[FRIAM] the end of the pandemic

[uǝlƃ ☣]

I understand. But remember that I care very little about the person wearing (or not) a helmet. I care *much* more about the other drivers, the ambulance, healthcare costs (of both dead and not-dead), etc. What that implies is that I don't care very much about the stories from MEs or EMTs, etc. What I care about is the cost to society.

To clarify, all that's required to get an endorsement in Oregon is to pass a relatively trivial test. But there is ample, scientific, evidence that taking a training course (even if only 2 weekends) prior to the test, reduces every bad consequence. I'd argue that a law in a *huge* territory like a state, covering a huge demographic, is not intended (and won't) help any given individual. They do, however, help populations of individuals. Helmet laws are no different.

So I'd welcome any statistics you have over, for example, costs to the state, county, city, hospital systems, charities, etc. But statistics showing things like Snell vs ODOT impact ratings and spine damage are less interesting to me. For data like that to be interesting, we'd have to look not at *laws* but best practices and, maybe, household rules (like ATGATT).

My prediction: Helmet laws *reduce* the cost of motorcycling to society.

On 5/12/20 1:14 PM, Prof David West wrote:
> another time, another place, if an only if someone is interested — I can prove my assertions about helmets and show exactly and precisely how all the studies you may have found using Google Scholar, err. Show how other factors (notably age and hours of experience) are far more important that presence or absence of a helmet, and statistics from autopsy reports that belie the simplistic police report based (dead-helmet, dead-no helmet) statistics.

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☣ uǝlƃ