Motorcycle Accident Lawyer Blog

The Department of Transportation (DOT) requires that all helmets sold in the U.S. meet the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) 218. Every year DOT does compliance testing to check that helmets are meeting this standard. Many states also have laws requiring the use only of these helmets.

However, there are helmets sold that do not meet this standard -- they are sold as novelty items and some realize they are unsafe but some do not. People wear them anyway.

Features to Look For in a Safe Helmet

• A strong chin strap that is riveted to the helmet
• A weight of three pounds, not less
• An inner lining of polystyrene foam about an inch thick
• No projections on the helmet exterior larger than 2/10 inch
  

Labels to Look For

1. There should be a sticker on the back of the helmet's outside surface with "DOT" on it. There are also fake DOT stickers, sold separately and attached to a non-complying helmet.
2. So also look inside the helmet for a Snell label or an ANSI label (American National Standards Institute). If the helmet meets the standards of one of these private, non-profit organizations, the chances are good that it also meets the DOT standards.
3. There should be a manufacturer's label somewhere on the helmet that gives the manufacturer's name, the model and size, the month and year it was made, and the materials it was made from. The presence of this label is a good indication that the helmet is compliant.
   

No single label is sure proof that a helmet is compliant, but if all the labels are there and the helmet has the features listed above, you can be confident.

Wearing a helmet does not of course guarantee you will never be injured. But it does reduce your chances of a brain injury, and these are among the most devastating injuries a person can sustain. They can cause countless disabling conditions, depending on exactly which part of the brain was hurt, and how badly, and can even paralyze you for life.

If you have been severely injured in a motorcycle accident and would like to know more about your legal rights and options, please contact us for a highly-qualified motorcycle accident attorney.

Attempts to discover and tabulate the cost of motorcycle injuries nationwide run into many problems. There are many types of cost such as long-term medical costs, long-term disability, short-term wage loss, lost quality of life, and acute medical costs. Of those, the only costs that have received much attention so far are the acute medical costs.

A Problematic Project

The U.S. Department of Transportation National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) did a study of the literature on motorcycle accident injury costs. They reviewed 25 studies, most published in the 1990s, and immediately ran into the many problems that make this task difficult. Some are:

• Most studies have not specified what year’s dollars they used to report costs
• Costs vary widely among the states
• Some include physician fees as well as hospital charges but many do not
• Some try to measure actual costs and others use hospital charges, which are typically much higher – e.g., one study in California found that hospital charges were about two-and-a-half times as high as actual costs

Helmets Lower Costs

However, one thing all the studies had in common was that they found higher costs for riders who had not been wearing a helmet. Those who had been wearing one had lower acute medical costs. However the difference between these categories varied among the studies, from ten percent difference to 200 percent difference.

Some Cost Findings

Fatal cases incurred lower costs, as treatment stopped when the rider died. In head injury vs. no head injury:

• Those admitted to a trauma center paid an average of $43,214 for head injury treatment but only $15,528 if there was no head injury
• Those admitted to a hospital with a head injury paid an average of $22,490 but those with no head injury paid $11,430

Comparing helmet use vs no helmet use, non-helmet wearers paid:

• An average of 1.38 times as much as helmet-wearers when admitted to a trauma center
• An average of 1.63 times as much as helmet-wearers when admitted to a hospital
• An average of 1.23 times as much as helmet-wearers when admitted to an emergency room only

Those figures are averages of the various study figures, some of which included physician costs and some of which included only facility charges.

The finding that helmet use reduces medical costs is not new. In spite of the ongoing controversy about helmet laws and the known risks of riding without a helmet, many riders still prefer to ride bare-headed. Part of the joy of motorcycle riding is the sense of freedom and a helmet does reduce peripheral vision and head movement and does make the head feel hot.

If you have been severely injured in a motorcycle accident and would like legal assistance, please contact us today for an experienced motorcycle attorney.

Dave Perewitz is the owner of Perewitz Cycle Fabrications, a bike-building business that he started in his father’s backyard shed 30 years ago. On Perewitz’ website you can see photos of some of his bikes. He has teamed up with Allstate to promote motorcycle safety and with Allstate personnel he will be traveling around the country to major events.

First up is Bike Week in Daytona, Florida this coming weekend. He has built a “little bobber” for Allstate which will be on display and then raffled off later in the year. At Bike Week he will be at the Allstate Garage and is welcoming people to come by and visit. He will have a computer there and will be happy to help you design a bike on it with a virtual build.

At that Garage you can also have a massage, sign up for the “little bobber” raffle, get cool in a misting station, and enjoy free internet access. Perewitz will be answering questions and signing autographs and photos.

The focus is motorcycle safety and he will be promoting Rider’s Edge classes. Anyone who takes one of these classes will receive a special insurance discount from Allstate.

Allstate’s safety focus is intersections. The company has some “intersection modules” that it bought from the Motorcycle Safety Foundation and they include a DVD and some printed material. Allstate has donated such modules to driving schools and libraries around Orlando and Daytona.

Allstate will also have a supply of driving tip cards to distribute free. On one side they have tips for riders and on the other side tips for drivers. They are designed to raise awareness among both riders and drivers of safety considerations.

