Fine. Learn to run. Buy a segway. Either way, drivers are going to hate bikers for a long time. We don't want to worry about you coming up the side or worrying anytime we turn.

-Rudey

Whenever I see someone on a Segway, I want to push them over. They look like such easy targets!

I always thought the rule was going against traffic, this way motorists could see you coming. Cars have a lot of blind spots, even more if it's an SUV or even a semi-truck, and a lot of cyclists think they own the road. Even if cyclists have the right of way, sometimes it's impossible to see one coming up on your right when you are trying to turn. My suggestion? Ride on the sidewalk carefully, and if you want to do the kind of riding you do, find a less busy road. (this is no offense to you, but to those cyclists who act like cars don't exist)

Walking = Against traffic
Biking = With Traffic

Helmets
 

About a year ago, there was an accident in which a motorcylce t-boned a jeep leaving the parking lot of the store at which I worked.

If not for the fact that the was an ER-trama room nurce at the diner next door, he would have been DOA.

Besides being very lucky, he was wearing a helmet.

He was very dumb to be driving/riding at about 55+mph on a major, main shopping road.

And look what happened the other day to QB in PA. He too very lucky and is now saying that if he ever rides again, will be wearing a helmet.

Agreed, to an extent. I don't think that my tax dollars should pay for someone else's "right" to have their hair blow free while on a motorcycle. ER doctors & nurses don't call them "Donorcycles" for nothing.

Uh, the post was about insurance, not MedicAid or any other tax-funded program - do taxes often pay for this sort of thing?

If they are permanently disabled, they sure do. Once that insurance runs out, they're being treated and living on our dimes. Also, you can bet that our insurance rates go up if there are too many very expensive claims.

I am in favor of the law because I think it would also be unethical to let a human being die because their insurance wouldn't cover their injury and the government wouldn't pay the bills either. Hospitals shouldn't have to absorb any more free care than they already do (the health system I work for absorbs $100 million in free care every year). Hospitals have to treat life endangering injuries whether a person is insured or not and whether they get paid or not.

There is a bill in the Michigan congress now to repeal our helmet law but the governor says she will veto it and I don't think it has enough support for her veto to be overridden.

I had a friend in Oklahoma who was an orthopedic surgeon who rode his damn motorcycle without a helmet all the time and finally crashed. He was in a coma for weeks and will never practice medicine (or hold any job) again. I will always wonder how an orthopedic surgeon could have been so dumb.

OK - makes sense . . . I guess I completely disagree with the insurance part, but don't know enough about the gov't assitance portion to do anything other than defer to you.

As far as insurance - motorcycle helmet laws probably do very little to affect your rates, and using your personal rate as a reason for creation of this kind of law really doesn't make sense to me (that whole 'constitution' thing). Either way, if it's a big deal, then insurance companies can 'play the market' and lower rates to people who don't ride motorcycles in exchange for not covering motorcycle accidents, etc . . . the free market should take care of this, not laws that restrict personal liberties (however stupid) to try to save a nebulous amount of money.

What if, instead of 'dumb', we think of it as a 'calculated risk' . . . if the person's risk of catastrophic injury is less than the enjoyment gained by riding without a helmet, isn't that the antithesis of dumb?

I don't ride at all, and I would probably wear a helmet regardless, but why the derision for those who choose not to? They're adults . . . it's not like this is some endemic problem, either; it's relatively niche compared to other social health issues.

I'm not sure about the insurance part either. I do know that after Katrina my flood insurance (in Michigan) went up $200 a year, so even if they say it shouldn't affect my rates if I don't ride a motorcycle, I'm wary. I just don't trust insurance companies :)

We've had the helmit laws down here in Australia for years, and I dare say that they have saved countless lives, even if things are costly with insurance.

This doesn't include motorbikes but it does include helmits, so what the hell....

I do a lot of work with horses, both in competition riding and for pure pleasure. I also do a lot of Instructing of kids now that I've got my official Instructors Certificate. About 5 years ago I was at the Australian High School's Equestrian Championships (Otherwise known as the North West Equestrian Expo) at a town called Coonabarabran in northern New South Wales. The event goes for about 4 days every year in June and encompasses everything from Eventing to flat-riding, rodeo events (minus the bucking events or roping), 1-day eventing, showjumping and dressage. All in all, theres normally upwards of 600 riders at the event each year.

