Because of my witty images.

NOW KEEP READING!


http://img478.imageshack.us/img478/2169/slap8aj.gif

The fact is that all helmets laws have done is to destroy the motorcycle business in the USA. Before the helmet laws there were 14 motorcycle shops in and around Oakland, CA. 5 years after there were 3 or 4 and one of them was the Harley shop.

You sure showed those people what you thought of their honest living.

Motorcycle helmets have EXACTLY the same impact protection as the Snell bicycle helmet standard. This is the limit of what can be achieved. The motorcycle helmets have improved penetration resistance and because of the hard shell they spread the impact forces over a larger surface area of the head.

However, the EXACTLY SAME STATISTICAL ANALYSIS of motorcycle helmets demonstrates that reductions in motorcycle rider are what caused a smaller reduction in serious injuries and fatalities.

What was accomplished by mandatory motorcycle helmet laws?

1) The numbers of riders dropped precipitously since motorcyclists didn't want some jackass SAFETY EXPERT telling them what to do. They were more willing to give up motorcycling than to wear a helmet as mandated by law. EVEN THOUGH MOST OF THEM HAD ALREADY WORN HELMETS!!!

2) Because of the reduction of riders a couple of things happened: Most of the booming motorcycle business disappeared almost overnight. They were already having problems from extreme competition and falling sales did them in. Secondly BECAUSE of the reduction in sales the motorcycle manufacturers had to make up profits somewhere so they started increasing the size and performance of motorcycles in order to seel a larger percentage of the larger more profitable motorcycles. The increased performance GREATLY increased the numbers of fatalities.

Here's a perfect example of the moronic helmet fanatics thinking - when you look up motorcycle accident statistics the FIRST thing they tell you is that only about half of all fatalities were to people wearing helmets. It isn't until two lines before that they tell you that MOST of them involved alcohol. Or that a majority of these fatalities involved collisions with fixed objects at high speeds.

Just to compare: Georgia is a mandatory helmet state and a somewhat likely comparision is to Colorado which is a voluntary helmet use state. The RATE of fatalities in Georgia in 1998 was 2.98 fatalities per 100 accidents. In Colorado it was 2.65 even though there were 30% more registered motorcyclists and more accidents.

In talks I had with those who were promoting helmet laws they were HAPPY that these laws reduced the numbers of motorcyclists and they couldn't care less that it actually increased the numbers of serious and fatal injuries. Again and again they'd say things like, "You can make statistics say anything you want them to." Sorry but the unvarnished numbers couldn't be interpretted any other way.

6 ounces of foamed plastic isn't some sort of magical device. It is capable of absorbing a MINUTE amount of force and people are taking more chances because they truly believe themselves to be more protected.

Is this the reason you quit riding motorcycles? Helmet laws? Because that's not the reason I did.
Sure you polled more than one person for this 'research'.
:) :) :)

Wrong about cycling and cycling safety, now also wrong about the motorcycle business in the USA!

:) :) :)

is he polling in his belly button?

$%^&$%^&$%^*&^* double post did I stutter?

Strange that no one stopped riding BECAUSE of helmet laws.

However, in California the year after the helmet law there were 22% FEWER REGISTRATIONS and huge numbers of motorcyclists chose to do something else for reasons not related to helmets.

OK.

So based on this one factor, you put two and two together and came up with what five, six, nine?
(your subsequent posts are providing more insight into the quality of your 'research' & supporting 'statistics')

:)

The **** is getting so deep its coming in my helmet vents. Dam,if i didnt wear one it wouldnt do that.

I don't have to, YOU'RE the loud mouth who doesn't know what he's doing making claims to have done hands on testing personally. So I'm asking again, what testing have you done?
The fact that you've had to weasel your way around this is proof enough that you have no idea what the hell you were talking about. You have absolutely no idea how to even begin describing how you performed your little bicycle helmet test "personally."

Cyclintom, you said ""... it is impossible to build a helmet that will offer significant impact protection" Dr. George Shively, The Snell Memorial Foundation"

Look what it says right there in black and white on the... SNELL memorial foundation webpage... (which you can, btw, browse through to look up how they test helmets so you can begin to formulate your little story).
I've said this before, a helmet is absolutely USELESS until you start falling. (Well I do like the visor).

That's cause you have one of those fancy dragon ball Z hair type vented helmets...

Hey, if you want to discuss something I'll go for it.

