demonstrate impact protection of the front of full facial coverage helmets, and insure all adult sizes for traffic use are covered by the standard.

50. Helmeted riders and passengers showed significantly lower head and neck injury for all types of injury, at all levels of injury severity.

51. The increased coverage of the full facial coverage helmet increases protection, and significantly reduces face injuries.

52. There is no liability for neck injury by wearing a safety helmet; helmeted riders had less neck injuries than unhelmeted riders. Only four minor injuries were attributable to helmet use, and in each case the helmet prevented possible critical or fatal head injury.

There were two more recent European studies (MAIDS) and a New Zealand study that tend to confirm these findings, but their methodology was different so it is not outright confirmation.

[scottieducati]

The original Hurt Report [1981] debunked these claims thoroughly. Specifically within the 55 statements of finding:

Oh I am well aware of the Hurt report but this guy was very confident he was right and alluded to his belief being sanctioned by MMA and the Eagle Rider Course for which he claimed to be an instructor. I LOL'd.

[butcher bergs]

I say let freedom ring and allow the dummies to thin themselves out. Way to many of them in the crowd.

[scottieducati]

I say let freedom ring and allow the dummies thin themselves out. Way to many of them in the crowd.

I used to say and feel the same, problem is their poor decisions make it worse for all of us. I say I want to live free of paying for other's people stupidity, and my freedom (well not just mine, but the collective everybody else as well... ) from your stupidity trumps your freedum to be stoopid.

The whole basis of life and liberty is founded upon man should be free to do as he wish, so long as he does no harm to others. I wholly agree, but choosing to not wear a helmet *does harm to others,* and we even have some nice financial metrics to back it up.

[Garandman]

Oh I am well aware of the Hurt report but this guy was very confident he was right and alluded to his belief being sanctioned by MMA and the Eagle Rider Course for which he claimed to be an instructor. I LOL'd.

My wife got her license Fall 2013. In response to an HD rider's similar claims, the instructor pulled out the helmet graphic.


But she did not take it at an HD dealer so who knows where he pulled that from. This issue seems to be MMA's sole focus.

Arguing safety issues seems a dead end. Arguing against paternalism has a certain validity.

[jasnmar]

Do you care to compare MC insurance costs in NH, where helmets are not mandatory, to that in MA, where they are? (There are other factors, so it really isn't fair, but I would almost guarantee the average cost of insurance in NH is less).

I support people's right to make decisions for themselves, so don't think they should be mandatory. That said you'll never see me ride without a full face helmet, and you'll never see a passenger on my bike without the same.

[scottieducati]

Do you care to compare MC insurance costs in NH, where helmets are not mandatory, to that in MA, where they are? (There are other factors, so it really isn't fair, but I would almost guarantee the average cost of insurance in NH is less).

I support people's right to make decisions for themselves, so don't think they should be mandatory. That said you'll never see me ride without a full face helmet, and you'll never see a passenger on my bike without the same.

You'd have to have state-wide data in the same state to make a good comparison, rates in NH will of course be loads less. Far less people, theft, and accidents.

What we DO know, is that insurance payouts rose when they removed the law in MI... and we also know insurance companies react to said trends. Whether it's the newest hot bike to be stolen, or a trend in equipment use. In MI IIRC they stipulate you have to carry additional insurance and have 2 years' experience to "choose" to ride w/o a helmet, which is at least something.

[jasnmar]

I agree. I'd also bet that the MA rate doesn't really account for the knuckleheads that ride north from MA, then spend the day riding around NH with their Schultz helmet either on their elbow or strapped to the sissy bar.

[jwm2k3]

Do you care to compare MC insurance costs in NH, where helmets are not mandatory, to that in MA, where they are? (There are other factors, so it really isn't fair, but I would almost guarantee the average cost of insurance in NH is less).

I support people's right to make decisions for themselves, so don't think they should be mandatory. That said you'll never see me ride without a full face helmet, and you'll never see a passenger on my bike without the same.

I was hoping for a much more wise ass post from you....im disappointed.

[jasnmar]

I was hoping for a much more wise ass post from you....im disappointed.

LOL. I'm not *always* a complete ass, just most of the time :-).

I'll try to do better next time.

[PhilB]

... While I am all for the 'right to choose,' that right (IMO) begins and ends with a choice that only impacts the person making it. Not wearing a helmet impacts everyone, be it through higher motorcycle insurance or health insurance premiums... not to mention hurting family and friends of a rider killed or seriously injured because they weren't wearing a helmet. So unless you're riding on private property or a closed area, personally I am 100% against someone deciding all by themselves to be an idiot. ...

Not wearing a helmet has little or no effect on motorcycle insurance premiums -- motorcycle policies do not generally cover very much of health or injuries. Not wearing a helmet *lowers* health insurance costs, because funerals are a hell of a lot cheaper than hospitals. The "family and friends" argument is irrelevant -- if that was a valid reason to restrict people's actions and choices, then we could outlaw smoking, fried foods, candy, skydiving, SCUBA diving, horses, motorcycles. and a hell of a lot of other things on that basis. No thanks to that vision of the role of government in our lives.

There are NO choices that "only impact the person making it". If you believe "the 'right to choose' begins and ends" there, you do not favor anyone being allowed to make their own choices at all.

And apparently neither fact nor logic is present within your brain.... I'm exceedingly curious what your definition of "statistic" is, as there are many present in those links... or even, the two I pulled out in my post above.

The two statistics you pulled out tell us exactly nothing about any comparison of costs without helmets vs. costs with helmets. The articles similarly bring in a lot of confounding factors and confuse the issue. One of them is based on figures from one of the others, so you have two sources, not three. All of them talk about the costs of uninsured riders, which has nothing to do with the costs of unhelmeted riders. Facts and actual logic DO matter; this kind of sophistry does not. This is why we can't have nice things.

PhilB

[RandyO]

the principal driver of higher insurance costs is parents who send their snotty nosed kids to school when they are sick

[TheIglu]

the principal driver of higher insurance costs is old people who cost the system more than any other demographic by a huge margin

Fixed for you.

[reks95]

What percentage of total healthcare costs do motorcycle accidents comprise?
I suspect it's pretty tiny. But that's the kind of data you'd need.
Even if it quadrupled the costs, if it's a tiny part of the overall budget, it's
not going to change premiums very much. Hell, when I went shopping for
life insurance, they didn't even ask if I was a motorcyclist - skydiving, scuba,
and flying made the cut though .

Helmet laws, like seat belt laws, strike me as nanny state silliness.
Yes you should wear a helmet.
But no, it shouldn't be anybody's job to make you do it.

That said, rolling back helmet laws don't deserve to be part of anyone's legislative
agenda when they could be pushing lane splitting / filtering bills.

[RandyO]

Fixed for you.

I get sick when I have an employee who came in sick who got sick from his child of got sick from his kid who got sick from another snotty nosed kid who shouldn't have been in school to begin with. maybe I'm old but I wasn't the one who started the cycle

[TheIglu]

But kids and adults normally just need a Z pack and they are on their way. Old people? Jesus, its like playing Jenga when they get sick. The whole wobbly wrinkled grumpy tower could come crashing down at any point.

[TheIglu]

Which is why old people should wear helmets. Full circle, back on topic.

[Not Sure]

I say let freedom ring and allow the dummies to thin themselves out. Way to many of them in the crowd.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wq_edHqpdA