everyday I see bizarre riding habits of others and
questions why it’s not the law or why you would ride like that:
Shouldn’t it be law if all bicycle riders had to wear helmets as gloves-minimum?
I saw a guy on shorts n shirt on a scooter with his 6ish year old son wearing the same…
I saw a guy wearing a turban on a sportsbike wizzing around (apparently this I legal…?)
I regularly tell riders if that’s there girlfriend on the back and isn’t she worth a pair of gloves atleast…?You ll miss out in the long run!!!
Surely if it was the law to wear minimum of gloves and helmet on a push bike this would reduce serious head injuries and thus save cost of medical bills and therefore our taxes etc?
Same for bike riders-proper gloves and helmet and I’d say armoured jacket atleast?
As for the religious element, don’t get me wrong, if god says you don’t have to wear a helmet then fine but who picks up the medical tab…?
Penalties for any of the above?- fines or points on liscense-think everyoe would pay more attention if they were this heavy?
So what’s the worse you’ve seen, your thoughts and do you ever say anything…?
I dont think helmets should be a legal requirement either, i would wear one regardless.
If you wear nothing and come off then its on you.
Instead of forcing us to wear various arbitry bits of gear, why not just ban motorcycles and cycles all together, that way everyone will stay nice and safe…
I hate with a passion people like you phil, you are what’s wrong with this society as a whole…
Exactly… That’s the definition of personal freedom: do as you wish as long as it doesn’t affect others. I am all for making compulsory things that make OTHERS safe, basically most of the MOT requirements. Otherwise, anything that only gets to benefit ME, that should be my choice. I say ride naked if that’s what you want, it’s not going to affect anyone else. If anything humanity will improve as we speed up the darwinian process.
Hate? Strong words for asking a question? You only have to wear a helmet by law (you admit you would wear one anyway but would like the choice not too?) but assume you weamoot so when you come off you are able to get up again and ride your bike because your physically abled to-god how you must hate doctors and nurses for giving you another chance to ride your bike again!..in america motorcyclists are called organ donors, simple as that…Why don’t you try Reading my post again “the don” and see that I am not forcing anyone to wear anything , merely to question why motorcyclists wear helmets by law but cyclists don’t have too yet share the same roads, etc…why riders let the ones they love ride pillion without gloves etc when they know the risks, and perhaps insteading of spending money on patching up people who can’t even be bothered to even wear gloves we could put the money towards more Organ transplants etc for innocent people rather. Than those who took a risk, screwed up but now expect someone else to pick up the bill-there have been discussions within the medical community re should bikers foot the bill for there injuries if they were not wearing sufficent protective clothing…is this fair? I am asking a question?..?I was trying have an interesting debate and see what other constructive comments people would come back with…
But everything does effect everyone else (why so selfish?)-ok so say you have a daughter and she needs emergency medical tretment but the doctors say we need to treat a biker who wasn’t wearing any protective clothing (his choice) first and if we get time, well get to your daughter…you ll be like…ok?
Surely we are talking common sense-not forcing others rights-most proper bikers wear full protective clothing because they want to live when they have an accident-not because they are being told too…
apart from the obvious contradiction again, this is why bikers are often seen as selfish no?..if you had a daughter and she needed a transplant but was refused because a scooterist ( the main culprits I see around) with no protection was in need of the transplant first you would be…sure that’s fine.Any real biker knows protection save you ,and less biker deaths mean less government stress to ban biking, less speed restrictions etc…
money is an interesting point-so many £300+ helmets seen at the we’d night meeting where as most scooterist spend £50+…why do motorcyclists spend more…because they know the risks more and scooterists don’t?..
Ok so…All helmets must meet a minimum standard to be sold. Therefore their 50 quid helmet will protect them pretty much as well as our 300 quid ones.
They are more likely to be injured in a 50 quid helmet because they know it’s cheap to replace. We take more care because we don’t all have 300 quid lieing around.
I think we should all ride around naked, that way we’d get noticed more and people would move out of our way. Skin is pretty much leather anyway.
I think we should just accept that leading a full and active life, which might involve playing rugby, rock climbing, motorcycling etc involves an element of acceptable risk. People with common sense will generally survive the experience intact - excepting in cases of extreme bad luck. However - some people will always take unacceptable risks or display negligence and end up in serious bother.
The majority of motorcyclists are capable of decent risk assessment in terms of how fast they ride in a particular situation - or what clothing they wear depending on the situation (full leathers/textiles/back protector for fast riding and just a pair of denim jeans/gloves/textile jacket for a trip to the shops).
The fact that a minority of people are stupid enough to ride at motorway speeds with no gloves is just one of those things.
We need to keep things in proportion and fight for our right to take risks in the pursuit of our interests - whether it’s bikes, rock climbing etc.
The logic of safety at all costs - if taken to it’s ultimate conclusion - will lead to the death of motorcycling - as motorbikes are inherently and statistically much more dangerous to life and limb than any other form of motorised transport - regardless of what gear you are wearing when you get hit by an incompetent car driver or lose traction on a bend at 80 mph because of a long slick of diesel.
On the above logic the safety nazis would love to ban bikes - or at the very least have us all riding around in BMW C1s! :w00t:
The whole point of the topic was about saving biking by taking the initative
in the long run not stopping it, though some as always
defensive can’t see the wood from the trees…
My point was biking will be outlawed one day as you mentioned
and the question at the end will be was it taken from
us or did we give it to them on a plate…?
the days or being a rebel without a cause (or clue in some peoples cases) are long gone
society is very much rules and regulations and in a time when
a rapist has human rights is clearly gone too far
however there comes a time when you have to accept and
play the game by their rules…?
Any biker wears a decent jacket anyway so
if it was law then it would tie in all the scooterists
and so their injuries and deaths would be reduced and therefore
our overall numbers go Down and so we get less
restrictions against us…and maybe we get to ride for
longer…with less speed restrictions etc etc
still what’s more interesting is no one cares that in my original
post I asked should cyclists have to abide by our rules
or helmets, etc …clearly we are too busy arguing about
our right not to wear a helmet (though we would anyway??)
to care that they run red lights (would they not do it if they got 3 points like we do?, etc or pillion safety… Etc but I know these have ofcourse been discussed regularly…
At the end of the day, I love riding , ride all year with any excuse to get out…I have been knocked off (rear ended while sationary by ford monadeo who failed to see the red light) while wearing no protection and learnt a valuable lesson (how lucky I was to not be injured). I am an organ donor, blood donor and registered to give bone marrow if I match a patient…i accept the risks but also do my uptmost to know that if I do have an accident, I’ll have a chance of riding again…question is do you…? (if you prefer to ride without a helmet-nuff said)…
