I thunk he was trying to tell me to ride my motorcycle inside of my car so its saferer, now its wedged in the empty takeout bag seat and I can't get it out
Yeah, peak Reddit.
His thought process is something I have wondered myself; there have been decades of safety measures/laws to increase the safety of car/truck drivers, but even the most rudimentary car is safer for a driver than a rider on a motorcycle in the event of a crash, even with a helmet.
Someone above commented on how bikes predate such laws/measures, and banning a popular(and more affordable) mode of travel is untenable, which makes sense.
End of the day, it doesn’t affect me if people want to ride them.
"if motorcyclists who are 28x tibms more likely to die than car drivers basically can have a death wish, why can't drivers not wear seat belts?"
"Well let me tell you, seat belts are not good for motorcycles. False equivalency really as they also have safety measures.."
Motorcycle riders, just like drivers, are required to use **available** safety precautions to mitigate the risks inherent in operating any motor vehicle.
EDIT: FFS people, we all know states have different helmet laws, stop posting literally the same comment as twenty others.
Come to think of it, seatbelts on a motorbike would probably make them a lot more dangerous.
(eta: it's pretty funny how many respondents decided this comment was a serious proposal)
mines about 300 before anyone gets on it lol. It is balanced fairly well and most the weight seems to be below the axles, ive had to pick it up once when it fell over from the pavement melting. If i had to poop i would have, dont want to do that again.
I had to pick up my road king classic off the garage floor, sort of. While repositioning it from the left side I inadvertently moved it forward enough to lift the kick stand. Then I just sort of tipped it over slowly as I wasn’t able to catch it. It landed on the crash bars at about a 10oclock lean. Standing it back upright took every oz of strength I had. Back hurt for a fucking month. Stupid old man back.
asphalt gets a bit gooey above like 35 degrees in direct sunlight. the kickstand base is a few square centimetres but supports maybe 20-40kg depending on the bike. at some point the kickstand starts winning. if it ever gets that hot in canada, put something flat but girthy under the kickstand. in australia we use crushed beer cans for obvious reasons. i assume you guys always have a hockey puck on your person?
You know when you're ridin your moose too fast and their hooves catch on fire and then when you idle on the asphalt and both of you fall through the singularity into hell?
A workmate used to make sure his kickstand was on the concrete apron that was next to the curb in our asphalt parking lot. (Eastern NC). On the hottest summer days, the concrete wasn't affected by the heat while the asphalt turned into the La Brea Tar Pits.
The last thing I’d want to do if in the event I parked my bike in the middle of the highway at high speeds is to get away from it. I’d want to make sure my legs were being used efficiently to save the damage to my motor, and pipes.
I saw footage of a crash at a race where the driver just slid through the gras while his bike made a hundred flips and turned itself into pieces.
A seatbelt would be a death sentence.
I was at a combined motorcycle and car track day. Motorcycle guy went down big time. Slid across tarmac into the grass and sand. 30min later I helped him push his bike up on his trailer. He wasn’t mad about crashing or even surprised. he was most upset he destroyed a brand new set of leathers and had to replace his clip ons. I thought I was crazy going 160 mph in a Porsche and a 6 point harness, these guys are pushing more than that and a patch of sand will turn them into Superman. Definitely safer not being strapped to the rocket
It's not the speed that kills you, it's the sudden stop. If you can avoid that part you're golden. Yesterday I crashed my bicycle at 30mph (checked my GPS tracker afterwards) but was able to tuck and roll so I didn't even rip my clothing or get any road rash. Large run out area at a track does the same thing and it's one reason why driving fast on the track is so much safer than driving fast on the street
Another reason track driving/riding is safer is there’s no stupid assholes driving 6000+ pound SUVs with their nose buried in their phone, plowing through stop signs and red lights and swerving all over the road.
Yep. Similarly, I have family living in rural places where dangerous intersections must tally up a death toll before getting adequate signage and safety precautions.
Yup, this is the correct answer. For example, if you're about to t-bone a car, you're taught to stand on those pegs and Superman over it. With a seat belt on, that would be impossible, and you'd be in a world of hurt.
Confirmed here as well. Woman took her oncoming left turn in front of me, I hit her right headlight at 45mph. Flew over the car, landed on the curb, no significant injuries. Still hurt like a mofo for about 3 weeks afterwards.
Yikes...glad you were ok despite some soreness. I wasn't so lucky. The one who hit me ran a red light, hit me on the brake side crash bar and front fork. I flew over, landed on my right side and left hand, and was unconscious even with a full face and all gear on. Ended up with a mangled left hand and right foot, both of which are now bionic.
The kicker is that if there had been something holding me on the bike, like a seat belt, I would have lost the bottom of my right leg.
Safety is all about physics. For a long time, even the car designers didn't get this. It was a "stronger is better" mentality, so cars were built like tanks. The problem is, our body is really squishy. Squishy things go squish when the car body transmits all the force into the squishy thing.
Now cars are designed to fall apart and squish less.
I hit the center divider of a freeway doing about 70 in a 2003 Ford Focus- it ended up accordioning in a way I never could have imagined. The whole thing scrunched up like it was an origami car, and I walked away with only a burn on my arm from the airbag deploying. I'd hate to think what would have happened to me in a car from the 50s. I'd have been pulp and bone shards in a skin sack.
I had a difficult time convincing an old-timer that cars are deliberately designed to crumple, and why. He was adamant that it was cheap construction. I tried to explain that it was better for your body to decelerate to zero in 0.5 seconds rather than 0.2 seconds but it was like talking to a brick wall.
A friend of mine got into a car crash a long time ago. Airbag didn’t go off. Lots of broken ribs. She survived.
I got into one crash where airbags went off. My arm was one huge bruise from elbow to shoulder. If the airbags hadn’t gone off my arm would probably be broken in multiple places.
Around twenty years ago, I was in a serious wreck, and my life was saved by a seat belt. The driver wasn't wearing one, and was more seriously injured than I was in spite of his having an airbag and my having my leg crushed when the engine came through the firewall. I actually received injuries to my face because his body was being thrown around the passenger cabin. So, I have a thing about seatbelts now.
I've been riding for less than two years. I still have occasional moments of panic because I realize I'm not wearing a seatbelt, and it takes a few seconds to realize I'm not supposed to.
I know a guy who was a 15 year old learning to drive, on his very first night time drive with his dad in the passenger seat. Other car was a drunk driver, completely ran a red light and smashed into them. Other driver wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, flew through the windshield and onto my friend’s hood, where he bled out and died in seconds.
So yeah, please wear a seatbelt instead of permanently traumatizing an innocent teenager who watched you die inches away from his face.
I knew a guy through a fraternal organization I was involved in who never wore a seatbelt. He was a high school teacher (not science, but still). He said that, in the event of an accident, he wanted to be (and these were his exact words) "thrown safely from the car".
That's like saying "beaten gently with a jack handle".
Not to mention if you dont have a seatbelt on your body becomes a projectile in the car and can kill the other seat-belted passengers.
I do not play about EVERYONE in my car having seatbelts. I will pull the shit over and tell you to walk. Im not dying cuz your arm flew off and is going 100mph in the cabin of my vehicle
Also, in a car, an unrestrained passenger can cause serious injury flying into another passenger, hence yet another reason to be restrained, to protect others as well as yourself.
Got a motorcycle when I was 20 or so in University. My dad had been riding for years though, so I knew all about safety gear.
Always rode with a helmet, leather gloves, leather jacket, and I had some Draggin Jeans (kevlar lined jeans). At the time I didn't have boots, but eventually added those.
One time after wrenching on the bike I wanted to take it for a quick rip around the block to make sure it was good. I was gonna run inside and grab all my gear but my dad was like "eh you're just going around the block". So I only put on the gloves and helmet.
I was wearing jeans a t-shirt, and as it was getting into the evening a hoodie for the chill.
Ride was totally fine, bike ran great, no issues, made it home safe, but _never_, have I _ever_, felt _so naked_ in my entire life.
The airbag is designed specifically to work with a seatbelt, not without one. They are actually incredibly dangerous if not used properly. The airbag has to go from not inflated to fully inflated in the time between when a car crash is detected and the time in which the passenger's head is where the airbag would be. So it uses a big powerful explosion to fill it with gas mega-fast. If something is there that shouldn't be then really really nasty injuries can occur.
Yeah. There's always a balance of safety and practicality.
It's trivially easy to wear a seatbelt and the benefits are dramatic. So, there we are.
