Motorcycle Helmets

[warwick7735]

Hi all

Funny how people still insist on putting a price on there head (literally).

Forget all helmets bought in Thai, ok they will offer better protection than nothing. But only a recognised manufacture which has passed all the necessary tests will be on my head, 1400baht for a helmet is no way going to offer the same as a 30,000baht one.

Warwick

[000]

i avoid this problem by taking a taxi and using the seatbelt.

this in conjunction with the condom i wear and keep sellotaped to the base of my modest member should keep me safe in thailand i hope.

i also buy comprehensive travel insurance in case the hotel window should fall out onto the street when i try to close it.

I really hate to burst your bubble, but when the motorcycle carrying the OP rams into the car behind your taxi sending the OP flying through the air, through your rear window and breaking your neck I can only hope you survive so I can tell you that you weren't 100 percent safe.

[GreenShone]

I know, I should take the cab more often. I pay 50B each morning riding on the back of a motorcycle to get to work. I've tried taking a cab and it's actually a lot cheaper or about the same, but I can't stand the morning traffic. There's also that small fact that I'm not a morning person, so I'm constantly running against time in the mornings..................

Edited July 22, 2007 by GreenShone

[PeaceBlondie]

GreenShone, unless you hop the next flight to Los Angeles or London, you have these choices in Thailand:

1. Go buy a Shoei or Arai helmet, perhaps at Panthip Plaza, for a sum that probably will never be in your budget. One person estimated 15K, another 30K, but that's too high.

2. Buy the best helmet you can find in a good Thai shop, such as an Index. Make sure it fits, has a safe visor, and has lots of hard padding inside.

3. Just wear your underwear and one of those magical amulets.

[t.s]

In true TV fashion everbody is delivering a sermon on the necessity for protection, but none have answered the question "why wear it if not for protection?"

The motorcycle guys give you a helmet to avoid hassle from the cops. If you have been given a helmet and refuse to wear it, it is your problem when you get stopped, not theirs. it is not intended to keep you alive but to save them money.

you will note that inevitably their helmet is considerably better than the one they give you.

you will also note that you do not get a helmet when you stay on the soi. there is an unwritten rule that allows them to run up and down their soi with impunity. if they venture onto a larger thoroughfare they are fair game, often with officers they have no relationship with.

Edited August 14, 2007 by t.s

[a2396]

Attached is an article from a motorcycle magazine about helmets. I don't think I could stand to wear a full face helmet in LOS. It is just to hot. But, most of my riding is city & slow speed, under 60 kph. I have taken a couple of tumbles wearing my index helmet & the helmet has some dents, but not my head. High speed crashes where you are flying through the air is another matter. Likely to be killed by any number of injuries, head & otherwise.

Motorcycle_Helmet_Tips.rtf

[colino]

This is what happened to my helmet , as posted before could have lost my eye when it split

[Carmine6]

There is virtually no scientific evidence that helmets cause deaths. There is a huge volume of good scientific evidence that helmets save lives. There are exceptions to everything, including this statement, and I'm often mistaken. Of course, if you slam into a big solid object at over 150 kilometers per hour on a bike, you are very likely to die from several causes. Trauma research shows that whilst the human body can often survive a nearly lethal single injury, a multiple injury overwhelms the body's resources and you die.

I read motorcycle magazines with helmet research data for decades, and never heard of the neck problem with helmets. Is this some weirdo variation of the whiplash theory, largely unproven? Generally, the more protection you have, the more protected you are. Even Sasapacha in prathom five understands that if you smash into an oncoming huge truck wearing nothing but your underwear at 100 kph, you're probably going to die.

Wear the best helmet you can find and afford. I brought my original Nolan from home, and the ones here are apparently good copies. If you can buy a 15,000 showy helmet, go for it.

An excellent response, PB but I think that it is a bit unfair to state that "there is virtually no scientific evidence that helmets cause deaths" or to imply that this is "some weirdo variation of the whiplash theory, largely unproven".

I guess that if you take your 'lack of evidence' from sports magazines who are understandably promoting the sport of motorcycling (not to mention supporting their helmet advertisers) and what they present, you could certainly have this view.

I wish that I could say that the evidence I linked to was invented by me (I should be so creative) but it really did come from the Maryland Department of Transportation, Motorcycle Industry Council, California Highway Patrol, California Department of Motor Vehicles, Florida Department of Motorcycle Safety, New York Department of Motor Vehicles, et al..

