Only An Idiot Rides Sans Helmet

I can be an idiot at times.

It’s mid-February and I haven’t gotten a flu shot yet. That’s being an idiot.

When cutting wood with my chain saw, I don’t always put on my Kevlar-lined chaps. Usually the lapse comes when I just go outside to merely kill a few minutes by cutting logs. That’s being an idiot, though. An accident takes but a fraction of a second.

And then there’s my annual spring motorcycle ride to lunch at the pizza joint a mile away when I purposely don’t put on the full-face helmet that I routinely wear when riding. I go lid-less to remind myself how vulnerable I feel when not wearing a helmet.

Yes, that’s being an idiot.

Heck, to be human, is to sometimes be an idiot. A fellow member of the Harwinton V.F.D. cautioned me years ago that leaving my house with the clothes dryer running is unwise. Did I mind being called an idiot? Heck, no. I was pleased that he cared for my welfare and I took his words to heart. I now never leave home with any appliance running.

Recently, responding to a Facebook post by a reader, I declared that any rider who doesn’t wear a helmet is an idiot. This came after that reader responded to a recent RIDE-CT column in the “Republican-American” newspaper (and posted here) in which I tweaked a segment of the riding community by writing, “And your weak excuse for riding without a helmet is?”

The rhetorical question came at the end of an item about how the death rate among motorcyclists in Michigan has skyrocketed since that state repealed a helmet law that had stood for 35 years. The jab was mine. Yes, newspaper columnists are allowed and even encouraged to offer opinions; opinions that are theirs and theirs alone, not the newspaper’s. The reader was outraged, called me a Commie and accused me of hating veterans. Huh?

Nowhere in the item did I call for the implementation of a helmet law in Connecticut. My sole hope was that if one rider read the item and decided to wear a helmet, well, something positive would be accomplished.

Over the years, I’ve included occasional reminders that wearing a helmet is a good idea. Having lost a close friend to a head injury when he crashed before my eyes, the back of his head ripped open from the impact; having seen motorcycle accident victims as a member of the V.F.D.; having interviewed crash survivors who vow that a helmet saved their life; and having read the statistics, such as the recent ones from Michigan, I have gone from sitting on the fence over the “choice” issue involving helmets to feeling that such a law maybe isn’t such a bad idea.

I’ve concluded that helmets are an issue of health and safety; not an issue of choice or personal freedom. I dislike government intrusion as much as the next person, but some laws and regulations are designed to protect the citizenry. I don’t see a helmet law as being any different from a seat belt law. Yes, I know there are those (like my state rep) who still argue that a seat belt mandate infringes on their freedom.

When I was kid, there were no such protective restraints (or child seats) in cars. Active kids bounced around inside of moving cars like pin balls. How many lives have been saved through careful and constructive law-making since those carefree days? Seat belts, air bags, car seats for kids, and better construction of vehicles save lives.

States began enacting seat belt laws in the 1980s and 1990s, although manufacturers began installing seat belts in cars much earlier. In 1980, there were 3.35 traffic fatalities nationally per 100 million vehicle miles traveled. By 2014, that number had dropped dramatically to 1.07 thanks to safer vehicles with protective devices.

A helmet law can have a similar impact. The Michigan study is just the latest example. The first study of motorcycle deaths came 75 years ago following the death of T.E. Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”), who suffered “severe lacerations and damage to the brain” when he crashed while riding his Brough Superior.

British neurosurgeon Hugh Cairns engaged in pioneering work, gathering evidence on head injuries suffered by bikers. According to a BBC report, he determined that in the 21 months before the start of World War II, 1,884 motorcyclists were killed on British roads, two-thirds of them suffering from head injuries. The numbers rose after the start of the war.

Cairns convinced the British military to equip its riders with helmets, the policy being adopted in November 1941. In results published in the “British Medical Journal” in 1946, Cairns reported that motorcycle deaths had fallen from a monthly peak of nearly 200 before helmets were introduced to around 50 by the end of the war.

Helmet laws do save lives.

When I was a kid, I contracted measles, German measles, chicken pox and mumps. How many kids today get those diseases thanks to mandatory vaccinations? Not many.

Still, I’m not about to start a drive for a helmet law in Connecticut. I just wouldn’t have a problem if there was one. However, that’s not going to happen because the “choice” lobby is too strong. Hundreds, if not thousands, of bare-headed riders would show up at the state capitol to loudly protest if a legislative committee ever held a hearing.

There may be an equal number of less vocal voters, excuse me, riders who would favor or not oppose a helmet law. Their profile is much lower because 1) they already wear helmets and such a law wouldn’t impact them; and, 2) these riders cynically figure the lack of a helmet law culls the motorcycling herd of the idiots.

There, I’ve used that word again – idiot. Having riding friends who eschew helmets, I do use it with a soupcon of affection as a nudge to get them to consider wearing a helmet. Anyone who drinks alcohol and rides is also an idiot, but that’s an argument for another day.

I will amend what I wrote in response to the Facebook post that skewered me. Anyone who doesn’t wear a helmet when riding is a selfish idiot.

As the Michigan study done by doctors revealed, not only are the death and injury rates among helmetless riders much higher, the cost of hospital stays and their duration are higher. This increases the burden on family members and friends, financially or emotionally.

How much unnecessary suffering by loved ones is caused every year by selfish helmet-less riders who ignore the pleas of their spouses and kids and put their “choice” above the welfare of all others in their lives? How much higher are the insurance premiums of all riders thanks to those who don’t wear helmets? How many first responders have to sweep up brain matter and lose sleep afterwards because of their narcissism?

I wear a helmet because if I do go down, I want a better chance of not suffering a catastrophic brain injury. I don’t need the expense or the pain. I don’t want my friends to have to see me suffer. I may sometimes be an idiot, but not when it comes to doing something that I love as much as I do riding. No weak excuses here.

Before you disagree, go talk with an emergency room doctor.