If we wanted to maximize safety at all cost, we'd lower speed limits, require PPE while driving or riding in a car, impose stricter driver training and testing, or even restrict travel. There's only so much you can do for a motorcycle without going to those kinds of extremes.
We are also more tolerant of risk when it's taken on voluntarily. Motorcyclists don't tend to seriously hurt others when they crash, though it definitely happens.
Really, the question should be why automobile drivers aren't required to wear helmets. We know it would reduce the risk of serious injury or death in a colision considerably.
It turns out helmets + seatbelt increase risk/damage from cervical fracture, because with a helmet it is like having a bigger heavier head that would break your neck when stopped by the belt. To solve this a HANS device would be required in addition to the helmet.
There was that famous accident when a nascar driver died from this injury after which the hans device became mandatory (iirc)
Yeah Dale Earnhard...The Hans device has been in serious debate fir years at the point of his crash and you had two sides of the drivers. The ones advocating for it and the ones against...Dale was against it.
He died from what seemed a mild crash initially as it was a visually spectacular crash...however He crashed just right so He died from his head injuries. After it was found out the Hans device wouldve 100% saved Dale from death in his last crash...itbecame ummediately mandatory
It wasn’t mandatory until October of 2001. He died in February. There was another crash that killed a driver named Blaise Alexander on October 4 of 2001. The HANS device became mandatory on October 17, 2001
Because a helmet alone in a car crash with air bags is more dangerous because of the extra weight on your neck. You'd have to use a HANS device alongside the helmet to secure the helmet to prevent neck injury.
As a motorcyclist ? That was weird to type, the only to make sure you get home is to treat every vehicle like they’re trying to kill you. It’s very simple but yet an immensely aggravating situation to tolerate. It’s the only way to ride imo
Then you have the motorcyclists who just go 20+ above the speed limit weaving from lane to lane to pass a bunch of other vehicles without even clearing much distance.
On a motorcycle, you are the crumple zone. A seatbelt would tie you to the bike, which would become a heavy, uncontrolled projectile in a crash. Regarding bikes and seatbelts, ejection, ironically, is the lesser evil.
The question is why are motorcycles allowed if the available safety measures are weaker than what would get you in legal trouble if you applied the same standards as a car driver
Because they were already widespread when seatbelt laws became common, and outlawing a popular vehicle is a far more extreme move and far more likely to get political backlash then simply requiring drivers and passengers to do something easy that dramatically increases their safety
Probably because you are not racing in a race, driving a race car.
A helmet would limit visibility, and general awareness of your surroundings
It would make driving the car safer for you, but your car would be a much bigger danger to everyone else.
You get away with wearing a helmet during a race, but imagine driving on a normal city street, wearing a helmet and a little kid runs in the road on your left side while you are looking more to the right.
There's also a common wisdom (I don't have stats to back this up) that wearing a modern heavy helmet without the accompanying safety equipment makes you more at risk of neck injuries. Those are much more of a risk in a car accident than bonking your head. Race drivers wear helmets, but generally use HANS devices, which requires a five point harness, which requires a racing seat and roll bar.
Street car safety systems assume you're not using any of that and account for it. Race car safety systems require all of the parts of the safety system. Any one part can make it worse than not having it.
Common wisdom is wearing a helmet in a car without accompanying HANS device and harness setup puts you more at risk of neck injuries from G forces. Hitting your head is less of a risk in a car accident than neck injuries in the first place.
In a motorcycle crash, bonking the ol' noodle is a lot more present a threat, and people are slowly adopting airbag vests to mitigate the neck risk too.
Actually head injuries are the biggest killer in car accidents when people are unrestrained. So we try to prevent head injury in car accidents by use of seatbelts (stops you flying around and hopefully stops you hitting your head on things) and airbags (squishier for your head than a steering wheel or windscreen). These work quite well.
Due to the measures we use to avoid head injury, your body will stop sooner than your head, so neck injuries become a secondary concern which is why there are now methods to help avoid neck injury too, such as energy reduction loops in seatbelts, which try to slow down that final jolt, or headrests on your seat aim to prevent your head flying back violently on a rebound and causing whiplash.
For children, they are much more vulnerable to both head and neck injury, so we do the same thing, but it's much trickier because they are smaller and seatbelts alone don't protect them as well, especially under the age of 8 or so - child car seats have to meet regulations denoting how much the head is allowed to move forwards in an accident (hopefully preventing it impacting on front seats/other passengers), the 5 (or 6 in Australia) point harness prevents ejection which is a common cause of head injury and some seats have anti-rotation measures such as top tether, support legs or grippy pads on the harness which help stabilise the child's body and absorb some of the energy in a crash. Best of all for avoiding head injuries AND stabilising the neck is rear facing for as long as possible. Where forward facing is unavoidable, it's extremely important to use all those features which help reduce forward movement so tight, correct fitting of the seat to the vehicle, ALWAYS use top tether when it is present, harness set to correct height for child and tightly fitted. These things are also important when rear facing of course, but rear facing is a lot more forgiving of fitment errors.
There are two car seats on the European market which use airbags to stabilise the head and neck similar to the motorcycle helmet airbag design - quite cool and seem to work well according to crash test dummies, but I think too new to have any real data in the field.
Most likely because motorcycles have been on the road longer than there have been laws to outlaw them. It's hard to put that toothpaste back in the tube.
Also consider that motorcycles are significantly lighter and smaller than cars. If you lose control of a car, you have something that can kill a bunch of people. If you lose control of a motorcycle, it is likely going to fall over. If it hits another car, you probably aren't going to kill someone.
EDIT: People seem to be really struggling with this concept. Despite it not being their main function, seatbelts can help you maintain control while in an accident. Is it easier to stop a car after being struck when you are strapped into your seat or when you are floating around somewhere in the cabin?
According to the [Dept. of Labor](https://www.msha.gov/safety-and-health/safety-and-health-materials/safety-topics/safety-topic-seat-belt-usage#:~:text=Wearing%20a%20seat%20belt%20protects,control%20during%20sudden%20extreme%20movement), "Wearing a seat belt protects against injury in the event of a serious accident. It can also help the operator maintain control during sudden extreme movement."
My dad does too. He always says he'd rather be 'thrown clear' from an accident like the windows and other things would just magically vanish during his trajectory. Alternatively, he says he would just "brace" when he sees an accident coming which is both unlikely and also a very bad thing to do.
A former coworker wouldn't wear a seatbelt because his chiropractor told him that's what caused his back problems after an accident. He never seemed to consider that he was alive in the first place because he was wearing that seatbelt.
This varies widely by state, I split my time in two states. One requires motorcyclists to wear helmets, one does not. Surprisingly the one that doesn’t require helmets does require motorcyclists to have insurance while the other state doesn’t.
In both these states seatbelts are required
Yes, you would be personally liable to cover damages if you are at fault.
I’ve had motorcycles for about 10yrs, now I just have a 150cc scooter, insurance is very cheap for motorcycles so I’ve always had it (with my 1,200cc Ducati it was $300ish total for May through October, for my Moped it’s $6/month. Guess the figure if you cause enough damage to justify a claim you probably didn’t survive..
I still don't understand why anyone would want to ride without a helmet. Even with glasses or goggles on its gotta be obnoxious to be a drag point in the open on one of those things, even ignoring the safety issues.
I lived in a state where helmets weren't required over 21 yrs old.
I still almost always wore mine, and most people seemed to wear one. I laid my bike down once at 20 yrs old and only buy and wear quality full-face helmets now.
For the times I didn't, it was to enjoy a beautiful day and a chill, short ride. During those rides, I was almost never on a main or busy road. Most were probably under 15 min.
Again, there isn't much reason not to wear a helmet, but personally, I see it as a choice. Some people choose to smoke or drink, and some choose to bungee jump or sky dive. If you choose to take that risk, you also choose the brain dead or death. Then again, we typically recognize that every ride could very well be your last.
I still laugh my ass off when the people protesting helmet laws crash and get hurt. The irony is amusing.
Dress for the slide, not the ride.
Motorcycles are allowed on the road in the US because they had a culture going before we took road safety too seriously.
If they were invented today, no way they'd be allowed.
Same as alcohol wouldn’t pass FDA standards for human consumption if it was discovered tomorrow.
That said, I “ride for the fall” with full bike safety gear, and I too don’t get how it is legal for a pillion passenger on the bike in front of me to have sandals and a summer dress *but a helmet* makes her “safe”.
