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TIM'S Corner
For those of us in the Southwest it's riding season again. We don't want to discount the danger involved in dusting off the old steed and rolling down the highway. Everyone dies at some point, but if we think before riding we can reduce the amount of deaths. Therefore, I have decided to re-post my article on helmets. After reading the article you may make your own decision regarding wearing vs. not wearing your helmet. Keep in mind, freedom is not without a price tag!
T.E. Lawrence (Known as Lawrence of Arabia) had a fatal crash on a Brough Superior SS 100 motorcycle on a narrow road near his cottage near Wareham. The crash occurred because a dip in the road obstructed his view of two boys on bicycles.
Swerving to avoid them, Lawrence lost control and was thrown over the handlebars. He was not wearing a helmet and suffered serious head injuries, which left him in coma; He died after six days in the hospital.
One of his doctors attending him was the Neurosurgeon, Hugh Cairns. He consequently began a long term study of what he saw as the unnecessary loss of life by motorcycles. His research led to the use of crash helmets by both the military and civilian biker world.
I guess, the best way to explain the mechanics of something is to give examples of how it was used. In the military, helmets are used mostly for eating out of and to hold water in. In the modern motorcycle world, the helmet is a fashion statement first, and safety element second
Please, hand me my brain bucket.
Several years ago, a friend of mine was riding down the highway on his way to see his daughter’s graduation from college. As he was attempting to pass a slow moving car, the car pulled into his lane.
Approximately, three years after the crash, he is ready to ride again. But, not without much tribulation. After several long talks, Roger is ready & willing to share his head-on experience with you, my readers; his only wish is that his story does not fall on apathetic ears.
Like a lot of other survivors, Roger said the whole crash only lasted a few seconds, but it all seemed to be in slow motion. He explained it piece by piece and detail by detail, in hopes of bringing to light what he was going through as the crash unfolded that hot summer day. I was hoping we could learn something from his moment by moment telling of that tragic day!
Some might question, what does this have to do with motorcycle mechanics?
I say plenty; mechanics is simply the nomenclature of how something works. In this case, motorcycle helmets, and the person inside.
The A-typical helmet, (Referred to as, The Brain Bucket by first responders) are made mostly the same way, with the same materials. In the past, a helmet could have been made from formed metal, plastics or even a leather padded strap. The old concept of helmet was to put anything between your head and the ground was good enough.
A buddy of mine once cracked open an old helmet made in China (19-65) the insides where padded with Chinese newspapers, stuffed inside. I guess, the concept here was that when you are lying on the side of the road you can keep what’s left of your head busy reading Chinese comics.
In the U.S. market, helmet manufactures don’t attempt to sell you short on head protection. The modern helmet products attempt to keep pace with the modern motorcycle riders needs with current technology.
Modern helmets are composed of high-technological materials such as Advanced Integrated, Matrix plus Multi-Fiber technology. This embeds ultra-strong organic fiber into fiberglass, creating lightweight and strong brain buckets.
We have come a long way from the leather padded helmets of the post Lawrence period or the newspaper induced china comic section helmets of the 1960’s.
The modern head protection methods have grown up from the childlike idea that anything between your head and the road is good enough, to a more sophomoric conception; molding high tech materials into wind-tunnel tested helmets. However, Roger and I both agree, we have a long way to go until we can design a helmet that will be layered with more impact resistant materials, allowing the helmet to absorb the impact similar to the front end of a new Volvo. Until, the safety market swings into this direction, we will have to just take our chances.
Now, Rogers Story
It was the middle of August and I just got off the phone with my daughter. She had asked me to call in sick at work and drive down to Tucson to see her graduation from college. I was reluctant for many reasons; mostly because we have been at odds for a very long time now over her choice of a boyfriend. She made it clear some time back that I was not welcome around her new digs until I can accept her poor choice of a sole mate.
However, this situation had been dying down for awhile, ever-since her boyfriend put a little space between them. Recently, she found a way to splice her dad and her creepy, absent-tee boyfriend back into her life.
The morning of my departure, and I almost mean that, I was running a little late. It seemed to take forever to get enough coffee into my system to get the jeep packed up. After all, the damn thing refuses to start. After unpacking, I decided to scale things back a little and roll out the H-D electric glide that was collecting dust in the back of my garage.
I quickly filled up the saddle bags and I included the small pink jewelry case I got her as a graduation present. Finally, I was on interstate-10 headed to Tucson and making good time. It was around 115 degrees that day and I felt every degree blasting down on me from the sun above and every bit of the Screaming Eagle 110, beneath me.
As I was cruising down the highway, I wondered if she was going to like the little pink jewelry box I purchased for her and if she would be truly happy to see me. I put a gift card inside of the case for her favorite clothing store, with hope of getting to take her shopping while I was there. I was about half way down to Tucson, when I came up on a slow moving car in the right lane, so I moved to my left, into the passing lane and gave it some gas. That’s when, without hesitation, the car followed right in front of me, but at a much slower speed of 35 mph.
I remember just as I was hitting the back-end of the slow moving car, a little girl was looking backwards at me with a terrible look of fear on her face. My front tire and wheel disappeared into the back of the car and my body started to lift off the custom mustang seat. I saw the trunk of the car cave-in and I recall smelling the odor of burning rubber. As I was thrown from the bike, my left boot became stuck under the shifting lever and my foot ripped itself away from the boot. My right leg scraped across the car’s roof as I was hurled through the air. I remember coming down, head-first, onto the hot pavement and witnessing my motorcycle flipping into the air and coming back down onto the roof of the car.
I landed, lying on the asphalt, not able to move, and my helmet was still intact. Surprisingly, I was awake until the pain kicked in moments later. I was told I went into shock and started to convulse, I guess that’s pretty common in motorcycle crashes. I can still recall the motorcycles saddle bags exploding when the bike come down from the sky on top of the car. (Killing the driver, the father of the little girl in the back seat)
The last thing I remembered before passing out from the pain of broken bones and crushed ribs, was the sight of my daughters gift sitting on the white painted line about 300 feet away. I thought of the little girl in the back seat of the car whose face was the last thing I saw before I was thrown from my bike. I wondered if she was hurt and if she and her family would see each other again. Then a terrible feeling hit me as I wondered, will I leave me daughter without a father, on her graduation day? I tried to stay awake as long as I could, I couldn't’t do that to her. I did eventually lose consciousness, but I made it out okay and I am happy to tell you, my daughter and I have become very close and I couldn't’t be happier! We no longer take our relationship for granted, because we know how precious life is. The family in the other car was not so fortunate…
the other little girl, Abbie, doesn’t have her father anymore and there’s a wife who misses her husband very much. Since the accident, my daughter and I have made them part of our family. We attend all of Abbie’s dance recitals and school play’s, I think it’s what her father would want. We want to be a significant part of Abbie’s life so that she knows how much she is loved and supported and because we care so much about her. I am not trying to replace her father, we talk about Tom all of the time. Abbie tries to live her life to make her father proud and she has been able to move through the sadness of losing him. She has thanked me so many times for wearing a helmet that day, because being a part of our family has meant the world to her and her mother. And I know what it’s meant to me and my daughter…
The United States department of transportation says, wearing a helmet during a motorcycle crash will be 37% effective in saving your life. That may not seem like a big number to some, but if you ride without a helmet, that percentage drops to 0, you do the math.
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