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Youth Motorcycle Helmets
Youth Motorcycle Helmets Save Lives
The importance of youth motorcycle helmets for young
riders can not be stressed enough. This seemingly
elementary safety precaution is ignored by thousands
every day, often leading to tragically disastrous
results.
How many mothers need to hold all night vigils at the
intensive care unit? How many miniature coffins have to
be lowered into the ground? How many kids need to wind
up on life support machines or as quadriplegics before
America finally gets the message that youth motorcycle
helmets can save their kids lives?
Take the case of young Beau Finney of Australia.
Reported in the May 10, 2005 issue of The Age, a
Melbourne newspaper, Finney was injured while riding his
off-road motorcycle on the family farm, something he did
with great regularity. He went to take a jump that hed
taken countless times and the wheel of his motorcycle
hit a stray rock.
Finneys youth motorcycle helmet and other protective
wear likely saved his life. He was sent headlong over
the handlebars. His bike then landed on top of him,
effectively crushing his leg. "If he didn't have his
helmet on it would have been a lot worse... there is not
much left of his helmet," commented Finneys mother.
Finney was one of the lucky ones. Although he suffered a
fractured femur and had to undergo surgery, he was still
alive, largely thanks to his youth motorcycle helmet.
The Melbourne hospital where Finney was treated has
already seen two children die due to motorcycle
accidents. Neither were wearing youth motorcycle helmets
when they had their accidents.
Between the years 1990 and 1994, 63 young people between
the ages of fifteen and twenty four were killed in
motorcycle related accidents (http://www.health.state.ok.us/program/injury/okfacts/table10.html
). It is estimated that as many as 40% of those deaths
could have been prevented if those involved had been
wearing youth motorcycle helmets.
Youth Motorcycle Helmet Laws
Although only twenty states in the US have laws
requiring all motorcyclists to wear helmets (shades of
Jerry Seinfeld come to mind here: "There are many things
you can point to as proof that the human is not smart.
But my personal favorite would have to be that we needed
to invent the helmet. What was happening, apparently,
was that we were involved in a lot of activities that
were cracking our heads. We chose not to avoid doing
those activities but, instead, to come up with some sort
of device to help us enjoy our head-cracking lifestyles.
And even that didn't work because not enough people were
wearing them so we had to come up with the helmet law.
Which is even stupider, the idea behind the helmet law
being to preserve a brain whose judgment is so poor, it
does not even try to avoid the cracking of the head it's
in."), there are laws requiring helmets for children
(the age of consent varies between eighteen and twenty
one in most states) in forty six out of the fifty
states.
The fact is that youth motorcycle helmets can save your
childrens lives. Please, please ensure that, if your
child rides a motorcycle, he or she wears a helmet.
About the Author
Michael Triggs is a freelance writer who lives in Las Vegas, NV and a
regular contributor to My-Motorcycle-Helmet.com .
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