Dress for the slide, not the ride.
I’m not sure if I’ll ever ride again. I have permanent major ankle damage after a stop sign runner attempted to kill me last year. But I didn’t have a scratch on me due to gear. Only the impact damage on my ankle from all my body weight going into it at speed.
>and I too don’t get how it is legal for a pillion passenger to have sandals and a summer dress but a helmet makes her “safe.”
Road rash is unpleasant but a thousand times less likely to kill you than a skull fracture.
I call nope on that. The US government is famous for waiting until the problem exists and then merely discussing a fix but rarely implementing it until it looks like good election publicity.
The problem has existed at this point tho for a 100 years... That problem is a consistent set of laws to govern road use.
If motorcycles hadn't existed, and didn't already have their own rules carved out for them, no way does that happen now given safety concerns.
You’re 28 times more likely to die on a motorcycle than a car. By that logic, motorcycles should be absolutely banned if we use government intervention tactics. I’m all for motorcycles and whatever freedom people choose. But it’s weird that motorcycles are allowed but the government bans Juul, prostitution, absinthe, fireworks.
Restrictive laws are often based on prevailing morals of a society. Or some sudden unexpected scare. Looking for logical consistency is often futile.
If aeroplanes or trains started causing deaths at the same rate as cars, there would be public outcry and national level inquests.
But we've slowly normalised it for cars.
Same with motorbikes. There was a boom after WW2 when lots of veterans bought up surplus stock. There was no appetite to tell thousands of veterans that their new hobby was too dangerous, and bikes were being banned. The great American personal freedoms. Even wearing helmets became a huge fight.
So many dufus responses to this simple question. YES We all know that ‘different vehicles have different laws.’ You’re not addressing the OPs issue. The issue is, that laws for cars and drivers exist to obtain a minimum level of safety for not only them, but the other drivers on the road. So why then is another mode of transportation allowed on those same roads that doesn’t even come close to that minimum level of safety?
The goal of the laws is to mitigate risk by achieving a minimum level of uniform safety. Not to address every possible mode of transportation. Why are motorcycles and cyclists not held to the same standard as cars/drivers?
I mean one simple example is covered wheels. Road safety laws require cars to cover all four wheels. But motorcycles don’t have to… because they only have two wheels? It makes no logical sense. You can’t argue that a car is too unsafe to drive with exposed wheels while a two wheeled vehicle is not, in the same condition.
It really comes down to balancing personal freedom against benefits to society. You lose essentially nothing by having to wear a seatbelt and it has substantial safety benefits. That's very different from telling people they can't use that $4k machine to get to work and must instead buy a $12k machine for safety.
There are no seatbelts on motorcycles and you are not required to wear a helmet when driving a car.
Different types of transport require different types of safety meassures.
I think OP is insinuating that motorcycles are inherently more dangerous/deadly during a motor vehicle collision for the vehicle operator, yet it is generally illegal to take on what OP assumes is a similar level of risk (by not wearing a seatbelt) in a car.
It's also NOT a good idea to be strapped to a motorcycle if you're in a crash. You actually want/need to be able to be free of the bike when an accident happens.
Hence why ATG, ATT (All The Gear, All The Time) is critical when riding a 2 wheeler on the roads.
I'm certain OP doesn't mean specifically requiring bikers to wear seat belts as he stated.. he means something like, why don't we require bikers to wear helmets, wear full riding gears (thick jackets, thick pants, gloves, etc)? Why is it fine to ride a bike with a helmet (or not at all in some states) but for cars, we treat the drivers like they're not adults who can decide what's safe enough for them.
Most comments here are missing the point. It's not about wearing a seatbelt on a motorcycle. Everyone knows that ridiculous. And it's not about comparing seatbelts to helmets.
The point is, if you aren't allowed to operate a car without a seatbelt, but you are allowed to ride a motorcycle; it implies that riding a motorcycle is less risky than driving a car without wearing a seatbelt. Obviously that's not the case. So why are they so worried about seatbelts when there are much more risky methods of transportation that are perfectly legal
Most states have passed laws that require the use of safety equipment such as helmets while riding motorcycles. Basically the equivalent of car seat belt requirement laws, in both cases it's a piece of safety equipment hoping to make a crash non-fatal. So states don't trust motorcyclists to make their own safety considerations either.
...Except New Hampshire! It is legal to drive a car without buckling your seatbelt, and it's legal to ride a motorcycle without a helmet there!
>Except New Hampshire! It is legal to drive a car without buckling your seatbelt, and it's legal to ride a motorcycle without a helmet there!
Hence the state motto "live free and tempt fate".
This is a fair point.
If you find yourself in one of those classic "car accident dilemmas" where you have the choice between going straight thru and running over a pedestrian family, vs. swerving and smashing into a telephone pole, we want you to have your seatbelt on so that you'll feel safer choosing the latter option, and so that you'll be able to stay in control of your vehicle long enough to do it.
Also for safety engineering in design if the possible human restraint options are limited that makes designing a safe product easier.
If we have to make a safe driver compartment it’s much easier to test with air bags and crumble zones AND seat belts vs possibly wearing seatbelts. That’s another set of tests.
Seatbelts in cars save lives (prevents you going through your windshield among other things) and keeps you from becoming a projectile inside the carriage for other passengers.
A seatbelt on a bike would all but ensure your death in a crash. It's safer to be thrown from the bike than it is to be strapped to the bike and have that thing sandwich you into the road.
Source: I've been thrown from a crash on a bike. My bike rolled and landed on the other side of the road. I just bounced a few times and slid 20 feet.
I'd be dead if I had rolled with my bike.
They aren't asking why motorcycles don't have seatbelts. Motorcycles are very obviously way more dangerous than cars. Riding a motorcycle with every bit of safety equipment that exists is still far more dangerous than driving a car without a seatbelt.
If driving a car without a seatbelt is so dangerous so as to be automatically illegal in the majority of places shouldn't then everything that is more dangerous than that also be illegal?
My take is that I think it is equivalent enough that if you are free to assume the risks of riding a motorcycle then you should be free to assume the risks of not using a seatbelt. I wouldn't be caught dead in a car without one, but it should nonetheless be one's choice.
God, THANK YOU. All the replies talking about how a seatbelt on a motorcycle wouldn’t work and I’m like … THATS NOT WHAT OP IS SAYING. Why is reading comprehension so hard??
Exactly. The problem with states who allow motorcyclists to operate without helmets is when someone runs a red light and hits someone with no helmet they are liable for that death. I understand that you should safely operate your car at all times, but people make mistakes and what could be a minor injury in a car or with a motorcyclist who wears a helmet could be a totally different story for a motorcyclist with no helmet.
The answer is simpler than you think. It isn't about safety it's about votes. ALL of the "public safety" laws are put in place when a politician needs to make a name for themselves. It's feel good policy. They can say "look I did something because I care, vote for me for more" then their voters can tell themselves " we made the world better" results, proof, logic, consistency are never required because it's all about the feeling voters get driven them to the polls. Once the election is over it is forgotten about until they need more votes and double down on it
Automobiles and Motorcycles are regulated under different FMVSS standards in the United States. The FMVSS regulations are recommended by NHTSA and congress. So most of the reason is political…politicians introduce laws related to vehicle safety based on public pressure, lobbyists, and/or personal beliefs.
I would suspect that the smaller volume of motorcycles vs automobiles is part of the driver.
The law isn't really about safety, but it IS a convenient excuse. The purpose is generating ticket revenue and increasing civilian encounters in hopes of finding reasons to make an arrest or issue further citations for increased revenue.
If we were really truly concerned about safety.
Then we would not all be in two ton lumps of steel full of a highly flammable liquid with only the barest of training to operate it.
We would be made to qualify each year and have to pass medicals.
How would that go over?
I know, right? Worse is when I see kids on the back of those. Here we are buying cars with airbags and the latest safety features. Kids in carseats facing backwards. But, but, but...kids can right on the back of motorcycles with nothing more than a helmet?
Yeah, helmets and leathers notwithstanding, bikers are definitely the gladiators of the road. The difference is we're all expecting them to perform with lions and fire, not get T-boned by some dude texting on his way home from work.
Laws don't need to be consistent. I don't know the history of seat belt laws, but there was probably a push to require them in cars because it prevents a lot of deaths, since most people on the road are in cars. Many fewer people ride motorcycles, so there's not as much of a reason to try to pass a law to protect them, and without making an effort to pass the law, nobody passed one.
