4-19-2006 RJL

My view on wearing helmets to ride:

If you want to wear a helmet 100% of the time you ride a quad or dirtbike, that is fantastic.
But if you think that people are crazy to ride anything anywhere without a helmet, and try 
to impress your view on me, then i don't like that.  You worry about your head and i'll worry 
about mine.  

I think its ridiculous to put a helmet on to ride over to the porta-pot at the track.  There's 
more chance of tripping going into the porta-pot and drowning than of getting in a fatal 
accident on the way there in first gear.  

So you say 'But its not always you, what if someone else runs into you?'  I say 'Well watch 
out for the other riders and stay out of the way'  Besides, if you get run over from the back by 
something like a pickup truck you might have other issues.

When we are doing wheelies in the fields, and generally riding around our farm we never wear helmets.
Yeah thats right, never.  (When we go to a motocross track we do wear helmets and other protective
equipment)  And we also have never had any head injuries.  We are also not idiots,
we know our quads, watch out for each other, and generally only do tricks that we can execute
without much danger of wrecking.  

So you say 'But what about that ONE time when you don't see a hole and you go flying through the air,
and land on your head and the quad also lands on your head, i bet you wish you had been wearing a
helmet THEN'

So maybe that is true.  If i flew off my fourwheeler doing a wheelie, landed on my head, and the
fourwheeler also landed on my head, i really would wish i had been wearing a helmet.  But so far in
my life, that has happened as often as getting hit by a semi-truck or getting hit by a comet, which
is, fortunately, zero.  Also, wearing a helmet does not protect against injury 100%.  There's always
the matter of the neck that connects the head to the rest of you, as well as the rest of you.

So you say 'But the odds of being in a fourwheeler wreck at home are much greater than those of getting hit
by a semi'

Perhaps so.  But i have been riding for over 10 years and have yet to have a serious accident, or much
of any accident at all.  So in my life, because of how i ride and know and maintain my vehicles (no
breaking chains, seized engines, etc) maybe the odds are good that nothing horrific will ever happen.

So you say 'But its a bad example to beginners to see people riding without helmets'  To this i say,
let them decide.  I didn't wear a helmet when i was learning to ride, but i did not take chances or race
around like an idiot with a death wish either.  I know people that do, and consequently they should 
wear helmets as well as any other riders and pedestrians in their general vicinity.

Or maybe, i'm just too stubborn to listen to any of your 'good reasons' why i should wear a helmet.  Maybe
i'm just to dumb to see the 'real danger' thats out there waiting to get me.  If this is the case then
maybe it should make you happy if i got hurt.  You know, survival of the smartest.  Natural de-selection.

Remember its all about respect.  I don't criticize you for wearing a helmet when you ride on your property,
and i feel that you should not criticize me for not wearing one when i ride on mine.