If you have been injured in a motorcycle accident and need some legal help, please contact us for an experienced motorcycle attorney.

An Australian group of freestyle riders called the Crusty Demons are currently touring New Zealand performing stunts. One of the members, Cam Sinclair of Melbourne, did a double backflip last week on his 250cc dirt bike. He launched from one ramp, flew about 18 meters in the air (about 54 feet), did two reverse revolutions, and landed on another ramp 15 meters away (45 feet).

There was a crowd of 8,000 watching and they leaped to their feet as soon as he landed. Sinclair is only the third person to succeed in this stunt and the other two are U.S. riders who have abandoned it for safety reasons.

Sinclair had practiced this stunt over 100 times with a foam rubber landing pad and had also performed it in Sydney, landing in the harbor. On this occasion in New Zealand there were no safety measures.

Far from regarding this as a triumphant conclusion, Sinclair sees it as a beginning.

“It’s opened the doors to some big things that I've got to work on – trying to do some variations," he told a New Zealand reporter. "I want to start taking my hands and feet off (while airborne) and stuff like that."

Sinclair has been a rider since the age of five. Six months ago he crashed and broke a collar bone and has had other broken bones and “lots of concussions and battle scars along the way”. He plans to do stunt riding for only six more years.

Motorcycle riding on the U.S. highways is far less likely to give you broken bones and concussion than a double backflip, but they are nevertheless real dangers. Bikers are killed continually on our roads. If you have sustained any severe injury in a motorcycle accident and would like some legal support and help, please contact us for a motorcycle accident attorney in your area.

There is an online poll on the topic of whether helmets should be required for all bike riders. Being a hot topic, it has 230 comments posted so far. Here is a summary of the arguments put forth.

In Favor of Helmet Laws

• Just as everyone in a car must wear a seatbelt, so every biker should wear a helmet.
• Helmets save lives and protect the less skilled riders.
• If a vehicle driver is in an accident with a bike rider and the biker is killed, the driver will have that death on his/her conscience for life and that isn't fair.
• It isn't fair to other drivers to create traffic backups by being in an accident without a helmet, being killed, and thereby causing an accident investigation.
• Helmet laws would help to keep insurance rates down.
  

Against Helmet Laws

• It should be a matter of personal choice. In places with no laws many people wear helmets anyway if they judge it to be safer.
• A helmet law would be the beginning of endless government meddling. Next would be a law requiring full-face helmets; then a law requiring neck braces; then one for spinal armor to prevent broken backs. Then it would be illegal to wear shorts or any clothing which didn't meet some government standard or other …
• People drive convertibles without wearing helmets and ride in school buses without seatbelts. So why shouldn't bikers ride without helmets?
• Motorcyclists are the most skilled and attentive operators on the road. Bikers should not have to suffer a helmet because of the inattentive driving of passenger vehicles.
• Helmets reduce your range of vision, block your hearing and overheat your head, all of which makes you less in control of your riding.
  

Only four states have no helmet law whatever. Twenty states have mandatory helmet laws for all ages. Twenty-four states have helmet laws for riders over specified ages. Two states have laws with both age and insurance requirements. You can see a color-coded map at the Bikers’ Rights site and links to pages on each state.

If you have been badly injured in a motorcycle accident and need some legal assistance, please contact the law firm of Hardesty Tyde Green & Ashton, P.A. in Jacksonville, Florida.

The CAR 2 CAR Communication Consortium is a non-profit European organization. It is focused on increased road safety through inter-vehicle communication. They would like to establish a European industry standard based on wireless LAN components with guaranteed European-wide operability. Eventually they plan to go world-wide.

European roads are forecast to have heavy increases in vehicle kilometers. CAR 2 CAR held their second Forum in 2008, with lectures, workgroups and discussions on “Car-to-X-Communication” – referring to the great variety in types of vehicles which use the roads.

They plan to use radio to interlink vehicles and the road infrastructure so that drivers will be informed of any potentially unsafe situations. A uniform radio frequency has already been established of 5.9GHz. Research institutes are involved, and suppliers of hardware and software. Car manufacturers are also joining forces with the Consortium:

• Audi
• BMW
• Daimler
• Honda
• Open
• Volvo
• Fiat
• Volkswagen
  

Honda’s Implementations

Honda has an Advanced Safety Vehicle project which is part of the CAR 2 CAR group. They are using GPS data to warn a biker when he is on a collision course with another vehicle and when he is in another vehicle’s blind spot.

The rider will see lights at the base of the windscreen whenever he is approaching danger and by wearing a Bluetooth-equipped helmet will be able to hear a warning also. One might wonder about the blind-spot communication, since GPS is accurate only to about 17 feet and to be in a vehicle’s blind spot one would have to be closer than that. However, Honda has not given any details on that yet.

By increasing communication between all road users, the CAR 2 CAR Communication Consortium hopes to reduce accidents and keep the roads safe. No longer will a motorist be able to say, “I didn’t see him”, as a reason for having collided with a motorcycle.

It is not known when Honda’s new bike will be available.