*
In Wisconsin, no helmet law will probably ever get passed
for motorcyclists, no matter how hard those who do not ride
try. With Harley Davidson the absolute king here, there is
a huge and extremely faithful crowd of bikers willing to
spend a week of their time at the capitol demonstrating that
they don’t need anyone telling them whether they are allowed
to kill themselves or not. Every time the question comes
up, thousands of bikes come by my shop, located 15 miles
away on a direct route.
I, licensed biker, wear a helmet 99% of the time when
riding, and know full well the danger. The only time I
don’t use one is if I meet someone somewhere who has a cool
bike and offers to let me ride it and no helmet is
available, and then I operate under extreme caution, my
CHOICE. But if someone else doesn’t value their PERSONAL
safety as much, that is their own choice, and they can live
and die by it.
Those who don’t ride do not have to give a single SHIT about
this, there are hundreds of worse things going on on the
highways that are far more impacting than a biker here or
there falling prey to his/her own decision on his/her own
head.
As a former truck driver, I can tell you this, in more than
a million miles on the road: The two best and defensive
minded classes of drivers (with many exceptions) are by far,
far away, semi drivers and motorcyclists (I’m sure race
drivers are probably the most defensive on the public road,
but so small a number doesn’t matter).
Rick Tuk hit the nail hard on the head. When we were young,
we were invincible. We never thought we would die. That’s
one reason why the military recruits the young. And we
start driving at a young, stupid, unworldly, invible feeling
age. It’s cool to drive fast and wild, etc. You pay the
price…
And James, no doubt there is nothing more sad than innocent
young people killed by car accidents, especially those in
the OTHER car, or those who ride in cars killed by crazy
drivers doing things against their own wishes. Senseless
death.
The highways are getting more and more crowded all the time,
and things are getting a lot worse in my area.
MD
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Replies
*
Speaking of motorcycles, when the heck will these "non-riders" stop complaining about helmet laws ?? Let us who ride decide !!!!!!!!!
*
I am posting this on this board because I want as many people as possible to see it.
For the third time in 2 years, families in my area are burying their children in groups of 5 or more. This is not from gun violence, racial hatred, or any act of hatred or violence. They are burying their children because the one behind the wheel of the car did not know how to drive adequately. They made a fatal, and stupid mistake. Alcohol was NOT a factor in any of these accidents.
Children from the age of 16 to 20 do not have the necessary experience for the traffic conditions that they are driving in with the 90's population booms toward urban areas. Our highways and streets are full of more and more traffic, and until these children learn to drive defensively, there will be many, many more accidents like the one today. It tears me up to see this, knowing that there is a simple solution that no one wants to be bothered about.
What's the simple solution? TEACH your kids to drive defensively. I'm not talking about how to put the car in gear, how to parallel park, or to go the speed limit. I'm talking about DEFENSIVE driving. With the amount of increased traffic, this is becoming more important than ever before.
One area that they desparately lack skills in is judging distances, and judging the size of an approaching vehicle based on headlight position. High up, and spread far apart, it is a sure bet it is a big truck. These trucks cannot stop quickly, and when these kids pull right out in front of them, they die.
Another area lacking in skill is judging speed of an approaching vehicle. Pull out too soon, and you get hit. I see more and more kids ignore stop signs, red lights, and yield signs. They pull right out in traffic without ever looking at oncoming traffic. With the car sizes as small as they are today, and the very small amount of protection on braodside accidents, our kids are dying. There is no need.
When kids are out in numbers (like 5 or so to a car) then there is going to be trouble. First of all, the driver is inexperienced, and since they have several of their friends in the car with them, I guarantee you the driver will be distracted. This is an accident waiting to happen.
Many of you are great, safe drivers. It took years of driving experience to gain that safety factor. You watch, learn, and leave an out for your vehicle should trouble arise. Kids aren't aware of what to do. Drivers Education is a joke, and seems to be there just so a child can get a drivers license a little earlier than they should (15 in some states).
Do your child a favor, and yourself too. Enroll your child in a defensive driving course. A good one. Get them the knowledge that they will need to survive. In today's traffic, you can't rely solely on your own driving abilities. You must be on the lookout for the other driver too. Then you must know how to react to that situation. Get involved with them. Heck, take the course with them. It just might save their lives. The added benefit is a break in insurance rates for drivers who have taken defensive driving courses.
