Safety in Paradise
No Life Jacket? No Helmet? No Problem!
By Jonathan Weber, 8-25-08
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| Caption: Happy Guy (Not the Author) | |
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I recently overheard a new arrival to Missoula comment with astonishment on how few cyclists around town were wearing helmets. Back in Washington, he said, everyone wears a helmet. What’s up with that?
Now I will confess that I personally do not wear a helmet when I ride my bike (which admittedly is not all that often). It sounds silly in this context, but I love the feel of the wind in my hair. And I can’t quite get past the feeling that bike helmets are another manifestation of the nanny state. They didn’t exist at all when I was a kid, and somehow generations of children managed to survive.
I have a somewhat different reaction, though, when I float the river and notice the almost complete absence of life jackets. I look at a kid, and wonder, can he swim? Can the accompanying grown-ups drinking beer - presumably his parents - swim themselves? Do they have any idea how easy it is to get in trouble on a river?
At the same time, our own kids are not terribly good swimmers, yet it only occurred to us belatedly to make them wear life jackets in the tube. Nobody else was wearing them, so how dangerous could it be?
I’m firmly of the belief that adults should be able to do anything they want as long as any danger is only to themselves (and frankly that includes a lot of things that are currently illegal). Children are a different story, and reasonable laws aimed at protecting their safety are common sense. But the more complex question has to do with the social component of perceived risk, which is enormous.
When a dangerous behavior is both legal and routine, it warps our perception of the nature of that danger. Cigarette smoking is a great example. It used to be consider a normal thing to do; the risks were known, but society approved. Nowadays, the risks are no better known, but society no longer approves - and a lot fewer people smoke.
I was floating the river yesterday in my canoe, by myself, and I was wearing a life jacket. I’m actually a very good swimmer, and the Clark Fork was as mellow as could be, but when you’re alone in a boat a lot of weird things can happen. I was oddly self-conscious as I floated past the tubers, the fishermen, and the family-filled rafts, nary a life jacket in sight. It got hot, and I finally took mine off, which is a bad reason to take it off if you think it’s necessary, but, well, I was hot.
Every year, people die on the river because they weren’t wearing life jackets. Every week, it seems, somebody in Montana dies in a car accident because they weren’t wearing a seat belt. Sonny Bono’s death some years back finally prompted me to wear a helmet when I ski. But my risk choices still don’t feel very rational.
It seems to me the challenge with these kinds of issues is to find a way to express social disapproval without making the behavior illegal. Maybe it’s not possible: for decades hardly any professional hockey players wore helmets because it was considered a sissy thing to do, but most players were all too happy when the league made it mandatory. Seatbelts are not an encourgaing example either. Surely, though, there are creative approaches out there. Any ideas?
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Roll the choice into insurance and leave the law out of it. Allow health and life insurers to write exclusions for failure to wear or use certain safety gear. Then if someone opts out, well, that was their choice and no one else has to fund the consequence.
Comment By Matt, 8-25-08good point, only nerds wore helmets when I was growing up but we ALWAYS wore life jackets. How many of the people who drowned this year in the river had jackets on? People have a hissy about bike helmets but nobody thinks twice about going without a lifejacket when the river is 50 degrees.
Comment By Patia, 8-25-08I flipped my tube and about cracked my head open on a rock while floating the Clark Fork weekend before last. I STILL have a sore spot on my head. I am seriously considering wearing a crash helmet next time I float.
Comment By DR, 8-25-08Having worked in a hospital for over 25 years and seen the results of "wanting the wind blowing in my hair" I wonder if anyone considers the effects of that "wind" on family and friends when your head gets bashed in or you drown. There is no comfort for the grieving family and friends, I don't know of any that said: " gee he died with the wind blowing in his hair" Death is forever, and crippling injuries must be lived with for the rest of your life and your family's life. If only you were effected by your "lifestyle" choices it would be one thing, but that's not the way it works, and what about the vast medical expenses incurred by those choices, who is left holding the bag?
Comment By Dave Chase, 8-26-08I don't think there need to be any laws as I buy Darwin's theory :)
I certainly didn't wear helmets as a kid but became a convert as I was about to start riding again as an adult. Two friends. Two different outcomes. One was riding down a hill when an old lady cut in front of him. He t-boned her car at ~40mph. While he was very banged up, there's no doubt the helmet saved his life or at least prevented him from being a vegetable. Another friend was just running a little errand a few blocks away and thus didn't think she needed a helmet. Some fluky thing happened and she did a "minor" fall but hit her head on a curb. Major brain damage. Those two things sold me on helmets.