Sometimes, when we do not find, or are reluctant to search for, evidence contrary to our opinions, we have to depend on pure logic or the rules of simple physics, i.e., secure a heavy weight to your head and engage in an activity that violently propels your head in various directions and the next weakest link in your spine (your neck) will suffer traumatic injury. It stands to reason, doesn't it? And is a reality whether our opinions are comfortable with it or not.

Don't get me wrong here - I am not against helmet use and have stated many times in these 'helmet forums' that I wear a helmet and have gone through the effort and expense to purchase the strongest and lightest helmet I could find. My issue is that if we think that helmets give us some kind of advantage, we, for a huge variety of reasons, are mistaken.

In fact the false sense of security we imagine from helmet use can be a real killer.

I have to admit that "the more protection you have, the more protected you are" is correct but we are talking about pleasure riding on this thread, not engaging in super-speed sport riding. That should be another thread, yes?

Huge and heavy helmets will protect our lovely face and braincage while sliding down the track, leather suits will protect our soft skin, and boots/gloves/thick elbow and knee pads will protect those precious joints when we just cannot get past that competitor ahead of us (you were also at the recent go-cart event, weren't you?)..

But is this the way that the OP wants to do a pleasure ride?

Maybe him, not me.

I drive a car in CM, knowing full well that more severe head injuries happen in automobiles than motorcycles but I choose not to wear a helmet. I fly helicopters without a helmet and it is not required in all of the aviation industry. I am a skydiver and jump without a helmet and most other skydivers I have jumped with in the U.S. wear only a leather skull-cap.

Unregulated sports filled with little more than morons who deserve to die anyway? Thanks, but I don't think so.

Statements like, "smash into an oncoming huge truck wearing nothing but your underwear at 100 kph" aside, most approved motorcycle helmets (at least in the U.S.) are rated for no more than 15mph (24km/hr) because they know something that most riders are reluctant to accept/admit - hitting a solid object at even this low speed means that your chances of survival, no matter how much protective gear you are wearing, are marginal. Ask any Emergency Room doctor and I know a lot of them.

We make our own choices in whatever we do outside of the relative protection of our own homes and I, for one, choose to live free of restrictions, fear and the wildly varying opinions of those who would judge me for doing so...

Ride safely, eh?

You've got me really thinking about this issue, but I have to agree that the stats don't show an increase. Maybe no improvement in the rate, but those stats are too cherry picked.

For example they don't give registration figures for Maryland but the average accidents/year drop by half after vs before. That would imply a huge reduction in registrations, but they give no data. They only graph the Maryland DAR because it has an upward trend and they use a lot of years so they can get that huge figure in 2000. But look at the number of accidents for that year. It's 1/4 of the annual figure for the mid 80's. Did registrations fall off a cliff? We don't know.

But then they don't graph the California data which shows a slight decrease. And they only cover 4 years for the California data which makes me suspicious about what the data shows in the farther out years. From NHTSA data which has slightly different accident amounts, but about the same death amounts, the DAR stays lower for the 5 years after the helmet requirement. They have math errors for the California figures as well. The correct figures for 1990 to 1993 are 2.77%, 2.77%, 2.39%, 2.46%.

And then in the Florida data where they don't do the percentage calculations (the % there are for the column and not the row) they're wrong when they say without helmets are better accross the board. For helmeted drivers the fatality rate is 5.2% vs 5.3% for non-helmeted drivers. The incapacitating injury rate for helmeted drivers is 27.1% vs. 28.6% for non-helmeted drivers. For helmeted passengers the fatality rate is higher, but the incapacitating injury rate is lower.

They can't say the rate per accident is what to measure and then change to absolute data for Florida when there are 29.9% more riders with helmets than without.

Overall it looks like a wash, but given the CA and FL data, its maybe slightly better with a helmet since those states have so many riders. (Odd fact - per the California DMV stats. While motorcycle registrations fall from 654,365 to 391,080 between 1988 to 1997, licensed motorcycle drivers are about 830,000 the entire period. 830,971 in 1997 vs. 822,416 in 1988.)

I really love going helmetless on backroads in Thailand and on the outskirts of some beach areas, but I'll never do that in California. The rare times I've ridden without a face shield I've taken lots of small objects to the face.