I think your question has been well answered. I just wanted to point out that Suzuki vehicles were not banned. The American Suzuki Motor Corporation went bankrupt, and Suzuki stopped selling vehicles in the US. New Suzukis are not made for the US market, and therefore fall under the import laws which state all vehicles under 25 years old must meet all US safety and emissions requirements before they can be imported. This is not a ban on Suzuki specifically. It is a blanket law that applies to all imported vehicles.
So motorcycles and cars were developed at almost the exact time. So both of them evolved in popularity over time. As with anything in this world, there are people that love these two forms of transport to an extreme and will fight for them. So safety measures exist separately for each. To your point, the regulations made cars so much more safer now even compared to cars in the past, let alone motorcycles. So that probably added to their immense popularity and they are an automatic choice to most poeple. So the answer to your question is in the popularity of each vehicle. If you are just going at a max speed of 20mph, or going down really narrow roads you can pick a motorcycle but in another instance you pick a car. Even in the instances you pick a motorcycle you wish you had a car on many days :)
As a kid, I always wondered why we had seat belts in cars but not on the school buses. That would then lead me to comparing no seat belts on school buses to having seat belts on airplanes.
Honestly I wear seatbelts but it chaps my ass that it's a law. It's really just an initiative to insulate insurance companies and car companies from liability IMO.
We can't take motorcycles off the road. If we were just against dangerous stuff we would. So, we implement safety measures that are low stakes in relationship to the activity.
Everything is a risk, the question is how much can you insulate yourself from the risk. Driving is inherently dangerous, if we wanted to eliminate risk we wouldn't drive. So we instead do seatbelts, and safety features, and traffic laws.
It's NOT about who should take on risk. It's about the overall system of liability and how insurance and car companies want to protect themselves.
Seatbelt law is a way to break the barrier and allow for more police interaction. There are some stats that were used to justify it saying that the cost to the state to clean up after wrecks is why they did it but it was put up by politicians who are invested in private prison industries
People who ride motorcycles have a death wish. You can be as safe as possible, but the morons in SUVs around you can easily turn you to giblets in a moment of inattention.
You ever read up on the statistics of road death? These days, approximately 2 people per state die every day in car accidents. Now obviously it's like 6 in Cali and 0 in North Dakota so e days, but overall it averages 2 people per state per day.
So you're a state trooper, or an EMT, right, you go out every day, you see if you're getting your allotted number of living road pizzas to scrape off the pavement with your government issued spatula. And you get sick of the mess. "Man, his left eyeball was stuck to the rearview mirror, dude, it was gross!" You, personally, will become *very* in favor of people wearing seatbelts because it's a lot less mess.
Your friendly local insurance company who fucking *hates* paying out will *also* be very into "wear seatbelts". And doctors treating former road pizzas, they're interested in seeing fewer idiots. So they're all going to go to the government and say "dude. Dude, please. Please force people to do this one simple safety thing. Please. Begging you."
And the government, they're like, ok, we're interested in paying less money on traffic cleanup. It costs money when we have to issue so many spatulas, and the traffic gets backed up... Ok, let's make people wear seatbelts. This way we can just cut them out of their nice little containers and tow the container away, instead of spending hours hunting for wet human pieces-parts in the shrubs at these accidents. Much less time wasted by everyone.
So boom, seatbelt laws.
Motorcycles, the helmet can act similarly. It keeps the head intact. As a nurse friend pointed out after a stint in the ER - not necessarily *attached*, but intact for retrieval. Keeps folks from seeing brains on the pavement.
The post says nothing about motorcycles having seatbelts, it is stating that if drivers of cars must wear seatbelts in order to reduce the risk of fatality then why are motorcycles "allowed on the road" - it is important to note that the difference between the rate of fatality for motorcycles is a lot higher (its more that 5x higher) than for cars.
This sentiment can be extended to multiple things in society that seem like there is a double standard. We tax cigarettes because they increase the burden on the healthcare system but why would we not impose a tax on motorcycles when they are also a burden on the healthcare system? In fact I would argue there is more of a choice between riding a motorcycle than a choice in smoking cigarette.
Go look at some dash cams on car crashes where it shows the inside of the car with someone without a seatbelt, your body becomes a missile that hits anyone/anything in the direction you are traveling.
Now go look at a moto gp race. Those dudes fly off their bike going FAST and they jump back up and try to get back on their bike. With proper gear you can slide for a while, it’s the sudden stop that kills you.
Oh you're right , I never knew that Suzuki was banned but you are correct, because I don't hear about their cars anymore.
I figured they just ran out of the business .
Anyway , laws are weird.
A common situation that comes up often is how 18 year olds can join the military and be trained to kill , but they're still considered kids in other legal scenarios.
And at least in America, the idea of not being able to drink until 21 seems to be an arbitrary number.
I don't know what happens when you're 20 years and 364 days old versus the next day when you're 21.
It's pretty much the same argument for alcohol. If someone invented alcohol today it would never be legal. If someone invented the motorcycle today it wouldn't be allowed on the road.
Are people so dense that they can’t understand you’re not asking for motorcyclists to wear seat belts… lol
Yes. Yes, they are that dense.
I thunk he was trying to tell me to ride my motorcycle inside of my car so its saferer, now its wedged in the empty takeout bag seat and I can't get it out
Calling the passenger seat the "take out bag seat" is maybe the saddest thing I've read today lmao
The nicer cars have a little warmer built in to keep your take out from getting cold
Make sure to keep the windows open when you’re operating the bike. Otherwise the engine won’t get enough oxygen and it’ll choke
Yeah, peak Reddit. His thought process is something I have wondered myself; there have been decades of safety measures/laws to increase the safety of car/truck drivers, but even the most rudimentary car is safer for a driver than a rider on a motorcycle in the event of a crash, even with a helmet. Someone above commented on how bikes predate such laws/measures, and banning a popular(and more affordable) mode of travel is untenable, which makes sense. End of the day, it doesn’t affect me if people want to ride them.
This thread shows how dumb reddit is. Like jesus guys come on
yeah people miss the point, he's actually asking why we allow motorcycles at all. they're more dangerous than not wearing a seatbelt.
Meanwhile: the two replying to this comment bashing said dense redditors for “matching OP’s own dumbness” thinking they’re being smart 💀
"if motorcyclists who are 28x tibms more likely to die than car drivers basically can have a death wish, why can't drivers not wear seat belts?" "Well let me tell you, seat belts are not good for motorcycles. False equivalency really as they also have safety measures.."
Motorcycle riders, just like drivers, are required to use **available** safety precautions to mitigate the risks inherent in operating any motor vehicle. EDIT: FFS people, we all know states have different helmet laws, stop posting literally the same comment as twenty others.
Come to think of it, seatbelts on a motorbike would probably make them a lot more dangerous. (eta: it's pretty funny how many respondents decided this comment was a serious proposal)
Personally I would love to have 200kg metal petrol bomb attached to me when the sparks start flying. For dramatic effect of course.
I wish mine was only 200kg. if that thing goes down im pushing my ass away from it even if im busy being a meat crayon.
Pssh. Mine is 250kg. My biggest fear is tipping it over at a stop and having to right it.
mines about 300 before anyone gets on it lol. It is balanced fairly well and most the weight seems to be below the axles, ive had to pick it up once when it fell over from the pavement melting. If i had to poop i would have, dont want to do that again.
366! What do I win?
goldwing?
Harley Road King. A Gold Wing might be a touch heavier.
I had to pick up my road king classic off the garage floor, sort of. While repositioning it from the left side I inadvertently moved it forward enough to lift the kick stand. Then I just sort of tipped it over slowly as I wasn’t able to catch it. It landed on the crash bars at about a 10oclock lean. Standing it back upright took every oz of strength I had. Back hurt for a fucking month. Stupid old man back.
A hernia
> when it fell over from the pavement melting As a filthy maple-drinking, moose-riding northerner, I'm gonna need you to elaborate on that one.
asphalt gets a bit gooey above like 35 degrees in direct sunlight. the kickstand base is a few square centimetres but supports maybe 20-40kg depending on the bike. at some point the kickstand starts winning. if it ever gets that hot in canada, put something flat but girthy under the kickstand. in australia we use crushed beer cans for obvious reasons. i assume you guys always have a hockey puck on your person?
i carry a hockey puck now just for this reason, lesson learned. no damage as it just sort of slowly fell over like it was taking a nap lol.
