I rode for several years. Such a study needs to take into account the age, accident/ticket rate of the rider, and type of bike. While I was cautious, riding vs driving a car for economic reasons, there were plenty of testosterone-laiden youth who drove up my insurance rates.
I got tired of hearing the same spiel about how dangerous motorcycles are, so I used a stencil to airbrush “organ donor” on the side of my helmet along with my blood type.
my dad,97, retired forensic pathologists, banned me from having a motorcycle as a youth and talked of how in areas without helmet laws how common it was to have people end up dead, from a hit on the head, but not quite dead,yet,as they were young, strong, and healthy, and end up in hospital, so would be perfect candidates for organ doners.
hence donorcycles, childhood storys from the morge.
Anecdotally: Many years ago, I spent several months in the hospital and trauma rehabilitation due to a spinal cord injury. Roughly half of the SCI patients were from water-related accidents (ie: diving into shallow water). The other half were from motorcycle accidents. And about 50% of the amputations were from motorcycle accidents (the other half from diabetes).
Granted, I only interacted with a small sample of patients during my stay - only a few dozen. But the staff certainly gave the impression this was business as usual for them. I had no idea until I was face to face with it. There really is no substitute for being protected by a metal shell and protective airbags.
They are not. The problem is that useful organs are exposed, so after a crash only thing which may be usable are eyes, brain and teeth thanks to helmet. Everything else is damaged.
> A three-fold increase was found in the rate of organ donation for unhelmeted motorcyclists compared to helmeted motorcyclists (p = 0.006).
First the statistics but then the following op-ed...?
> From a public health perspective, helmets should be required for all motorcyclists...
Personally, I always wear and will always wear a helmet. Legally, however, requiring them is pure nanny state.
Consider: We would certainly save more lives by requiring all vehicle drivers to wear helmets, including cars/trucks/etc in addition to motorcycles. Like, wear a helmet inside your car. Professionals do. But we amateurs do not. I would be laughed for proposing a universal helmet law. So, clearly saving lives isn't the only valued metric
I think seatbelts or airbags are better analogies.
And both seatbelts and airbags are mandated in the US.
Of course saving lives isn't the ONLY metric (perhaps all personal vehicles would be banned if that were the case), but we make reasonable compromises all over the place in the direction of saving lives. I think the discussion is just over what people generally see as "reasonable". And public opinion can change drastically over time [0], due in part to the popularization of studies like this.
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[ 4.9 ms ] story [ 36.6 ms ] threadGranted, I only interacted with a small sample of patients during my stay - only a few dozen. But the staff certainly gave the impression this was business as usual for them. I had no idea until I was face to face with it. There really is no substitute for being protected by a metal shell and protective airbags.
First the statistics but then the following op-ed...?
> From a public health perspective, helmets should be required for all motorcyclists...
Personally, I always wear and will always wear a helmet. Legally, however, requiring them is pure nanny state.
Consider: We would certainly save more lives by requiring all vehicle drivers to wear helmets, including cars/trucks/etc in addition to motorcycles. Like, wear a helmet inside your car. Professionals do. But we amateurs do not. I would be laughed for proposing a universal helmet law. So, clearly saving lives isn't the only valued metric
And both seatbelts and airbags are mandated in the US.
Of course saving lives isn't the ONLY metric (perhaps all personal vehicles would be banned if that were the case), but we make reasonable compromises all over the place in the direction of saving lives. I think the discussion is just over what people generally see as "reasonable". And public opinion can change drastically over time [0], due in part to the popularization of studies like this.
[0] https://www.wpr.org/history/surprisingly-controversial-histo...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-DnpTjE0ck