This is in response to “Highly stupid at high speeds; Helmetless motorcycle riders put other drivers in danger too” (Commentary, May 11), by Emily L. Hauser. This is a hotly debated subject. It can be argued for days on end, but the facts are the facts.
I’ve been riding for about 38 years and have worn helmets only when I have been forced to by legislation.
Yes helmets save lives, but helmets also kill and maim. There are many bikers whom we know of (and how many don’t we know about?) who were killed or paralyzed because their necks were broken or there was spinal damage while wearing a helmet.
A few years back, a friend of mine was out riding on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. He was returning home when someone cut him off by making a left turn in front of him (the usual excuse of “I didn’t see him”).
He was in a coma for three weeks.
His family asked the doctor if he would have faired better had he been wearing a helmet.
The doctor, a prominent neurosurgeon, replied, “Had he been wearing a helmet, he would be dead.”
Sure others will give you testimonials about how helmets save lives. But to me they are a false sense of security.
Helmets will not protect you when you get T-boned and your chest crushed or the SUV or other vehicle hits you and you are thrown from your bike and run over in traffic (that happens all too often).
Hauser wrote about what a biker’s death does to the biker’s family, friends and to her. I ask her, when a vehicle driver kills one of us bikers because he or she was talking on a cell phone, or turns to talk to someone in the back seat, is the driver going to sleep any better if the biker was wearing a helmet but the biker was killed anyway because the driver didn’t see him?
Is my family going to grieve less because the driver killed me and I was wearing a helmet but the driver didn’t see me?
If I am going to die, let it be my choice. Let me die feeling the wind in my face and blowing through my hair and unrestricted. That is my freedom of choice.
If Hauser truly is concerned for me, then help us educate others to watch for us on the roads. After all it is not bikers killing bikers but those of you in four-wheeled vehicles who are killing us.
Look twice and save a life.
Shar Sonnenberg, Chicago