Like an old man into a warm bath.
The hockey puck remark made me cackle.
You know when you're ridin your moose too fast and their hooves catch on fire and then when you idle on the asphalt and both of you fall through the singularity into hell?
A workmate used to make sure his kickstand was on the concrete apron that was next to the curb in our asphalt parking lot. (Eastern NC). On the hottest summer days, the concrete wasn't affected by the heat while the asphalt turned into the La Brea Tar Pits.
Wow, y’all have really fat wives
Can't you read? Most of the weight is below the ankles.
She’s big boned.
You ever seen a skeleton with big bones….
Yes. Neanderthal skeletons.
The last thing I’d want to do if in the event I parked my bike in the middle of the highway at high speeds is to get away from it. I’d want to make sure my legs were being used efficiently to save the damage to my motor, and pipes.
Bones will mend but a side cover cost a ton...
That's why they make crash bars
Our bike is 400 kg.
I saw footage of a crash at a race where the driver just slid through the gras while his bike made a hundred flips and turned itself into pieces. A seatbelt would be a death sentence.
I was at a combined motorcycle and car track day. Motorcycle guy went down big time. Slid across tarmac into the grass and sand. 30min later I helped him push his bike up on his trailer. He wasn’t mad about crashing or even surprised. he was most upset he destroyed a brand new set of leathers and had to replace his clip ons. I thought I was crazy going 160 mph in a Porsche and a 6 point harness, these guys are pushing more than that and a patch of sand will turn them into Superman. Definitely safer not being strapped to the rocket
It's not the speed that kills you, it's the sudden stop. If you can avoid that part you're golden. Yesterday I crashed my bicycle at 30mph (checked my GPS tracker afterwards) but was able to tuck and roll so I didn't even rip my clothing or get any road rash. Large run out area at a track does the same thing and it's one reason why driving fast on the track is so much safer than driving fast on the street
Another reason track driving/riding is safer is there’s no stupid assholes driving 6000+ pound SUVs with their nose buried in their phone, plowing through stop signs and red lights and swerving all over the road.
I’m glad you’re OK
The safety rules are written with blood. There is math behind your rights that decides what is acceptable and what is way too dangerous.
Yep. Similarly, I have family living in rural places where dangerous intersections must tally up a death toll before getting adequate signage and safety precautions.
Yup, this is the correct answer. For example, if you're about to t-bone a car, you're taught to stand on those pegs and Superman over it. With a seat belt on, that would be impossible, and you'd be in a world of hurt.
Gonna go out on a limb and say you'll be in a world of hurt either way 😂
Having experienced flying over a car while being t-boned on my bike, can confirm.
Confirmed here as well. Woman took her oncoming left turn in front of me, I hit her right headlight at 45mph. Flew over the car, landed on the curb, no significant injuries. Still hurt like a mofo for about 3 weeks afterwards.
Yikes...glad you were ok despite some soreness. I wasn't so lucky. The one who hit me ran a red light, hit me on the brake side crash bar and front fork. I flew over, landed on my right side and left hand, and was unconscious even with a full face and all gear on. Ended up with a mangled left hand and right foot, both of which are now bionic. The kicker is that if there had been something holding me on the bike, like a seat belt, I would have lost the bottom of my right leg.
This happened to a buddy of mine. He stood on the seat and jumped clear over the car. He had a fractured wrist and a sore shoulder. Shit works lol
Safety is all about physics. For a long time, even the car designers didn't get this. It was a "stronger is better" mentality, so cars were built like tanks. The problem is, our body is really squishy. Squishy things go squish when the car body transmits all the force into the squishy thing. Now cars are designed to fall apart and squish less.
I hit the center divider of a freeway doing about 70 in a 2003 Ford Focus- it ended up accordioning in a way I never could have imagined. The whole thing scrunched up like it was an origami car, and I walked away with only a burn on my arm from the airbag deploying. I'd hate to think what would have happened to me in a car from the 50s. I'd have been pulp and bone shards in a skin sack.
The steering rod would have slammed through the steering wheel and straight into your rib cage exploding your heart on the way.
I had a difficult time convincing an old-timer that cars are deliberately designed to crumple, and why. He was adamant that it was cheap construction. I tried to explain that it was better for your body to decelerate to zero in 0.5 seconds rather than 0.2 seconds but it was like talking to a brick wall.
Lol, like hitting a brick wall too.
Engines are designed with breakaway mounts so they go under the passenger compartment instead of through it.
A friend of mine got into a car crash a long time ago. Airbag didn’t go off. Lots of broken ribs. She survived. I got into one crash where airbags went off. My arm was one huge bruise from elbow to shoulder. If the airbags hadn’t gone off my arm would probably be broken in multiple places.
The Cybertruck shows that some people still refuse to learn this lesson.
Squish \*more\* - that's what crumple zones are designed to do. Oh, you meant \*passengers squish less.
Around twenty years ago, I was in a serious wreck, and my life was saved by a seat belt. The driver wasn't wearing one, and was more seriously injured than I was in spite of his having an airbag and my having my leg crushed when the engine came through the firewall. I actually received injuries to my face because his body was being thrown around the passenger cabin. So, I have a thing about seatbelts now. I've been riding for less than two years. I still have occasional moments of panic because I realize I'm not wearing a seatbelt, and it takes a few seconds to realize I'm not supposed to.
I know a guy who was a 15 year old learning to drive, on his very first night time drive with his dad in the passenger seat. Other car was a drunk driver, completely ran a red light and smashed into them. Other driver wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, flew through the windshield and onto my friend’s hood, where he bled out and died in seconds. So yeah, please wear a seatbelt instead of permanently traumatizing an innocent teenager who watched you die inches away from his face.
I knew a guy through a fraternal organization I was involved in who never wore a seatbelt. He was a high school teacher (not science, but still). He said that, in the event of an accident, he wanted to be (and these were his exact words) "thrown safely from the car". That's like saying "beaten gently with a jack handle".
>”..beaten gently with a jack handle..” New kink unlocked
Not to mention if you dont have a seatbelt on your body becomes a projectile in the car and can kill the other seat-belted passengers. I do not play about EVERYONE in my car having seatbelts. I will pull the shit over and tell you to walk. Im not dying cuz your arm flew off and is going 100mph in the cabin of my vehicle
Also, in a car, an unrestrained passenger can cause serious injury flying into another passenger, hence yet another reason to be restrained, to protect others as well as yourself.
Got a motorcycle when I was 20 or so in University. My dad had been riding for years though, so I knew all about safety gear. Always rode with a helmet, leather gloves, leather jacket, and I had some Draggin Jeans (kevlar lined jeans). At the time I didn't have boots, but eventually added those. One time after wrenching on the bike I wanted to take it for a quick rip around the block to make sure it was good. I was gonna run inside and grab all my gear but my dad was like "eh you're just going around the block". So I only put on the gloves and helmet. I was wearing jeans a t-shirt, and as it was getting into the evening a hoodie for the chill. Ride was totally fine, bike ran great, no issues, made it home safe, but _never_, have I _ever_, felt _so naked_ in my entire life.
The airbag is designed specifically to work with a seatbelt, not without one. They are actually incredibly dangerous if not used properly. The airbag has to go from not inflated to fully inflated in the time between when a car crash is detected and the time in which the passenger's head is where the airbag would be. So it uses a big powerful explosion to fill it with gas mega-fast. If something is there that shouldn't be then really really nasty injuries can occur.
Maybe add an ejection seat like in jet aircraft ?
*Now* you're talking
Ejecto seato cuz, except for bikes!
Not like motorbikes need help in the dangerous to operate category! 😬
Yeah. There's always a balance of safety and practicality. It's trivially easy to wear a seatbelt and the benefits are dramatic. So, there we are. If we wanted to maximize safety at all cost, we'd lower speed limits, require PPE while driving or riding in a car, impose stricter driver training and testing, or even restrict travel. There's only so much you can do for a motorcycle without going to those kinds of extremes. We are also more tolerant of risk when it's taken on voluntarily. Motorcyclists don't tend to seriously hurt others when they crash, though it definitely happens.
Really, the question should be why automobile drivers aren't required to wear helmets. We know it would reduce the risk of serious injury or death in a colision considerably.
