Passes & Canyons Blog » Blog Archive » My Evolving View On Helmets
The Shoei that saved my head. You can see scrapes that would have been chunks out of my face without it.
I remain to this day a believer that it should be up to the rider to decide whether or not to wear a helmet. That said, I truly believe that anyone who rides without a helmet is a fool. I know I’m not the only one who holds both those beliefs.
My recent crash just emphasizes that second point.
Sure, for many years riding with the OFMC, when it was mostly just John, Bill, and me, we all rode much of the time without helmets. We always carried them because we sometimes were in states where they were required. Plus, if it rains a helmet is a very nice thing to have and in winter it helps keep your head warm.
Even that first helmet was nothing to brag about. It was a used Bieffe that I bought at a yard sale for $25. But I figure it had not been in a crash because it was not scraped the way my Shoei was (above).
But as we all three gradually moved more and more toward wearing them I was the one who held out the longest.
I went 37 years with no crashes. And then I had a crash. A bad one. It was not at all my fault. I was stopped at a red light waiting to make a left turn and a drunk drove straight into me. I went down hard, hard enough that I ultimately needed a bit of brain surgery. Imagine what shape my head and my brain would be in today if I had not had that helmet on.
So now as I’m out and about (Judy still doing all the driving) when I see bikers without helmets I cringe. In so many cases it is Harley riders. I totally get it. I understand the desire to ride without that helmet. And hey, I know it just won’t happen to you. Just like it didn’t happen to me–until it did.
A couple years ago I was at an intersection when I heard the sound of a crash. I turned to see a car stopped in a peculiar angle and a Harley on the ground. I ran over to help and the rider was bleeding like a stuck pig from his ear, which was half torn off. His lobe was dangling from a slender piece of skin. And they didn’t even hit each other. They both made evasive moves and he went down as he avoided her. But he got hurt pretty badly.
I kind of think it is a situation where you have a lot of people who are just uninformed and have not really taken a hard look at reality. That’s part of why I’ve spent so much time documenting my experience. If you know someone you’d like to persuade to wear a helmet you might direct them to this whole series of posts and once they’ve read about what I’ve gone through ask them if they had ever really considered the potential consequences, in such concrete depiction.
So yeah, for many years I was a fool. A huge fool. But I’ve been a lot of things in my life that I no longer am. Once a fool is not always a fool. At least it doesn’t have to be.
Biker Quote for Today
I started riding to attract women. So far the only women I meet due to riding are orthopedic nurses and they are NOT impressed.
Tags: drunk driver crash
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