[Carmine6]

More data.

Here's a syopsis of a study specifically about Maryland. Looks like our buddies didn't mention the registrations specifically because it did not help their case. There was about a 10% decrease in motorcycle registrations in Maryland. See Table 2.

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlere...i?artid=1447242

Also in California, registrations picked up again starting in 1998, but deaths remained below 300 until 2002. The deaths per 10,000 registrations figures are below. There's a clear drop when the helmet law goes into effect and it stays below prior levels at about 5 to 6.

Year Deaths per 10,000 Motorcycle Registrations in California

1986 12.3

1987 11.0

1988 9.2

1989 9.8

1990 9.0

1991 8.0

1992 5.6

1993 5.4

1994 5.4

1995 5.1

1996 4.6

1997 6.1

1998 5.0

1999 5.7

2000 6.1

2001 6.0

2002 5.9

2003 6.5

2004 5.5

[SamuiJens]

There is virtually no scientific evidence that helmets cause deaths. There is a huge volume of good scientific evidence that helmets save lives. There are exceptions to everything, including this statement, and I'm often mistaken. Of course, if you slam into a big solid object at over 150 kilometers per hour on a bike, you are very likely to die from several causes. Trauma research shows that whilst the human body can often survive a nearly lethal single injury, a multiple injury overwhelms the body's resources and you die.

I read motorcycle magazines with helmet research data for decades, and never heard of the neck problem with helmets. Is this some weirdo variation of the whiplash theory, largely unproven? Generally, the more protection you have, the more protected you are. Even Sasapacha in prathom five understands that if you smash into an oncoming huge truck wearing nothing but your underwear at 100 kph, you're probably going to die.

Wear the best helmet you can find and afford. I brought my original Nolan from home, and the ones here are apparently good copies. If you can buy a 15,000 showy helmet, go for it.

An excellent response, PB but I think that it is a bit unfair to state that "there is virtually no scientific evidence that helmets cause deaths" or to imply that this is "some weirdo variation of the whiplash theory, largely unproven".

I guess that if you take your 'lack of evidence' from sports magazines who are understandably promoting the sport of motorcycling (not to mention supporting their helmet advertisers) and what they present, you could certainly have this view.

I wish that I could say that the evidence I linked to was invented by me (I should be so creative) but it really did come from the Maryland Department of Transportation, Motorcycle Industry Council, California Highway Patrol, California Department of Motor Vehicles, Florida Department of Motorcycle Safety, New York Department of Motor Vehicles, et al..

Sometimes, when we do not find, or are reluctant to search for, evidence contrary to our opinions, we have to depend on pure logic or the rules of simple physics, i.e., secure a heavy weight to your head and engage in an activity that violently propels your head in various directions and the next weakest link in your spine (your neck) will suffer traumatic injury. It stands to reason, doesn't it? And is a reality whether our opinions are comfortable with it or not.

Don't get me wrong here - I am not against helmet use and have stated many times in these 'helmet forums' that I wear a helmet and have gone through the effort and expense to purchase the strongest and lightest helmet I could find. My issue is that if we think that helmets give us some kind of advantage, we, for a huge variety of reasons, are mistaken.

In fact the false sense of security we imagine from helmet use can be a real killer.

I have to admit that "the more protection you have, the more protected you are" is correct but we are talking about pleasure riding on this thread, not engaging in super-speed sport riding. That should be another thread, yes?

Huge and heavy helmets will protect our lovely face and braincage while sliding down the track, leather suits will protect our soft skin, and boots/gloves/thick elbow and knee pads will protect those precious joints when we just cannot get past that competitor ahead of us (you were also at the recent go-cart event, weren't you?)..

But is this the way that the OP wants to do a pleasure ride?

Maybe him, not me.

I drive a car in CM, knowing full well that more severe head injuries happen in automobiles than motorcycles but I choose not to wear a helmet. I fly helicopters without a helmet and it is not required in all of the aviation industry. I am a skydiver and jump without a helmet and most other skydivers I have jumped with in the U.S. wear only a leather skull-cap.

Unregulated sports filled with little more than morons who deserve to die anyway? Thanks, but I don't think so.