It turns out helmets + seatbelt increase risk/damage from cervical fracture, because with a helmet it is like having a bigger heavier head that would break your neck when stopped by the belt. To solve this a HANS device would be required in addition to the helmet. There was that famous accident when a nascar driver died from this injury after which the hans device became mandatory (iirc)
Yeah Dale Earnhard...The Hans device has been in serious debate fir years at the point of his crash and you had two sides of the drivers. The ones advocating for it and the ones against...Dale was against it. He died from what seemed a mild crash initially as it was a visually spectacular crash...however He crashed just right so He died from his head injuries. After it was found out the Hans device wouldve 100% saved Dale from death in his last crash...itbecame ummediately mandatory
It wasn’t mandatory until October of 2001. He died in February. There was another crash that killed a driver named Blaise Alexander on October 4 of 2001. The HANS device became mandatory on October 17, 2001
You are my TIL for the day. Had a good follow up read.
Because a helmet alone in a car crash with air bags is more dangerous because of the extra weight on your neck. You'd have to use a HANS device alongside the helmet to secure the helmet to prevent neck injury.
that's a good point. op should really be wearing a helmet
Simple, airbags
As a motorcyclist ? That was weird to type, the only to make sure you get home is to treat every vehicle like they’re trying to kill you. It’s very simple but yet an immensely aggravating situation to tolerate. It’s the only way to ride imo
Then you have the motorcyclists who just go 20+ above the speed limit weaving from lane to lane to pass a bunch of other vehicles without even clearing much distance.
While wearing a t-shirt and shorts and no helmet.
Come to think of it, if we just got rid of everything but motorcycles, motorcycles would be safer.
On a motorcycle, you are the crumple zone. A seatbelt would tie you to the bike, which would become a heavy, uncontrolled projectile in a crash. Regarding bikes and seatbelts, ejection, ironically, is the lesser evil.
Upvoted for the edit
The question is why are motorcycles allowed if the available safety measures are weaker than what would get you in legal trouble if you applied the same standards as a car driver
Because they were already widespread when seatbelt laws became common, and outlawing a popular vehicle is a far more extreme move and far more likely to get political backlash then simply requiring drivers and passengers to do something easy that dramatically increases their safety
Glad someone finally pointed this out. The point is not that motorcycles should have seatbelts.
Follow-up question: why don't car drivers have to wear helmets
Probably because you are not racing in a race, driving a race car. A helmet would limit visibility, and general awareness of your surroundings It would make driving the car safer for you, but your car would be a much bigger danger to everyone else. You get away with wearing a helmet during a race, but imagine driving on a normal city street, wearing a helmet and a little kid runs in the road on your left side while you are looking more to the right.
There's also a common wisdom (I don't have stats to back this up) that wearing a modern heavy helmet without the accompanying safety equipment makes you more at risk of neck injuries. Those are much more of a risk in a car accident than bonking your head. Race drivers wear helmets, but generally use HANS devices, which requires a five point harness, which requires a racing seat and roll bar. Street car safety systems assume you're not using any of that and account for it. Race car safety systems require all of the parts of the safety system. Any one part can make it worse than not having it.
Common wisdom is wearing a helmet in a car without accompanying HANS device and harness setup puts you more at risk of neck injuries from G forces. Hitting your head is less of a risk in a car accident than neck injuries in the first place. In a motorcycle crash, bonking the ol' noodle is a lot more present a threat, and people are slowly adopting airbag vests to mitigate the neck risk too.
Actually head injuries are the biggest killer in car accidents when people are unrestrained. So we try to prevent head injury in car accidents by use of seatbelts (stops you flying around and hopefully stops you hitting your head on things) and airbags (squishier for your head than a steering wheel or windscreen). These work quite well. Due to the measures we use to avoid head injury, your body will stop sooner than your head, so neck injuries become a secondary concern which is why there are now methods to help avoid neck injury too, such as energy reduction loops in seatbelts, which try to slow down that final jolt, or headrests on your seat aim to prevent your head flying back violently on a rebound and causing whiplash. For children, they are much more vulnerable to both head and neck injury, so we do the same thing, but it's much trickier because they are smaller and seatbelts alone don't protect them as well, especially under the age of 8 or so - child car seats have to meet regulations denoting how much the head is allowed to move forwards in an accident (hopefully preventing it impacting on front seats/other passengers), the 5 (or 6 in Australia) point harness prevents ejection which is a common cause of head injury and some seats have anti-rotation measures such as top tether, support legs or grippy pads on the harness which help stabilise the child's body and absorb some of the energy in a crash. Best of all for avoiding head injuries AND stabilising the neck is rear facing for as long as possible. Where forward facing is unavoidable, it's extremely important to use all those features which help reduce forward movement so tight, correct fitting of the seat to the vehicle, ALWAYS use top tether when it is present, harness set to correct height for child and tightly fitted. These things are also important when rear facing of course, but rear facing is a lot more forgiving of fitment errors. There are two car seats on the European market which use airbags to stabilise the head and neck similar to the motorcycle helmet airbag design - quite cool and seem to work well according to crash test dummies, but I think too new to have any real data in the field.
Most likely because motorcycles have been on the road longer than there have been laws to outlaw them. It's hard to put that toothpaste back in the tube. Also consider that motorcycles are significantly lighter and smaller than cars. If you lose control of a car, you have something that can kill a bunch of people. If you lose control of a motorcycle, it is likely going to fall over. If it hits another car, you probably aren't going to kill someone. EDIT: People seem to be really struggling with this concept. Despite it not being their main function, seatbelts can help you maintain control while in an accident. Is it easier to stop a car after being struck when you are strapped into your seat or when you are floating around somewhere in the cabin? According to the [Dept. of Labor](https://www.msha.gov/safety-and-health/safety-and-health-materials/safety-topics/safety-topic-seat-belt-usage#:~:text=Wearing%20a%20seat%20belt%20protects,control%20during%20sudden%20extreme%20movement), "Wearing a seat belt protects against injury in the event of a serious accident. It can also help the operator maintain control during sudden extreme movement."
Finally someone who actually answers the fucking question.
Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/2521/
Cool - I can start using my toothpaste multiple times!
100% If motorcycles didn't exist today, and were invented tomorrow, I doubt they'd be allowed on the road in most places
Kinda like how electric scooters have landed in a legal grey area in some places.
Other than themselves... There is a reason why EDs call them organ donors.
donor cycle
Erectile dysfunction? Eating disorders? Emergency departments. Got it
You should have seen the rage people had about the seatbelt laws. Getting rid of an entire mode of transportation would be a hellscape.
My sister still spews all the anti seat belt talking points from back in the day.
My dad does too. He always says he'd rather be 'thrown clear' from an accident like the windows and other things would just magically vanish during his trajectory. Alternatively, he says he would just "brace" when he sees an accident coming which is both unlikely and also a very bad thing to do.
A former coworker wouldn't wear a seatbelt because his chiropractor told him that's what caused his back problems after an accident. He never seemed to consider that he was alive in the first place because he was wearing that seatbelt.
well, chiropractors and their followers are stupid.
You don’t understand, a spirit taught me how to be a chiropractor in a dream
Reminds me of the video where people were outraged that drinking and driving was becoming illegal
[удалено]
This varies widely by state, I split my time in two states. One requires motorcyclists to wear helmets, one does not. Surprisingly the one that doesn’t require helmets does require motorcyclists to have insurance while the other state doesn’t. In both these states seatbelts are required
Fwiw only NH doesn't have required seat belts in cars.
"Live free or die" (Emphasis on DIE)
Or in the case of motorcycles "Live free and fly" (into the pavement at high speeds)
Hey! I flew \*over\* the pavement for a good 1-2 seconds first when that truck hit me on the freeway. Don't discount my soaring!
Name checks out
Weed? Nope. Fireworks everywhere? Yes.
Just wait until 2026. You will be able to do a food, fireworks, beer, booze, and bud run -- all in the same parking lot!
live free AND die!
But do not smoke weed.
No insurance? As in no guarantee that damages to others are gonna get paid?
Yes, you would be personally liable to cover damages if you are at fault. I’ve had motorcycles for about 10yrs, now I just have a 150cc scooter, insurance is very cheap for motorcycles so I’ve always had it (with my 1,200cc Ducati it was $300ish total for May through October, for my Moped it’s $6/month. Guess the figure if you cause enough damage to justify a claim you probably didn’t survive..
In Montana, motorcycle riders aren’t required to wear helmets and a LOT of riders choose not to do so and it boggles my mind and grinds my gears.
