First off I had a good weekend, camping with the old college crew was a blast.
A good friend of mine did not, he got into a pretty gnarly motorcycle accident on Friday. Unfortunately I was camping all weekend so I didn't even know about it until yesterday. I went and helped them get his crumpled bike home, while he is stuck on the couch for the next couple months. He's lucky to still have both feet so I guess a couch isn't so bad. Modern medicine is pretty wild, they said his foot was held on by half a tendon a nerve, and a wee bit of skin and thats it. They got humpty dumpty back together, the surgery went well and not they estimate he has a 99% chance of keeping the foot, shit he can still wiggle his toes a little bit. Another thing of note is the amazing generosity of others. A couple of teenage girls were following him and saw the tail light get smaller, then sparks, then the bike flipping threw the air. They stopped and got him into their car after he refused to call 911. Honestly they should have called no matter what he said but they're young and they still saved his ass so I'm hardly going to be upset with them. We need to send them a major thank you note/flowers or something, along with a gift certificate to get their car detailed, he was bleeding like a stuck pig. Of course we don't know who these good samaritans were so we will need to check the police report.
Anyway the good news is that he's going to be Ok, and if you're going to ride a bike, wear a helmet. By the minimal damage to his helmet he might have lived even without, but he surely would have been missing a good chunk of his head. Full leathers also seem prudent, he was only wearing a t-shirt and has pretty good road rash. Lastly get proper boots, every serious motorcycle accident I've seen, which admittedly isn't many, they have all nearly lost a leg. Better yet, don't ride a motorcycle, but to each there own.
Oh I'll also say that I'm not sure how to feel about safety laws, I'm not sure that it is the governments job to tell adults not to be stupid. Seat belt laws for kids and shit, hell yeah, but seat belt laws for adults or helmet laws for adults I'm just not sure about. I mean if a person wants to be an idiot and die an easily preventable death then why should we try to stop them? Can you really try to regulate stupidity? And anyone who wants to argue that not wearing a helmet on a bike isn't stupid, go right ahead I don't care, just cause you're lucky doesn't mean it's not a stupid risk. All I'm saying is that it's your life, if wind in your hair is more important than your life, or at least your legs then I'm not going to tell you not to. But if you're a friend of mine I will call you a fucking idiot in your eulogy.
One little upshot of this horrific event, I have always been against motorcycles, at least for me personally. I like pushing vehicles harder than prudent and bikes are so unforgiving that I've always known that I will die if I get one. But enough of my friends have gotten them recently that the thought has crossed my mind. That thought is no longer in my mind.
Thats all the time that I've got, I still haven't finalized the wedding ceremony so any free time I have will be spent on that, so this is all the blogging I'll be doing today.
Peace, and be safe.
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4 comments:
I've trying to justify buying a motorcycle, more to myself than the Queen of My Universe, but it always gets back to safety. My brother still rides a giant bike, but he said everyone drops their bike at least once, and it's NEVER pretty. I'll stick with my nerdy Aveo I guess.
Do you drink gin? I just got a bottle of Tangueray for my birthday. We should hang out and do damage to it.
Happy Birthday Rob!
Gin isn't my favorite, but it's got a proof therefore I can probably be talked into it. Tangueray is the good shit too. The only thing is my next two weekends are wedding weekends. If you can wait then I'd be happy to, if not then I'll just have to bring up some Horseheads Beer!
Hey buddy,
Just to try to set you straight about the whole helmet law thing (and seat belts)for adults, it basically comes down to one thing. If you have a crash and you are not wearing safety material (helmet/belt) then you have a greater chance of getting major head trauma, the most dangerous type of injury and the one requiring the most time and effort on the part of ... can you guess?
Ding ding ding! That's right!
Emergency Medical Services, a often government or volunteer-run service that you don't opt-in to.
It's the same reason we require smoke detectors in houses. If the government's going to have to drive some big, fuel inefficient vehicle out there, you'd better do your best to save them a trip.
I'd be all for the repealing of all seatbelt/helmet laws if only those people would be forced to opt-out of all emergency medical care. Let them lie on the side of the road bleeding for all I care.
Let Darwin prevail!
Except that if you're wearing a helmet and you're in an accident then they still need to rush around and keep you in the hospital for a while and all of that which you're right costs money, a lot of money. If you're not wearing a helmet then the ambulance still comes but the trip to the hospital morgue is much cheaper than the ICU. I've heard rumors that the insurance companies fight against helmet laws for that very reason.
My point isn't that there isn't legitimate reasons for the government wanting to regulate safety, I'm just asking if they are right to do it? Or if they have the right to do it.
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