Statements like, "smash into an oncoming huge truck wearing nothing but your underwear at 100 kph" aside, most approved motorcycle helmets (at least in the U.S.) are rated for no more than 15mph (24km/hr) because they know something that most riders are reluctant to accept/admit - hitting a solid object at even this low speed means that your chances of survival, no matter how much protective gear you are wearing, are marginal. Ask any Emergency Room doctor and I know a lot of them.

We make our own choices in whatever we do outside of the relative protection of our own homes and I, for one, choose to live free of restrictions, fear and the wildly varying opinions of those who would judge me for doing so...

Ride safely, eh?

You've got me really thinking about this issue, but I have to agree that the stats don't show an increase. Maybe no improvement in the rate, but those stats are too cherry picked.

For example they don't give registration figures for Maryland but the average accidents/year drop by half after vs before. That would imply a huge reduction in registrations, but they give no data. They only graph the Maryland DAR because it has an upward trend and they use a lot of years so they can get that huge figure in 2000. But look at the number of accidents for that year. It's 1/4 of the annual figure for the mid 80's. Did registrations fall off a cliff? We don't know.

But then they don't graph the California data which shows a slight decrease. And they only cover 4 years for the California data which makes me suspicious about what the data shows in the farther out years. From NHTSA data which has slightly different accident amounts, but about the same death amounts, the DAR stays lower for the 5 years after the helmet requirement. They have math errors for the California figures as well. The correct figures for 1990 to 1993 are 2.77%, 2.77%, 2.39%, 2.46%.

And then in the Florida data where they don't do the percentage calculations (the % there are for the column and not the row) they're wrong when they say without helmets are better accross the board. For helmeted drivers the fatality rate is 5.2% vs 5.3% for non-helmeted drivers. The incapacitating injury rate for helmeted drivers is 27.1% vs. 28.6% for non-helmeted drivers. For helmeted passengers the fatality rate is higher, but the incapacitating injury rate is lower.

They can't say the rate per accident is what to measure and then change to absolute data for Florida when there are 29.9% more riders with helmets than without.

Overall it looks like a wash, but given the CA and FL data, its maybe slightly better with a helmet since those states have so many riders. (Odd fact - per the California DMV stats. While motorcycle registrations fall from 654,365 to 391,080 between 1988 to 1997, licensed motorcycle drivers are about 830,000 the entire period. 830,971 in 1997 vs. 822,416 in 1988.)

I really love going helmetless on backroads in Thailand and on the outskirts of some beach areas, but I'll never do that in California. The rare times I've ridden without a face shield I've taken lots of small objects to the face.

Would'nt recommend it on Samui's Ring Road!

[Dustoff]

This remains primarily an emotional issue, much like politics and religion.

I have posted on these forums many times in defense of freedom of choice and taken my share of abuse for my views even though I have never spoken out against helmet use nor denied that they do, in many cases, actually save lives. I have also stated many times that I choose to wear a helmet when I deem it appropriate and wear the most lightweight and strongest one I can find.

I do however, maintain that there is insufficient evidence that helmet use saves enough lives to warrant mandatory helmet laws for motorcyclists, in spite of emotional assertions that "If you don't wear a helmet, you are gonna DIE!". A much higher percentage of automobile drivers still suffer fatal traumatic brain injury in accidents than motorcyclists but little is heard about helmets for automobile drivers. Seat belts for autos have been the law for a very long time but until recently, children rode in school buses beltless and still do to this day.

If it makes you more comfortable to wear a helmet, by all means do so, especially if your experience is that you tend to fall down a lot or ride with a lack of awareness or maturity. At low speeds in city driving, a helmet is a good idea, keeping in mind however that the great majority of motorcycle deaths in city traffic are crush injuries, not traumatic brain injury. There is also the common sense reasoning that strapping a heavy weight to your head and flinging yourself down the road or off an embankment increases the chances of breaking yo dum-ass neck no matter how much some would like to deny pure logic.

I mean, let's get real here and pass on the emotional responses - the best protection we have as riders is to learn to ride and continue to learn more about safety and awareness every, every time we ride! A helmet is no protection against stupidity and, indeed, can and does provide a false sense of security that frequently proves fatal..

We all make choices in our lives that can affect our health or safety and sometimes those choices seem outlandish to others - such as when I choose to leap out of a perfectly good airplane - but I stand by my right to make my own choices and those who judge my choices are speaking only for themselves, not me.

Edited August 14, 2007 by Dustoff