Motorcycle fatalities with/out helmets?

[turbo36]

Dale Earnhardt Sr. used to argue about "theoretical benefits" of the HANS device, and spurned it - causing other NASCAR drivers to do the same.
He died from a basilar skull fracture: The very thing the HANS system was meant to stop: Absurd. HANS systems are now mandatory in many motorsports - NASCAR included.

The "fraction of circumstances" are the crashes where a helmet definitely saved a life. There are however many cases where a helmet wearer has bounced their head off the ground, and got up instantly to punch the driver that caused it. I suppose that if their lower lip had been hanging a few inches below their chins and they were scrabbling on the ground trying to find their teeth, maybe the drivers wouldn't have got a beating.


However... That aside, I mainly wrote to congratulate you on your apparent ability to see and hear clearly with a 50mph wind in your face. :thumbsup:

I find that whatever sunglasses I wear, I end up with tears streaming past my ears - ears which are deafened by the roar of the wind. I also find myself mildly distracted by 70mph bugs and stones.

Pop my helmet on though, and the wind noise is massively reduced, and my field of vision is un-hindered, and stones are no longer a worry.

Besides... I don't really like soup.

Stop it right now! Sensible arguments have no place in this forum!:laughing:

 

[Dargo]

Wear a helmet and leave the mufflers ON..

You're in trouble now. You're too reasonable!

 

[Skyco]

I was gonna stay out of this thread
I once fell at 5 mph when I slid on some mud pulling out onto a paved road.
Really hurt my pride.
Jumped up, checked the bike, an SV650, and went on my way.
Later back at home I was astounded to see a nice scrape on my helmet.
I wasn't even aware my head had hit the ground.
I can guarantee I would have been VERY aware if I'd not had the helmet on.
Or maybe not if the impact knocked me out.

I am firmly in the camp of always wear a helmet. They don't bother me at all.
Loud pipes bother me a lot...nothing has done more to turn the non-riding public against bikes. Don't even get me started on jake brakes and big rigs with straight pipes...as far as I'm concerned the noise laws need a lot more enforcement and massive fines.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

I wear a helmet. I also insist that those I care about wear a helmet.

I've broken two helmets, chipped a couple of others up pretty bad too.

The first one was an open faced Bell that ended up with a split running up the back. I ended up waking up forty five miles later in an emergency room. And endo in the desert at seventy or so can do that to you. It also broke eighteen spokes out of the rear wheel, everything on the handlebars, and ruined the forks.

The second one was broken on the half mile in what we called then a Superstock at the old Corona Raceway in Corona California. I woke up with them trying to get a couple of cars off of mine to get to me.

I've had my bell rang way too many times which I now believe they think is a bad thing. But without that open faced Bell in 1970 or that full faced helmet back in 1978 I wouldn't be here today.

You don't need a helmet unless you're in a crash. If you know when and how you're going to crash then you're luckier than the rest of us.

 

[The Haymaker]

As one doctor told me.."wearing helmet or not speeds 50mph plus only decide open or close coffin" hmmmm.

Yes and no, depends on the circumstances. I LOVE riding without a brain bucket, but have decided to choose life. I firmly believe my helmet (now shattered and hanging with a set of well worn crutches on my shop wall) saved my life in my 70mph crash.


Don't try to use a dirtbike as a farm implement!

 

[Matt_Jr]

I am one of those that hates being told what to do. I hate being told by my state that I HAVE to wear a helmet. I don't always wear one on my 4 wheeler. If I'm riding on my gravel road at a top speed of 20, I don't wear a helmet. I could get into trouble for this stupid law. But if I'm riding for fun in the woods I do because I do some riskier stuff. But on my road bike(Buell XB12X) I wouldn't think of riding without a full face helmet. On my Goldwings, which I don't have anymore, I use to ride with a half, or 3/4 helmet, because the windshield was protection enough. But after seeing pictures of people without a full face survive some gruesome stuff.. only full face helmets now. Oh, and that over 50MPH crap is just that, crap. I might be wrong, but I would bet that more people survive crashes over 50 than don't. That helmet just helps improve the chances of a better quality of life afterward.

Oh yeah.. and about loud pipes saving lives... I don't need 'em 'cause I'm smart enough to use the horn.

 

[Thomas]

Haymaker.
Also have my crutches for reminder.

Most will say.."You will go down,its how you go down"

 

[Dargo]

Don't try to use a dirtbike as a farm implement!

Dang! And I thought casing it while trying to do three whoops rather than two was a really, really bad way to move dirt. That just squirted some of that lovely jell stuff out of two discs in my back and made me want to cry like a girl (cause my bike sort of broke in half and it really, really hurt). I promise I'll never try to move a round bale except with a tractor with a spear on the FEL. Yours was much, much worse and much more recent. I'm sure you're probably been told, but it is really possible that you'll heal up just fine....for a while. Then those injured places seem to become arthritic. Hopefully yours don't. Looks like you got a lot more pain and suffering than I did!

 

[The Haymaker]

Dang! And I thought casing it while trying to do three whoops rather than two was a really, really bad way to move dirt. That just squirted some of that lovely jell stuff out of two discs in my back and made me want to cry like a girl (cause my bike sort of broke in half and it really, really hurt). I promise I'll never try to move a round bale except with a tractor with a spear on the FEL. Yours was much, much worse and much more recent. I'm sure you're probably been told, but it is really possible that you'll heal up just fine....for a while. Then those injured places seem to become arthritic. Hopefully yours don't. Looks like you got a lot more pain and suffering than I did!

It was a bad ride, for sure. Crazy *** dumb mistake on my part. It wasn't there the weekend before! One of these pics shows how far I moved it and the other shows a little of bike.

While I will say if I was lucky, I'd have been three feet to the left instead of three feet to the right, I was lucky in the fact that the injuries the x-rays show were my only ones. Rattled my brain pretty hard even with the helmet. I saw all straight lines (such as a wall ceiling junction) in an "X" pattern for a month and had memory issues for quite some time. I lost a lot of things from the 5 years prior. Very weird. Anyone that says "you're gonna feel that when you get older" gets the answer "I consider myself lucky I'm getting older"!

No real aches and pains yet. It's been 8 years come summer. I started leading my "normal" life 10 months after the lesson on Newtons Laws. It took a few years before I could say I was "back". I started riding in less than 12 months. I'm doing everything I was doing prior to the crash and would get p.o.'d any time someone told me I'd be less than 100%

Anyway, I still bauble around without a helmet on a quad or on the street bike, but the vast majority of my riding has my head covered. No one will ever convince me helmets don't work, just as I'll never be convinced that the battle cry of "loud pipes save lives" is nothing more than a way for those who don't understand defensive driving to get themselves smeared under the front bumper of some ignoramus driving a Volvo.

Of course, gotta include a short vid of me a few weekends ago on the resurrected 650R. That is one tough bike!

 

[SensibleNick]

OUCH!!!! it hurts to see the forks like that!!!

Until I found out that you weren't serious, I was looking for the photos my missus took of me using my XR650 as a towing device... with a small front pinion and a massive rear cog I used it to tow large branches for a year!

Spent most of my time on the back wheel, but to be fair that's hardly different from the norm