I am sure any mother or father or siblings or wife or children or friends he left behind are celebrating his choice to ride in freedom as well. I hope his death was quick and painless and he's having a beer with god.
Yeah...His family will mourn his loss, but it was HIS choice to wear that type of helmet. Think what people who don't like motorcycles would say if you died in a crash tomorrow. They would be having this same conversation about how you ended your life early because you ride a bike...Gear or no gear.
Bokerfork, I agree with You. I wear all the gear all the time, (at my choosing). It is not up to the Gov't to protect Me from Myself. I analyze the risk and choose the protection I want in whatever activity I am doing.
If the Safety Nazi's had their way, You would be forced into wearing a Helmet and full body armor to take a shower, after all more slips happen in the bathroom than anywhere else..... And if it saves one life....... Mind you we would all smell really bad, not being able to shower with all the gear on.
If the safety nazis had their way, motorcycles would be banned outright. The fucking things are dangerous. Too bad I love them so much.
Everyone has a right to be a moron, and I chose not to ride with people who are clearly morons. But what really gripes my a** is when I see these morons imposing their rights on their children passengers, and dress them in a "novelty" helmet, shorts, t-shirt, and sandals. There's the real test, isn't it? If you recognize the risks, then you will dress your kids for the crash. But the fact that you dress them for a day on the beach demonstrates you have a brain the size of a walnut, and like the dinosaurs, deserve to become extinct. :lol:
This stuff pisses me off too Hans. I think an adult should be able to ride however they want, but should have the brains and take the time to protect their passengers; especially children...But I also have to think back to when I grew up.
I remember sleeping on the rear dash of my dad's car when I was very small, and I remember my brother and sister standing on the front seat in the center, or riding on my mom's lap. No one wore seatbelts back then...Not even kids.
I rode horses without a helmet. My dad put me on bucking steers when I was a kid just to see if I could hold on. My brother and I learned to use a chainsaw that didn't have a bar-brake, and I used a table saw without an automatic shut off if I got a finger in it. I learned how to hunt and shoot a real gun and not point it at another person.
Patch and I learned to ride motorcycles before we were 10, but we rode in shorts, t-shirts, no gloves, and no helmets. It's just the way it was. Maybe we were too dumb to know we needed it, but back then, people didn't really freak out about stuff.
Shit...We had lead paint on the walls, took knives to school, had mercury thermometers, real sissors, and no GFI plugs in the bathroom...And we lived.
In the midst of all this danger, I learned to be tough as Hell, and learned how to take care of myself while taking responsibility for my actions. Millions of kids lived this way, and grew up just fine. Think about it JB...You're older than me...When was the first time you remember wearing a seat belt? I bet you were over 18.
I would never let my girls ride my motorcycle without gear on. Hell, I make them wear bike helmets and gloves for their bicycles, but I don't want them to endure the same pain I did when I know how to mitigate it. My 9 year old wears a helmet when she goes to horse jumping lessons, but at my parents house, we ride for hours I always forget it. I shouldn't, but it's just one of those things.
Even with a helmet, if an 1800 lb horse falls on her after a jump or in a field, she could end up really hurt, paralized or dead, but should I shelter her so much that she never lives? I'm sure some parents think I'm irresponsible for letting her shoot, ride my motorcycle, jump horses, ski and rappel, but I want my children to experience everything they can. If something happened to any of them, I would be devastated, but how do we prevent every possible bad thing from ever happening?
I don't agree with the way some parents raise their kids, but they are their kids. I will try to educate them and sometimes cite them, but are they really any more wrong than any of us? I gotta wonder...