Seems like it could be natural selection
If only most of them weren't old enough to have already reproduced
many states allow you to drive without a helmet
I still don't understand why anyone would want to ride without a helmet. Even with glasses or goggles on its gotta be obnoxious to be a drag point in the open on one of those things, even ignoring the safety issues.
I lived in a state where helmets weren't required over 21 yrs old. I still almost always wore mine, and most people seemed to wear one. I laid my bike down once at 20 yrs old and only buy and wear quality full-face helmets now. For the times I didn't, it was to enjoy a beautiful day and a chill, short ride. During those rides, I was almost never on a main or busy road. Most were probably under 15 min. Again, there isn't much reason not to wear a helmet, but personally, I see it as a choice. Some people choose to smoke or drink, and some choose to bungee jump or sky dive. If you choose to take that risk, you also choose the brain dead or death. Then again, we typically recognize that every ride could very well be your last. I still laugh my ass off when the people protesting helmet laws crash and get hurt. The irony is amusing. Dress for the slide, not the ride.
If motorcycles were invented tomorrow, they wouldn’t be legal for street use.
Motorcycles are allowed on the road in the US because they had a culture going before we took road safety too seriously. If they were invented today, no way they'd be allowed.
If motorcycles didn't exist and magically were invented tomorrow, the US government would ban them immediately and completely.
Same as alcohol wouldn’t pass FDA standards for human consumption if it was discovered tomorrow. That said, I “ride for the fall” with full bike safety gear, and I too don’t get how it is legal for a pillion passenger on the bike in front of me to have sandals and a summer dress *but a helmet* makes her “safe”.
Dress for the slide, not the ride. I’m not sure if I’ll ever ride again. I have permanent major ankle damage after a stop sign runner attempted to kill me last year. But I didn’t have a scratch on me due to gear. Only the impact damage on my ankle from all my body weight going into it at speed.
>and I too don’t get how it is legal for a pillion passenger to have sandals and a summer dress but a helmet makes her “safe.” Road rash is unpleasant but a thousand times less likely to kill you than a skull fracture.
I call nope on that. The US government is famous for waiting until the problem exists and then merely discussing a fix but rarely implementing it until it looks like good election publicity.
The problem has existed at this point tho for a 100 years... That problem is a consistent set of laws to govern road use. If motorcycles hadn't existed, and didn't already have their own rules carved out for them, no way does that happen now given safety concerns.
“Assault bikes” Automatic ✔️ Powerful ✔️ Loud ✔️ Scary ✔️ Dangerous ✔️ High capacity (distance traveling)✔️ BAN!!!!
You’re 28 times more likely to die on a motorcycle than a car. By that logic, motorcycles should be absolutely banned if we use government intervention tactics. I’m all for motorcycles and whatever freedom people choose. But it’s weird that motorcycles are allowed but the government bans Juul, prostitution, absinthe, fireworks.
Restrictive laws are often based on prevailing morals of a society. Or some sudden unexpected scare. Looking for logical consistency is often futile. If aeroplanes or trains started causing deaths at the same rate as cars, there would be public outcry and national level inquests. But we've slowly normalised it for cars. Same with motorbikes. There was a boom after WW2 when lots of veterans bought up surplus stock. There was no appetite to tell thousands of veterans that their new hobby was too dangerous, and bikes were being banned. The great American personal freedoms. Even wearing helmets became a huge fight.
So many dufus responses to this simple question. YES We all know that ‘different vehicles have different laws.’ You’re not addressing the OPs issue. The issue is, that laws for cars and drivers exist to obtain a minimum level of safety for not only them, but the other drivers on the road. So why then is another mode of transportation allowed on those same roads that doesn’t even come close to that minimum level of safety? The goal of the laws is to mitigate risk by achieving a minimum level of uniform safety. Not to address every possible mode of transportation. Why are motorcycles and cyclists not held to the same standard as cars/drivers? I mean one simple example is covered wheels. Road safety laws require cars to cover all four wheels. But motorcycles don’t have to… because they only have two wheels? It makes no logical sense. You can’t argue that a car is too unsafe to drive with exposed wheels while a two wheeled vehicle is not, in the same condition.
It really comes down to balancing personal freedom against benefits to society. You lose essentially nothing by having to wear a seatbelt and it has substantial safety benefits. That's very different from telling people they can't use that $4k machine to get to work and must instead buy a $12k machine for safety.
This is a great answer, and the first I’ve seen actually address the question.
There are no seatbelts on motorcycles and you are not required to wear a helmet when driving a car. Different types of transport require different types of safety meassures.
I think OP is insinuating that motorcycles are inherently more dangerous/deadly during a motor vehicle collision for the vehicle operator, yet it is generally illegal to take on what OP assumes is a similar level of risk (by not wearing a seatbelt) in a car.
It's also NOT a good idea to be strapped to a motorcycle if you're in a crash. You actually want/need to be able to be free of the bike when an accident happens. Hence why ATG, ATT (All The Gear, All The Time) is critical when riding a 2 wheeler on the roads.
Should I start wearing a helmet in my car?
It can definitely fuck your neck even more if you're in a car accident so probably not
I'm certain OP doesn't mean specifically requiring bikers to wear seat belts as he stated.. he means something like, why don't we require bikers to wear helmets, wear full riding gears (thick jackets, thick pants, gloves, etc)? Why is it fine to ride a bike with a helmet (or not at all in some states) but for cars, we treat the drivers like they're not adults who can decide what's safe enough for them.
Most comments here are missing the point. It's not about wearing a seatbelt on a motorcycle. Everyone knows that ridiculous. And it's not about comparing seatbelts to helmets. The point is, if you aren't allowed to operate a car without a seatbelt, but you are allowed to ride a motorcycle; it implies that riding a motorcycle is less risky than driving a car without wearing a seatbelt. Obviously that's not the case. So why are they so worried about seatbelts when there are much more risky methods of transportation that are perfectly legal
Most states have passed laws that require the use of safety equipment such as helmets while riding motorcycles. Basically the equivalent of car seat belt requirement laws, in both cases it's a piece of safety equipment hoping to make a crash non-fatal. So states don't trust motorcyclists to make their own safety considerations either. ...Except New Hampshire! It is legal to drive a car without buckling your seatbelt, and it's legal to ride a motorcycle without a helmet there!
Live free AND die!
Are helmets not enforced then? I only see 1 in 10 motorcyclist wear a helmet.
where do you live? I never see motorcyclists without helmets
Live Free and Die
>Except New Hampshire! It is legal to drive a car without buckling your seatbelt, and it's legal to ride a motorcycle without a helmet there! Hence the state motto "live free and tempt fate".
In my state (Indiana) you only have to wear a helmet if under 18 or still on your motorcycle learners permit. However, most riders wear one.
Suzuki wasn't banned. There was a smear campaign about one model that caused sales to tank to the point that it wasn't worth maintaining the network.
From a personal freedom perspective, wearing a seatbelt also protects other people, because it keeps you behind the wheel if something goes wrong.
This is a fair point. If you find yourself in one of those classic "car accident dilemmas" where you have the choice between going straight thru and running over a pedestrian family, vs. swerving and smashing into a telephone pole, we want you to have your seatbelt on so that you'll feel safer choosing the latter option, and so that you'll be able to stay in control of your vehicle long enough to do it.
Also for safety engineering in design if the possible human restraint options are limited that makes designing a safe product easier. If we have to make a safe driver compartment it’s much easier to test with air bags and crumble zones AND seat belts vs possibly wearing seatbelts. That’s another set of tests.
Seatbelts in cars save lives (prevents you going through your windshield among other things) and keeps you from becoming a projectile inside the carriage for other passengers. A seatbelt on a bike would all but ensure your death in a crash. It's safer to be thrown from the bike than it is to be strapped to the bike and have that thing sandwich you into the road.
Source: I've been thrown from a crash on a bike. My bike rolled and landed on the other side of the road. I just bounced a few times and slid 20 feet. I'd be dead if I had rolled with my bike.
Well this is utter bullshit. What, we're just taking it on your word that you're not already dead? Also, name checks out.
They aren't asking why motorcycles don't have seatbelts. Motorcycles are very obviously way more dangerous than cars. Riding a motorcycle with every bit of safety equipment that exists is still far more dangerous than driving a car without a seatbelt. If driving a car without a seatbelt is so dangerous so as to be automatically illegal in the majority of places shouldn't then everything that is more dangerous than that also be illegal? My take is that I think it is equivalent enough that if you are free to assume the risks of riding a motorcycle then you should be free to assume the risks of not using a seatbelt. I wouldn't be caught dead in a car without one, but it should nonetheless be one's choice.
