You’re comparing street cars and pomegranates Raphael.

200k/h down the Gardner is a “public” safety issue, helmets are a “personal” safety issue…. unless of course your premise is that the reason I am forced to wear a helmet is to possibly mitigate the potential trauma others may experience if I have an accident and my gray matter gets spread across the road?

Please tell me you’re not serious.

Do we now have some new right to be protected against potentially traumatic scenes in traffic accidents? Does that extend to other potentially traumatic accidents or events? Does it included all vehicles, or just some? Convertibles maybe? Is there some sort of general trauma scale to guide lawmakers in their decisions? How much trauma are we being protected against anyway?

…. and most importantly how do I know if I’ve been illegally traumatized or not, and if I have been, who do I sue?

What about a knitted helmet?

You know what, I got no problem with that dude not wearing a helmet, but I don’t want my tax-dollars helping him out if he becomes a paraplegic. There’s a law in place because the government has deemed that biking without a helmut is too much of a risk to our healthcare system. I don’t care if there’s brains on the ground, but I don’t want my taxes to clean em up.

Well, exactly balb. And the fact is, I think that all liability incurred from ignoring helmet laws should be self-incurred. And if a Sikh gets hit in the head with a brick on a construction site, his fault. So long as he assumed all medical costs and liability personally, let him do whatever he wants. From a purely libertarian perspective, I agree with his choice. Of course, he’ll argue he has no choice because his religion mandates his turban. But if we as a society want to keep insurance rates down through claims, proper safety is an essential part of that. Sikhs ignoring this law can have possible effects on insurance payouts and the rising cost of delivering that insurance.

And on a final note, I think that there can be no exemption to rules based on religion. If there is, then that rule fails to be a legitimate rule. So if Sikhs flout the law, then I think all people should be able to flout it.

How about a knitted kevlar turban.
JonZor wrote
“There’s a law in place because the government has deemed that biking without a helmut is too much of a risk to our healthcare system.”
This is an argument against our health care system imho.
As soon as the collective pays your bills they think they have the right to tell you how to behave. Libertarian socialism = oxymoron

I think we can accommodate Sikhs on this issue. It’s not a speculative religious practice, it’s an actual one. And the burden imposed on socialised health care, in the worst case scenarios, would seem minimal, particularly when we consider the health care costs of any other number of lifestyle choices.

If people are worried about cost, they should really think about actual cost. If people are worried about slippery slopes for religious practices, they should think about actual religious practices.

Hi JonZor

Would your reasoning include a ban on smoking, drinking, eating the wrong stuff, any kind of sports or other risky activity? All as likely to put as big a strain on our health care system as no helmet bike riding.
Give the state an inch and it will take a meter.
The strain on the health care system, imho, started when it was made “free” for all and doctors were turned into civil servants. It used to be that you paid a personal premium to government health care insurance but you were billed directly by the doctor/hospital. You submitted the bill and the government insurance fund paid some or all of it. When I was poor my family doctor did his best to minimize the bill because he was still billing me not the government. Oh - and not only did we have family doctors but some still made house calls.
This system allowed everyone to see what their health care was costing and to make some judgment about the value of the care.
Free is very expensive in this case because the user has no idea of the cost and hasn’t any responsibility to use prudence in the transaction. Very convenient for the health care professionals as well.
I wouldn’t want to see anyone go without basic health services but what we have isn’t cost effective or sustainable.
Both of my parents are alive at 85 and I bet it costs us about $50,000 to $60,000 a year just for their meds. How are you going to keep all of us boomers alive to 120?
I’m still smoking and eating cheese burgers and I think you should encourage me to continue.

Motorcycle helmets do not save lives (*). That is not their purpose. Their purpose is to keep the road from getting messy when you kill yourself. They keep your spilled grey matter all in one place for easier disposal.

Anyone doubting that is free to investigate the guarantees made by the best helmet rating system available. I’ll wait while you locate it.

Now, about this arguement of “I don’t wanna pay for his medical if he doesn’t wear a helmet.” Well, I don’t wanna pay for some guy’s kids’ education if he doesn’t wear a condom, either, so we’re even, ‘kay? Yes, it does amount to the same thing. Public money is simply private money stolen by fiat. I don’t like it. You don’t like it. But unless we assassinate the entire government and prevent others from taking their places, we’re stuck with it.

And balbulican has it correct when he says the insurance companies are behind most of the “safety” laws. Contrary to what you are led to believe by your insurance agent, they are not in the business of paying out money. They are in the business of collecting it and keeping it for themselves. And their best friends are the government officials who aid and abet them with “concern” about “public safety,” most of which is specious. Government don’t give a damn about “public safety.” They care about collecting your tax dollars, and they can’t do that if you’re dead.

(* Seat belts do save lives. Different thread, though.)

After thinking this over for a few hours, I’m going to go uncharacteristically liberal here and say the Sikh should be able to ride without the helmet. But if he gets an exemption, we all should. I don’t believe in the idea “some animals are more equal than others” based on their religious prerogative.

If people are worried about their taxes, how’s about we pull out of Afghanistan?

Lord…the nickel and diming…

Let me go on record and state that I still believe motorcyclists should be forced to wear helmets. Especially the white males.

Hopefully, in a few years, we’ll outlaw motorcycles altogether.

…*ducks*

Don’t make such jokes Ti-Guy, the state already deems it necessary to “save us” from too many things already.