James DuHamel
*James, Good Post! As to your reference to driver's ed being a joke, the motorcycle test in Illinois is a travesty. If The test included any reasonable dmonstration of a capable use of the front brake, motorcycle accidents would decrease at least 25% (possibly 50-60%) As to your reference to the lack (intentonal?) of defensive driving among drivers aged 16-20. I believe that it's a much deeper issue. Offensive Driving would seem to be a normal perception (expectation?) to people who's formulative years were spent during a period of affluence never before experienced in this country. They had so much available. Their egos have been pampered excessivly. Rules have more lenient.(Sue your parents?) I've a heard 6 year old say "Sue em!"; with conviction. For many reasons,they expect more. Which includes your "getting out of the way"on the road. Thanks for giving me a chance to dump. It is taking more effort to remain unstressed in traffic these days. Regards, Rick
*Good thoughts gentlemen.....however it is not illegal or immoral in this country to be stupid. Furthermore, stupid people are too stupid to realize that they are stupid....sorry for the redundancy. Your plight is heartfelt and true...accordingly, traffic tickets incur a fine rather than propper retraining. Fines don't teach people to drive, experience does.
*Speaking of motorcycles, when the heck will IL get a mandatory helmet law? I swear, in 2 years in Chicago I saw maybe 4 helmets. I had no idea that people only wore them because of the laws. Talk about an organ donor express.
*Looking back, it's a miracle I lived to gain the experience necessary to be a good driver. There is no doubt in my mind that the legal driving age should be 18... or more. A car is just as if not more dangerous than a gun or a power tool... there should be a higher standard of proficiency.The biggest mistake people have made is assuming that driving a car is something to be done while engaged in other activities. Talking on a cell phone (yes I'm guilty), reading, putting on makeup, or horsing around. It requires your full attention and when people get distracted they make mistakes that kill them or other people.
*"Stupid people are too stupid to realize that they are stupid." Now, that's a great line, one that I intend to appropriate and call my own. But...I always wonder...what is it that I don't realize about myself that others find salient?
*Here's the view from another country.In Ontario insurance premiums are extremely high for young drivers ($1,000's per year) Drivers Ed. programmes discount these premiums, so many high schools offer them after class and they are packed. They spend a lot of time on i defensive driving.Licencing is graduated for new drivers, with three tests necessary, over a period of 2-3 years where they graduate from driving only in the company of a licenced driver, to driving alone at night, to driving alone on highways. I think the minimum age is 17.It hasn't stopped the carnage, but it has cetainly slowed it down. Just this summer a car full of kids were killed on the highway about 50 miles east of me. Going back home from a weekend. ..two carloads playing leapfrog. . . one played chicken with an oncoming pickup towing a trailer and lost. The pickup driver took evasive action and hit the shoulder but the trailer took out the kids car.But lets not forget the geezers. I've seen just as much stupidity perpetrated by senior citizens behind the wheel. In Ontario they had to re-test every year or two after age 75, then they changed it to age 80, now they have dropped the mandatory road re-test, and give them a written test instead to determine if they need a road test. . . I know several who should have had their licences removed years ago.-pm
*As I read the post in full I knew immediately how I wanted to respond. I was surprised when I read two posts that touched on my initial thought,then I read closer and noticed differences.My first thought was to the Motorcycle Safety course.I realized the others were talking only Motorcycle license.There is a world of difference.I've taken the "Motorcycle RiderCourse" in both Texes and just this summer in Pennsylvania.These courses teach on the road riding/driving skills like you wouldn't believe.Defensive driving is STRESSED from beginning to end.Being aware of your surroundings and being prepared to react are number two only to riding within your abilities.The last instructor wouldn't let his 16 year old daughter even try the auto course until she passed the Motorcycle Safty Course.Not for the motorcycle riding skills ,but for the way it prepares you for traffic and decision making. I will do the same.I suggest all with teenagers look into this program at their local Community College.
*Rick, your post reminded me of the SC test. A lot of things that go on in SC don't make me very proud to live in the state. Pretty lax. An exception, and I think an accidental one, is the motorcycle driving test. At least when I took it, the test was run on a tight obstacle course. It would be reasonably tough to pass if you were riding a small beginner motorcycle. I had been riding for maybe 10 years, and took it on a larger bike. Really tough test involving lots of delicate clutch feathering and careful throttle control while doing things like weaving with feet fully on the pegs around tight cone sets. To make it worse, there wasn't any chance to see the course ahead of time. If you can pass that test - you have control of your bike. Ironic, then, that my license will carry the motorcycle classification for life despite the fact that I sold mine maybe 5 years ago, haven't ridden since, and would probably fail if taking it today. Dave
*The choice to not wear a brain lid may be a indication that there little to protect. How quickly things change at real highway speeds; as quoted in a magazing article,"Without wings or intention , I had achieved flight." Driver's ed (and state test) hardly approach real driving conditions. Is it to reduce effort or risk/exposure of those administering? Is is to just push students through the system? To avoid the wrath of the parents? To avoid/protect the student from all the negative feelings of failing in front of their piers? Is it their right to Pass? Will common sense ultimately succumb to a definition validated by some legal arguement. Wait a minute.....
