Question for all you pro helmet law guys who always cry medical cost. Do you happen to give your Buddies or families a hard time when over weight they eat a cheeseburger or chili fries. We all have buddies we ride with that may have 3 or 4 beers and ride home, how about them? Give them any crap? Maybe you too are guilty? Just wondering because helmet cost to us is merely a fraction of obesity or drunk driving just to name two. So is this helmet thing a personal pet peeve for you guys or are you truly full fledged tree huggers?
I submit that the need for a helmet should be evaluated through cost/benefit analysis. If there is anything in the skull that is worth at least the cost of the helmet, then wear one. If the skull doesn't contain much of value, then don't wear one. Perhaps rather than pass laws requiring helmets, we should require proof of sufficient benefit to justify using up valuable resources before you are
allowed to buy a helmet.
Between you, me, and the fence post, I don't care if you wear a helmet or not, if you practice safe sex or not, if you drink yourself into oblivion or not, if you eat 10 Big Mac's a day or not, if you smoke 3 packs a day or not, etc. As long as you don't expect me to take care of you, or pay to take care of you, or have to dodge your drunken azz on the highway, or have to give up my seat on an airplane so you can take up two seats, or in any other way be responsible for,
or a victim of, your actions, then feel free to do whatever you want. Remove your seatbelts from the car, disconnect the airbags, stand on the roof while your drunken buddy drives down the highway, stare down the barrel of a gun while pulling the trigger to make sure it isn't loaded, whatever. As long as you take full responsibility, I really don't care. We can't legislate intelligence or common sense, no matter how hard some legislators try.
BTW, I'm pro helmet, not necessarily pro helmet law. But the facts are, without all the safety laws and regulations currently on the books, there would be tens of thousands of additional preventable deaths in this country every year, and probably hundreds of thousands of serious injuries. Safety laws and regulations have had a huge impact on the lives, health, and well being of the average citizen in this country. Intimating that anyone who supports such laws and regulations is some sort of "tree hugger", whatever that means, reflects a lot more on the one making that statement than it does on the supposed "tree huggers". If you prefer to live the way they did in the wild west, feel free to choose one of the many countries in the world where the people in power don't give a rat's butt if you live or die. They don't waste time with safety rules.
Jerry