For some reason motorcycle fashion and safety don’t see eye to eye when it comes to motorcycle helmets. As a kid in the early 1970’s I remember seeing one of my uncles wearing a helmet when no one else was and asking him why he was wearing a helmet and uncle so and so wasn’t, and getting the answer from one of their friends “cause yer uncle is a sissy!” I guess my outlook, attitude, and opinion on helmets and other issues were formed by those early impressions while hanging around my uncles and their friends.
As I grew up and was more aware of what was going on around me, I realized that a lot of the values I had about my lifestyle were actually learned or picked up in my association with my friends and family, and sadly some of them were only based on what I had picked up as a kid and held no merit or importance other than they were absorbed social values.
In 1985 when the California helmet laws went into effect, I remember there was a lot of bitching and moaning about the government infringing on our personal freedoms, and how the State of California had no right to dictate how people choose to ride their motorcycles. The funny thing is we wore leather jackets, boots, gloves, and chaps or leather pants because we knew that going down on the highway wasn’t going to be pretty and we needed all the protection we could get… but hell no!, we were not going to be told we had to wear a helmet!
I can also remember laughing and making fun of these guys on rice grinders riding without a shirt or jacket on, and you don’t know how many times we would see guys riding with flip-flops on. We would just bust up laughing and making comments to one another of how crazy they were, didn’t they know how bad they would be hurt if they went down?
With the new mandatory helmet law in effect State highway safety and accident statistics began to be reported, and the facts were in that the number of fatal motorcycle accidents had been reduced. While more recent motorcycle accident studies show high a number of motorcycle accidents that resulted in serious injury, the number of deaths was still far less than before the helmet laws 1985 inception.
Today I wear a helmet with the same attitude I have when it comes to gloves, leather jacket, and boots….I want the best protection I can get. I don’t wear one of those full helmets like a lot of guys do, but I do have a DOT certified skid lid. Hey motorcycle safety and fashion do fit well with the advancements in today’s helmet safety and design!
The bottom line is helmets work, they save lives. Helmet effectiveness has been confirmed by responsible studies, while helmet myths – “helmets break necks, block vision and impair hearing” – have been consistently disproved. Safety- conscious riders wear helmets by deliberate choice every time they ride.
If you or a loved one has been involved in a motorcycle accident, you need an experienced and aggressive motorcycle accident lawyer who will fight to protect your rights and get you compensation for your medical bills, damage to your motorcycle and your pain and suffering. Call 1-800-4-BIKERS to speak with one of our lawyers today.
