I think the helmet is useful for low speed impact, "stupid fall"..Anyway, it's pretty useful to avoid bees!
Back when I got my first motorcycle, I was riding through the back roads of southern NH (no helmet law, that whole "Live Free or Die" thing...) and I had decided to go helmetless to see what the big deal was.
Wind in my hair (what was left of it at the time), bugs in my teeth, etc. Yeah, it's kinda neat and all, there's definite "freedom points" for riding into the wind. And I can even kinda grok the anti-helmet argument as encapsulated by: "If you want safe, take a cage" - yes, wearing a helmet is much safer than not; but if we were really concerned about safety, we wouldn't be on a bike.
(That said, the only time I don't wear my helmet is in bumper-to-bumper traffic, and that's only in July and August when it gets hot).
So, anyways, back to my anecdote...
I'm tooling down one this two lane blacktop at 55-60 MPH when I get hit square in the chin by a bee. A big one. Had to have been the size of a kaiser roll, with a stinger like a harpoon {/Calvin}.
It hurts. A lot. It felt like I got shot. Actually, scratch that, I've been shot, it hurt worse than getting shot - getting shot stings momentarily. This hurt and KEPT hurting.
Not to mention, the bee had apparently JUST finished his "bee business", because my entire beard was bright yellow from all the pollen the bee had been carrying...
Needless to say, I went out and bought a full-face helmet that afternoon... Still got it, although by all rights it should have been retired many years ago - helmets get brittle and lose their effectiveness at cushion your melon in a fall after ~ 5-7 years. Much like children's car seats.
End public service announcement.
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