*James,I am passing this on to my little brother, he turned 16 last week. Has already taken a drivers ed course and has a good head but I still worry. I learned a lot about handeling cars on dirt roads with a beat up old valiant. Kids should have to feel what a slide or spin feels like before getting a license. Getting my recreational divers license we have to experience everything from air running out (the instructor sneeks up behind you and cuts it off) to losing your weight belt. This is so if it happens you wont panic at 100' down. A big problem is youth. You feel nothing can kill you. It isnt that you dont value your life you just cannot concieve of losing it. You only start thinking of this when you see your peers, people you actully know, lose theirs. It is a tragic part of life but I dont know how to cure it.Rick Tuk
*James,I know exactly where you are coming from with this thread. I've seen and heard of a lot of these tragedies right in my area. I really does invoke grief within me to see young people die so suddenly and unexpectantly. They have a whole life ahead of them, a world to see, a family who they've left behind. Last spring here, a student on his motorcycle was killed in an accident while showing off in front of his school on graduation day. I believe the bike was his graduation present. I ain't no sissy but things like this about bring me to tears. I suppose the impact it has on me is strengthened by my once near death experience and my being a father of 3. Perhaps a lot tougher course of driver training is in order. Less kids passing the course means...less kids driving, less kids dying, less cars on the road and more revenue for the public transportation industry. That does't sound all that bad to me. Besides it would probably thin the knuckleheads of all ages from the road.Nice post,Pete Draganic
*<>When I got my license, a friend of my parents took me out early one rainy sunday morning to a large mall parking lot and we let 'er rip. Learned alot about control _and_ lack thereof.I wish it was possible for all new licensees to take a stroll down the corridor of any re-hab hospital. I visited a friend once in one and it had a definite impact (and I was in my 40's at the time.)Bob
*I've worked in cardiovascular medicine...we have a term for motorycles: donor-cycles.Transplant programs do much better in states without helmet laws.
*James;A very though-provoking post.I personally believe that the number of teens in a car is a MAJOR factor in these accidents. How many times have we seen our kids brains go "out the window" when a group mentality takes over?Certainly we can make our kids take courses, but it still takes experience.We can (to some extent) control how many passengers are permitted.Adam
*In Wisconsin, no helmet law will probably ever get passed for motorcyclists, no matter how hard those who do not ride try. With Harley Davidson the absolute king here, there is a huge and extremely faithful crowd of bikers willing to spend a week of their time at the capitol demonstrating that they don't need anyone telling them whether they are allowed to kill themselves or not. Every time the question comes up, thousands of bikes come by my shop, located 15 miles away on a direct route.I, licensed biker, wear a helmet 99% of the time when riding, and know full well the danger. The only time I don't use one is if I meet someone somewhere who has a cool bike and offers to let me ride it and no helmet is available, and then I operate under extreme caution, my CHOICE. But if someone else doesn't value their PERSONAL safety as much, that is their own choice, and they can live and die by it.Those who don't ride do not have to give a single SHIT about this, there are hundreds of worse things going on on the highways that are far more impacting than a biker here or there falling prey to his/her own decision on his/her own head.As a former truck driver, I can tell you this, in more than a million miles on the road: The two best and defensive minded classes of drivers (with many exceptions) are by far, far away, semi drivers and motorcyclists (I'm sure race drivers are probably the most defensive on the public road, but so small a number doesn't matter).Rick Tuk hit the nail hard on the head. When we were young, we were invincible. We never thought we would die. That's one reason why the military recruits the young. And we start driving at a young, stupid, unworldly, invible feeling age. It's cool to drive fast and wild, etc. You pay the price...And James, no doubt there is nothing more sad than innocent young people killed by car accidents, especially those in the OTHER car, or those who ride in cars killed by crazy drivers doing things against their own wishes. Senseless death.The highways are getting more and more crowded all the time, and things are getting a lot worse in my area. MDxxxxxxxxxxxxx
*I am never more cautious than when on my bike. I always wear a helmet, usually leathers. Should it be required? Probably not. If you choose to take a risk and get hurt or worse, it was your choice. The only argument for helmet laws that I've ever liked was that the medical care costs us all so much. I still don't think it's a good enough reason to protect the stupid from themselves.About young drivers: There is no solution, no way to protect them. Recognizing your own mortality only happens with age and developing safe driving skills only happens with experience. Know that your kids (and me when I was one) are not good drivers and are not smart drivers and act accordingly.