What’s with your front-page preoccupation with bike helmets in this mother-hen, over-legislated little outpost? If this was a back yard, strewn with dangers such as broken glass, landmines, conservatives and whatnot, would you keep yelling at your kids and punish them for not wearing shoes, or would you clean up the g.d. yard and let them run barefoot? I guess we know the answer to that. Just make your yard safe already; build the trails and piss off with the lazy, sanctimonious, over-policed helmet hypocrisy. —Signed: Your Resentful Son
This article appears in Sep 19-25, 2013.
Oh Feck, another rebel without a clue. Just wear the helmet like you’re supposed to and stop being a pissy little bitch. I don’t personally care whether you live, die or wind up stretched out on a table like so much summer squash, but someone might.
Yeah, clean up the head injury yard, you bunch of fucking rubes!
I’m going back to upper Canada, where the folks are simple and the comparative analogies make sense.
People in Europe who don’t wear helmets remain happier and thinner and better-looking and generally superior to everyone else in the world (as any devotee “cycle chic” will happily tell you) because their governments put the safety all around cyclists in the form of a bicycle infrastructure instead of concentrating it in tiny pieces of styrofoam and forcing riders to put it on their heads. In this sense, the message mandatory helmet use sends to cyclists is, “Cycling is really dangerous, but your safety is your problem. Good luck!” – bikesnobnyc
Yeah, until little Johnny’s parents are willing to pony up for the machine and bed pans necessary to keep him alive after a head injury, put on the fucking lid.
All the infrastructure in the world will not prevent vehicles operated by humans from crashing into each other. And while the populace pays for that care, there is no valid argument against helmets. Even the one that it will make you better looking, which does have a certain appeal.
by your own argument, why dont we force people to wear helmets in cars then?
the chance of a head injury while driving in a car is a lot higher than riding a bicycle.
If you say so. I think a little context is necessary for that statement though. Is that in general terms, or when involved in an accident? And does that fact that liability insurance is mandatory for cars have any bearing on the fact that helmets are not required?
We have socialized healthcare, we don’t want be footing the bill for people who end up vegetative because they didn’t wear their helmet.
By CoastingBy’s argument, we should legislate mandatory helmets for people who drive, run, skateboard, rollerblade, ski, snowboard, play any form of contact sport, or engage in any other activity that could potentially result in a vegetative state if the absolute worst thing possible happened.
Sound logic.
Yep, and I do think we should legislate all that!
Just kidding. You’re right, I hadn’t thought of it that way.
Next – Mandatory helmets for balcony parties. Hell – let’s make helmets mandatory for entry into bars and drinking establishments. It doesn’t matter how slutty the local doxies dress – they’ll never be as thin or happy as European girls.
Sounds like something written by Fat Apollo.
Wearing helmets in cars? Are you fucking simple? Why do you think its mandatory to have seatbelts? Insurance? Driver training? BECAUSE ITS FUCKING DANGEROUS!
If y’all weren’t so super-fucking-ficial you wouldn’t have a problem strapping on a helmet. Who cares what it looks like? It will and has in many occasions saved lives and tax dollars by keeping people out of hospitals.
Helmet laws are a cash grab. Cops pretty much only pull over people that pose little to no effort to catch. They post up on the side streets during peak hours of the university commute and make random stops to the commons where it’s a catch all and they very well know that skaters/bikers won’t be wearing helmets.
I would be very surprised to see a cop pull over a biker ‘bombing’ one of the main hills in town simply due to the effort it would take to pull them over/ticket them.
So don’t wear a helmet then. Get a ticket. Get injured. Be perfectly fine. Whatever. You’re acting like i give a fuck.
The helmet law was enacted so car drivers can safely mow down cyclists without actually killing them; leaving us brain-dead is fine.
I don’t understand why so many of you have a problem with people not wearing helmets ?
The law needs to be repealed and replaced with a BETTER law.
The new law would state anyone who is killed or injured to a vegetative state automatically becomes an organ donor. There are thousands of Canadians waiting for transplants, with vegetative donors, we could keep the body alive , yet still give eye’s to a match recipient doctor’s could have the time needed to prep multiple patients before removing heart ,kidney’s , lungs & other organs & implanting them literally ‘fresh’ & still warm ~ : )
I totally agree with Mr. More on this one. I’d amend the law to offer a choice, though., between wearing a helmet and obligatory organ donation in the event of an accident.
Being somewhat of a Darwinian Libertarian myself, I shouldn’t be getting p.o.’d at pewling spoilt brats like the author of this bitch. But having little to no regard for the “P is for Pizzapocket” brand of Mom’s basement anarchists who think helmet laws are worth dusting off the old Guy Fawkes mask and running amuck, my reaction does tend to be a tad knee-jerk. Eminently satisfying, though.