Fortunately, I live in a place where helmet hair is not only "normal" but respected. I also would feel hypocritical if I told my kids to wear a helmet and I didn't myself.
Lifejackets are a no-brainer.
DR, I certainly take your point, though as far as who is holding the bag for the medical expenses that would be the insurance company, into which I have paid over my lifetime enough money to cover lots and lots of things (my claims have never remotely come close to the premiums in any of the 20-odd years I've had medical insurance).
But, the potential costs to my family and friends are certainly relevant. On the other hand, we don't stop driving because of the risk of injury. I haven't fallen off my bike since I was a kid and rarely ride on busy streets. As I said wind in your hair is silly, but then again life is full of tradeoffs, small and large.
Isn't it interesting how some people just assume everyone else has insurance.
Comment By Jonathan Weber, 8-26-08Garth, I certainly wasn't assuming everyone has insurance, I was just responding to a specific point about my own personal decisions. On a broader level the fact that many people don't have insurance certainly comes into the policy calculus.
Comment By Matt R., 8-26-08I remember not wearing a helmet on my bike growing up too. Now I think not wearing one is silly...even if "a generation" survived not wearing helmets, that statement doesn't take into account all those who didn't survive; or those who are permanently brain damaged or paralyzed. I think everyone must make their own choice AND should think about the far reaching consequences of their choice and action...remember there are unintended consequences too!
Comment By DR, 8-26-08Jonathan, on a bicycle, or in a boat our relatively frail bodies don't stand a chance against a car, curb, pavement, cold water, rocks, undertow, oblivious drivers, and those pesky unintended "oops" that frequently happen, etc, etc. And in a car those seat belts save lives all the time and there is more protection from the metal/ seat belts/air bags in a car. I just think that with the knowledge we have of the consequences of not using proven safety devices we can turn that knowledge into wisdom, by choosing to use those devices.
Comment By nazoosh, 8-26-08I, too, didn't wear a helmet as a kid. What does a kid know?
As an adult, I'm smarter, wiser, can think for myself, and like to think that my mind has evolved to the point where I understand the need for a helmet, in lieu of my want for wind in the hair.
Methinks it's the difference between thinking like a kid, and not thinking like a kid. Some folks cant evolve from the personal responsibility of a kid, and that's fine - 'live and let.' Just don;t make me pay for others' kid-style responsibility.
Speaking from personal experience with health insurance companies, I guarantee they will already be able to find ways out of paying for your accident if you aren't wearing a helmet/life jacket, whether they have a clause for it or not. It just has to cost them enough, and they'll find a way.
Comment By Bill Schneider, 8-28-08I think people should wear bike helmets and life jackets, but if you did a fair comparison of the numbers, I suspect going without a life jacket would be statistically much safer than going without a bike helmet.
Anybody who rides a bicycle as much as I do (5,000 miles+ per year) has a crash sooner or later, regardless of how careful and agile you are. After thirty years, I had mine last year, and now, down in my Man Room, I display my cracked helmet as a reminder of how smart and lucky I am to have had it on. I also have two sons who have had bad crashes in the past five years, and both have bashed helmets as testimony to their good fortune instead of a life of mental problems if not death. I personally think it is close to irresponsible to in any way suggest anybody should ride a bike without a helmet.
I don't think we need a law. We already have all the information we need. Most serious cyclists wear helmets, period, and for a very good reason. Take note, everybody.
They don't call motorcycles "donorcycles" for nothing. Bicycles are not that different.
They didn't make helmets when I was a kid riding my three-speed delivering papers, but is that a reason not to wear them today? I used to smoke three packs a day, too, when it was cool. Is that a reason to keep doing it?
I admit to having a hard time making my kids wear bike helmets at first because at the time it wasn't cool. But nowadays, kids start out being taught that they have to wear a helmet to ride a bike. My four grandkids all wear helmets and wouldn't even think about getting on their bike without one. Ditto for their friends. We don't want them seeing adults riding around without helmets setting bad examples.
Bill