ALT-10 Motorcyclists should always Wear Helmets – Agree
Your riding along on one of those wonderful spring days. Warm sun in your face, wind in your hair, life is good. As you round the corner ahead you hit a patch of loose sand and the bike slide out from under you dropping you onto your back and striking your head on the pavement. Crack!
As the paramedics are summoned, people stop to see if you lived or died or if the can help with your injuries.
With luck you didn't hit too hard and the damage is mostly surface cuts and abrasions. Painful, possibly disfiguring but not deadly. Without so much luck you could be looking at severe disfigurement, brain trauma or death. While I believe that in this scenario, at some point the damage becomes so severe that death becomes a gift, it is a gift I do not want to need. On the other hand, with physical and mental damage, you have just entered into a long, painful and desperately expensive treatment and rehabilitation cycle. I hope you purchased very high limits of medical coverage when you bought your motorcycle insurance.
Surgery, hospital stays, rehabilitation centers, time out of work, possible permanent damage and the accompanying changes to your future.
Let's rewind and modify this scenario.
Your riding along on one of those wonderful spring days. Warm sun in your face, wind blowing thru the open face shield of your helmet, life is good. As you round the corner ahead you hit a patch of loose sand and the bike slide out from under you dropping you onto your back and striking your head on the pavement. Crack! Your helmet hits the pavement, cracking it shell but absorbing most of the force. Head spinning a bit and the start of a good headache coming on, you come to a stop and slowly come to your feet.
Minor abrasions on your hands from sliding but your jacket and helmet are trashed.
Passerby stop to check on you and are thrilled that you are basically all right. Good thing insurance will pay to fix the bike and replace your jacket and helmet.
I am not by any means saying that a good jacket and helmet will always prevent serious or fatal injuries but I am saying that in many accidents, a good jacket and helmet can help minimize your injuries.
What a helmet does for you is provide a shell that is designed to take the damage and an inner energy absorbing material designed to spread the force of the impact over a greater area and prevent or reduce the effects on your head and brain.
Just as a seat belt in your car helps hold you in place during an accident, and the airbags in your car help prevent impact damage with the steering wheel or dashboard, the helmet and jacket are your safety systems on a motorcycle. Of these two, the helmet is the single most important safety system you have.
In order for this helmet to provide adequate protection it must be a good quality helmet, either "DOT" or "SNELL" approved or both. When purchasing a helmet, work with the sales staff to find not just one you like the look of but also one that meets these requirements and fits you properly. Try the helmet on in the store and walk around for 15-20 minutes. Does it fit snug; does it leave pressure points on your head? The inside of every helmet is not shaped like the outside of every head. Different manufacturers fit different people. Some are more oval, some squarer, some are slightly egg headed. Trial and error is the only when to determine what helmet fits you. Work with the sale staff to ensure the helmet doesn't roll off your head.
Make sure the helmet is one that you will wear. The helmet sitting on the shelf in your closet while you are out riding does not protect you at all. The helmet that doesn't fit properly and falls off in an accident doesn't protect you at all.