Dr. Shively, the original director of the Snell Memorial Foundation and essentially the inventor of modern testing procedures and medical standards pertaining to helmets said that you can't make a helmet that offers "significant" protection.

Apparently because the Foundation sets standards, to you, that magically means that you can offer "significant" protection?

Well, if you have some sort of technical or medical background that you can use to explain yourself I suppose I'll just have wait and see if you can put enough English words together in a manner that makes sense.

Like I said, and I'll repeat, this quote comes straight from the SNELL foundation, if you have a problem with that, please go contest it with the **SNELL** foundation since you apparently disagree with the *SNELL* foundation.

I'm still waiting for you to explain, since you said you've done it yourself, how you personally tested helmets... you know, hands on, you know what I'm saying? [tucker]Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?[/tucker]

We're ALL waiting for you to explain how you made up those results of yours from your "personal" testing since you're "oh so involved" in the "process". This is the 3rd time you've been asked and the best you can come up with is something akin to what an 8-year old would say? "Oh durr I won't tell unless you tell." Pleeease, hey, let's pretend I don't have an engineering background, let's pretend I never worked at any lab or anything, now for the 4th or 5th time, please, pretty please, out of curiosity, what kind of "tests" did you do to come up with your results? Please.

STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAASEEEEE

DON'T YOU PEOPLE REALIZE THAT YOU'RE ARGUING ABOUT NOTHING**********

Go take all this time you're using to type these essays and look up your statistics and play with your kids or something, or read a book, or research a cure for cancer, or SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE!

Don't you all know the saying about arguing on the internet and the special olympics??

:(:(:(

Why? This is more fun. I love talking to bricks.

Damn that slap is funny, what's it from ?

Damn that slap is funny, what's it from ?

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...q=slap&pl=true


Google Video. DO NOT go to skoopy.com. The ads can get you fired :mad: .

You are asserting that helmets are "appropriate tools to provide reasonable safeguards..." Now back that up (preferably without using Bell advertisements). My basic argument is that many pro-helmet arguments are fallacious at best while most of the others are simply assertions posing as arguments. Your argument (quoted above) would have us all walk around in helmets all the time because we have not adapted to the paved environment in which most of us now live (concrete being harder than the dirt with which we evolved).

Huh? Where is this coming from? How does this respond at all to: "I often feel that the helmet zealots need to justify their hefty expenditures and their wholehearted acceptance of helmet industry propaganda (all writing is propaganda for something) while refusing to seriously question the source of their convictions. It would be a scary world indeed, if we all just readily accepted advertising as 'truth.'"

There is no real reason for me to get on a bicycle in the first place—other than the fact that I want to. Isn't that reason enough?

Well, did it? I have a friend who was riding his motorcycle and went over the hood of the car, through the windshield and into the back seat of the car with almost no injuries. He had cuts on the calf of one leg.

And another who was riding his bicycle, was hit by a car, went through the windshield, hit and killed the passenger in the car and was in intensive caer for 6 months with head injuries despite his helmet. Did the helmet make a difference? As noted above people have gone through windshields headfirst without so much as a cut.

So individual cases might be different so we need to look at the statistical relevance of helmets and the statistics show no discernable changes in head injuries. What's more, the statistics from Australia, Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand and the USA all show the same sort of patterns - pushing helmet use, even with no legal mandates, causes substantial drops in cycling, reducing bicycling road presence and this in turn makes the remaining individuals more endangered from the traffic.

Those who wish to wear helmets are free to do so. The problem is that they feel the need to misrepresent why they are doing so by using false claims of increased safety.

What I wish to happen is for these people to feel absolutely free to wear helmets without screaming "Where's your helmet" at anyone that isn't wearing one. I know this is about as reasonable a dream as expecting rap singers to act like normal people.

I dont scream that,i just figure they are stupit. BTW,how often do you wear one?

I know about your miracle friends..... ask them if they are willing to try it again with or without a helmet.

....and what pray tell, is a "normal person"? Do I even want to be one? For the record, rappers rap, singers sing, apples and oranges. You don't like it don't listen, Yo!

In the words of Chuck Berry, "This is a free country, live like you want to live...ain't nobody going knock it darlin'...a freedom....You got a right! Ain't nobody going to bother you."

Well. I guess they are in the case of mandated helmet laws. But oh well. Maybe this post is useless. :)