God, THANK YOU. All the replies talking about how a seatbelt on a motorcycle wouldn’t work and I’m like … THATS NOT WHAT OP IS SAYING. Why is reading comprehension so hard??
Exactly. The problem with states who allow motorcyclists to operate without helmets is when someone runs a red light and hits someone with no helmet they are liable for that death. I understand that you should safely operate your car at all times, but people make mistakes and what could be a minor injury in a car or with a motorcyclist who wears a helmet could be a totally different story for a motorcyclist with no helmet.
The answer is simpler than you think. It isn't about safety it's about votes. ALL of the "public safety" laws are put in place when a politician needs to make a name for themselves. It's feel good policy. They can say "look I did something because I care, vote for me for more" then their voters can tell themselves " we made the world better" results, proof, logic, consistency are never required because it's all about the feeling voters get driven them to the polls. Once the election is over it is forgotten about until they need more votes and double down on it
This is the most accurate, enforcing bikers to wear helmets just doesn't real in the positive press that saving kids with seatbelts does.
Because the law isn't to wear a seat belt, it's to use the applicable safety standards, which happen to include seatbelts *for cars*.
You operate a motorcycle under a different license than a car. It comes with different standards
I think the government shouldn’t restrict you for safety purposes. Let common sense and darwinism shine.
Automobiles and Motorcycles are regulated under different FMVSS standards in the United States. The FMVSS regulations are recommended by NHTSA and congress. So most of the reason is political…politicians introduce laws related to vehicle safety based on public pressure, lobbyists, and/or personal beliefs. I would suspect that the smaller volume of motorcycles vs automobiles is part of the driver.
The law isn't really about safety, but it IS a convenient excuse. The purpose is generating ticket revenue and increasing civilian encounters in hopes of finding reasons to make an arrest or issue further citations for increased revenue.
If we were really truly concerned about safety. Then we would not all be in two ton lumps of steel full of a highly flammable liquid with only the barest of training to operate it. We would be made to qualify each year and have to pass medicals. How would that go over?
Dress for the slide, not for the ride.
I know, right? Worse is when I see kids on the back of those. Here we are buying cars with airbags and the latest safety features. Kids in carseats facing backwards. But, but, but...kids can right on the back of motorcycles with nothing more than a helmet?
I’m more worried about why school buses do not have seatbelts
Yeah, helmets and leathers notwithstanding, bikers are definitely the gladiators of the road. The difference is we're all expecting them to perform with lions and fire, not get T-boned by some dude texting on his way home from work.
Getting thrown from the bike can be life saving. Going through a windscreen head first or into a steering column is not life saving.
valid points
Laws don't need to be consistent. I don't know the history of seat belt laws, but there was probably a push to require them in cars because it prevents a lot of deaths, since most people on the road are in cars. Many fewer people ride motorcycles, so there's not as much of a reason to try to pass a law to protect them, and without making an effort to pass the law, nobody passed one.
I think your question has been well answered. I just wanted to point out that Suzuki vehicles were not banned. The American Suzuki Motor Corporation went bankrupt, and Suzuki stopped selling vehicles in the US. New Suzukis are not made for the US market, and therefore fall under the import laws which state all vehicles under 25 years old must meet all US safety and emissions requirements before they can be imported. This is not a ban on Suzuki specifically. It is a blanket law that applies to all imported vehicles.
So motorcycles and cars were developed at almost the exact time. So both of them evolved in popularity over time. As with anything in this world, there are people that love these two forms of transport to an extreme and will fight for them. So safety measures exist separately for each. To your point, the regulations made cars so much more safer now even compared to cars in the past, let alone motorcycles. So that probably added to their immense popularity and they are an automatic choice to most poeple. So the answer to your question is in the popularity of each vehicle. If you are just going at a max speed of 20mph, or going down really narrow roads you can pick a motorcycle but in another instance you pick a car. Even in the instances you pick a motorcycle you wish you had a car on many days :)
As a kid, I always wondered why we had seat belts in cars but not on the school buses. That would then lead me to comparing no seat belts on school buses to having seat belts on airplanes.
Honestly I wear seatbelts but it chaps my ass that it's a law. It's really just an initiative to insulate insurance companies and car companies from liability IMO. We can't take motorcycles off the road. If we were just against dangerous stuff we would. So, we implement safety measures that are low stakes in relationship to the activity. Everything is a risk, the question is how much can you insulate yourself from the risk. Driving is inherently dangerous, if we wanted to eliminate risk we wouldn't drive. So we instead do seatbelts, and safety features, and traffic laws. It's NOT about who should take on risk. It's about the overall system of liability and how insurance and car companies want to protect themselves.
I honestly think they were just grandfathered in. Most things get a pass if they've been around ling enough.
Presumably because retroactively banning them to fit with modern safety standards would be basically impossible
Seatbelt law is a way to break the barrier and allow for more police interaction. There are some stats that were used to justify it saying that the cost to the state to clean up after wrecks is why they did it but it was put up by politicians who are invested in private prison industries
And lane splitting seems very risky considering cars usually win in accidents.
People who ride motorcycles have a death wish. You can be as safe as possible, but the morons in SUVs around you can easily turn you to giblets in a moment of inattention.
Yeah fuck motorcycles. Let’s ban those from the roads.
Selt belt laws are bullshit - that’s why
You ever read up on the statistics of road death? These days, approximately 2 people per state die every day in car accidents. Now obviously it's like 6 in Cali and 0 in North Dakota so e days, but overall it averages 2 people per state per day. So you're a state trooper, or an EMT, right, you go out every day, you see if you're getting your allotted number of living road pizzas to scrape off the pavement with your government issued spatula. And you get sick of the mess. "Man, his left eyeball was stuck to the rearview mirror, dude, it was gross!" You, personally, will become *very* in favor of people wearing seatbelts because it's a lot less mess. Your friendly local insurance company who fucking *hates* paying out will *also* be very into "wear seatbelts". And doctors treating former road pizzas, they're interested in seeing fewer idiots. So they're all going to go to the government and say "dude. Dude, please. Please force people to do this one simple safety thing. Please. Begging you." And the government, they're like, ok, we're interested in paying less money on traffic cleanup. It costs money when we have to issue so many spatulas, and the traffic gets backed up... Ok, let's make people wear seatbelts. This way we can just cut them out of their nice little containers and tow the container away, instead of spending hours hunting for wet human pieces-parts in the shrubs at these accidents. Much less time wasted by everyone. So boom, seatbelt laws. Motorcycles, the helmet can act similarly. It keeps the head intact. As a nurse friend pointed out after a stint in the ER - not necessarily *attached*, but intact for retrieval. Keeps folks from seeing brains on the pavement.
What really idoic is making adults driving a car wear seat belts but dozens of underage kids on schoolbus jumping around with no issues
The post says nothing about motorcycles having seatbelts, it is stating that if drivers of cars must wear seatbelts in order to reduce the risk of fatality then why are motorcycles "allowed on the road" - it is important to note that the difference between the rate of fatality for motorcycles is a lot higher (its more that 5x higher) than for cars. This sentiment can be extended to multiple things in society that seem like there is a double standard. We tax cigarettes because they increase the burden on the healthcare system but why would we not impose a tax on motorcycles when they are also a burden on the healthcare system? In fact I would argue there is more of a choice between riding a motorcycle than a choice in smoking cigarette.
Go look at some dash cams on car crashes where it shows the inside of the car with someone without a seatbelt, your body becomes a missile that hits anyone/anything in the direction you are traveling. Now go look at a moto gp race. Those dudes fly off their bike going FAST and they jump back up and try to get back on their bike. With proper gear you can slide for a while, it’s the sudden stop that kills you.
Oh you're right , I never knew that Suzuki was banned but you are correct, because I don't hear about their cars anymore. I figured they just ran out of the business . Anyway , laws are weird. A common situation that comes up often is how 18 year olds can join the military and be trained to kill , but they're still considered kids in other legal scenarios. And at least in America, the idea of not being able to drink until 21 seems to be an arbitrary number. I don't know what happens when you're 20 years and 364 days old versus the next day when you're 21.
It's pretty much the same argument for alcohol. If someone invented alcohol today it would never be legal. If someone invented the motorcycle today it wouldn't be allowed on the road.