Anyway, there was this girl out there in the age group below me that was on a horse that was most definately too much for a developing rider like her to handle, and it was being a danger both to her and the other riders around her. After being kicked at for no reason at all, a number of us complained to the teacher that was supervising her and got her to take the horse back up to her school's stables. Anyway instead of doing that, the girl took her horse up to one of the warm-up arenas where she continued to ride. Anyway during this time her horse spooked at something and bolted on her, resulting on her totally loosing control and leaning 3/4 out of the way of the saddle to her right hand side. Screaming at the top of her lungs, her horse continued to bolt back down towards the Marshelling Yard, where I still was waiting in in order to go to my next event. When we saw her coming, everyone thought that the safest way to handle the situation would be to let the horse run into the marsheling yard and to catch it there instead of her potentially hitting a vehicle. Anyway, the marshelling yard in question was made out of wood from Ironbark trees, which as their name suggests is one extremely tough hardwood. Now the gatepost in question was about a foot in radius and had a gate-latch on the outer part of it. She hit the gatepost and latch chest, neck and head on, totally flailing her chest, puncturing her right lung, fracturing her skull and literally causing massive internal injuries in everything from her abdomenin upwards. When I saw the thing happen I knew that her injuries were well beyond my knowledge of Emergency medicine (compulsory aspect of my Instructors Certificate and Surf Lifesaving certificate) and knew that her only chance was if I got the Paramedics to her within the next minute, while my Dad tried to make sure that she didn't choke on her own blood in the meantime and kept a ton of people who were screaming and trying to touch her away from her. Screaming at the top of my lungs for the Paramedics, I jumped my horse into the main show arena where the closest Paramedic was. It was lucky that he was only a hundred metres away and not over the other side of the showground, otherwise she would of been dead.
After having every paramedic on the ground plus an off-duty Medivac Helicopter paramedic work on her for close to an hour, they got her ready to move to the local hospital where they had all of that small town's five doctors working on her. They had to restart her heart 3 times on the way to the hospital and twice at the hospital, and they also had to call up the large NRMA Medivac helicopter from the Sydney region, which also picked up the head Neurosurgeon from John Hunter Hospital (one of the biggest hospitals in Australia). She was in a coma for just over 6 months and still requires care.

Anyway after the accident, quite understandably all of the paramedics who worked on her were an absolute mess. One of them still had the helmit with him, as it was more of a hinderence to the people that were working on her than a help due to its state. The helmit, taking the brunt of the impact was nearly completely split in two, though it most likely saved her life. The paramedic that I talked to said that in his 25 years in the ambulance service that it was the worst accident of any sort that he'd ever had to attend.

I still have nightmares from seeing that accident.

If a helmit can save a person's life from an accident like that on a horse though, imagine how many lives could be saved if people wore helmits all the time on bikes in the US.....

Gary Busey Helps Lead Fight Against Traumatic Brain Injuries

“I want people to understand that life is very important. And that if you’re riding a motorcycle, skateboard, or bicycle without a helmet – you’re challenging the face of death.”

Gary Busey adds that riding without a helmet is a gamble everyone is bound to lose, sooner or later. “When the odds finally catch up with you, fate will steal your life, and the hearts of everyone who loves you.”

Busey had just picked up his bike at a repair shop when he slid on a patch of gravel at 40 mph, flipped over the handlebars, and his unprotected head hit the curb. “I landed at the feet of a police officer and was rushed to an emergency room with a hole in my head the size of a half dollar,” says Busey.

Doctors subsequently related that had Busey arrived even three minutes later, he would not have survived. As it was, Busey fell into a coma for over four weeks, while family and friends stood by his side.

This is completely, absolutely, 100% not the point.

Than what is? Last time I checked, Lunacy wasn't written into the constitution of the US. The rights to freedom of expression yes, but not lunacy in regards to physical health.

Attend an accident where a helmit (horse riding or bike or whatever) has saved a life, prevented an accident from being further serious or could of prevented a death like I have and you will see what I mean.

Ok, look at it this way then, with the laws we've had over here in Australia for the last 30 or so years look at the number of fatal accidents we've had in comparison to every 1000 bike rider accidents that you guys have. The statistics prove my point that helmits do save lives. In fact over here and in a lot of other places worldwide its uncool not to use a helmit, so why can't your bikers just accept what the rest of the world's bikers (myself included) consider another part of the biking experience?

I'm sorry if I annoy or offend people by saying it, but its just my opinion from the expreiences that I've had like the one in my previous post that "No Helmit = No Brains". (in more than one way)

Helmets definitely make riding safer - there's no argument there, not from me or anybody.

"Lunacy with regard to physical health" has LONG been an American tradition - from cigarette smoking to riding a bicycle . . . and legislating helmet use, without any sort of justification for the 'greater good', doesn't really fly for me. The Libertarian in me sees no responsibility for the government to legislate the safety of the individual against the rights of the individual if there's little marginal benefit for the 'whole' as it were.

Again, helmets do provide additional safety. Again, if you want to deride people for not wearing a helmet, go for it ace.

However, again, that's not the point I'm making at all.