Risk Tolerance - What is stupid? (motorcycles)

[lurch 0]

You got my point but theres no stopping it you know. Somewhere out there is some asshole thinks he'll save lives by making it mandatory to wear a helmet when riding a bicycle for the exact same reason. And you'll lose another freedom. Someday it will be illegal to drive a car without airbags, for the same reason. Somebody decided that wasn't an acceptable risk anymore due to the possible financial cost and got it turned into law.
This is why you can't ride in the bed of a pickup truck anymore. This is why you can't have a bonfire without a permit anymore. Or ride without a helmet in most states.
At some point you just have to leave it up to the individual to decide what is an acceptable risk and what is not. At some point no matter how uptight about it you may be you just have to accept that somebody is taking a risk that could cost YOU or themselves and their families and there is nothing you can do about it. Who decides who is stupid and selfish for taking what risks?
I wonder when the insurance companies will realize how much profit there is in assigning arbitrary risk values to the obese and their behavior? I wonder how long until insurance companies realize the savings to be made by imposing controls on peoples behavior to mitigate the risks associated with obesity? Look at the lawsuits against fast food recently. It has already begun. It is the lawsuits that usually trigger such behavior on the part of insurance companies and governments. PJ's post and underlying logic highlighted the mentality that results in more and more laws either mandating behavior, such as helmet laws and seat belt laws or forbidding it, such as riding in the backs of trucks. Someone thinks it is unreasonable to allow something anymore.
What about cigarettes? And the costs and losses associated with them? Shouldn't they be outlawed or consumption tightly monitored controlled and regulated to control those risks? It is coming. Will insurance companies refuse to cover lung cancer costs soon if you smoke?
Someday soon it will be considered unreasonable to allow unregulated unsupervised uncontrolled purchase of fast food. Someday somebody is going to argue like PJ that its unreasonable and selfish to expect to be allowed unregulated access to fast food because its stupid and selfish to decide to take that risk....you could get fat and cost your family/society/yourself major money in medical expenses.
The real question is what do you do about it? Somebody better figure out where to draw the line soon before you need a permit and insurance and I.D. to go to the grocery store. When will someone "establish accountability for poor nutritional choices"? Where do you draw the line between personal freedom and financial responsibility? And how do you do it? Any ideas? Anybody?

Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

[CanuckInUSA 0]

OMG ... that's twice now that myself and PJ have been in agreement. Maybe I could actually have a beer with the guy (without fighting with him).

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

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OMG ... that's twice now that myself and PJ have been in agreement. Maybe I could actually have a beer with the guy (without fighting with him).

You better bring some of that Molson XXX from up North, eh?

As an aside, to Lurch's recent post, I may have outlined the "logic" being employed by the safety-Nazis, but by no means to I endorse or agree with it! I don't like the legislating of things like seatbelt or helmet laws. It actually breeds a generation of people who look to others to decide what is best for them to do for themselves, and left to their own intuition, logic and decision-making, they would be lost. If a person wears his seatbelt simply because the law says he has to, only half the battle has really been won. It would be fully won if he simply wore it because wearing it makes sense from a safety standpoint.

So don't go lumping me with the safety-Nazis, please, just because I understand their "thinking."

Blue skies,
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-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[lurch 0]

" If you DO have a nasty crash, there is a tremendous likelihood that your seatbelt, only if worn, will save you from serious injury or death. I'd like to know if Lurch disputes that fact. "

I do not dispute that fact. I dispute your expressed opinion that it is fucking stupid of me to use my own judgement and decide if and when I wish to wear one. I occasionally do, in dense, fast twitchy traffic on the interstate, when I judge the real risk of undodgeable wreck and ejection to be particularly high. I'm not arguing against wearing a seat belt....I'm arguing against being required to wear one for reasons you seem to endorse, viciously. Your post is somewhat confusing for that reason. You say one thing but express opinions and data that seem to argue another.
I'm disputing your expressed opinion that

" That kind of death is indicative that he was a stupid person with shitty judgment, and I think the world needs a decrease in the number of such people using up air, water and space. I don't sympathize with a schmuck who takes himself away from his wife and kids because he's too fuckin' dumb to know that seatbelts save lives. "
You say you don't favor mandating things but it is exactly this sort of thinking that results in mandating things. You mention these things

"One of the arguments I have heard used in favor of seat belt / helmet laws is the cost of medical care for accident victims. Costly injuries can be reduced through safety device usage and therefore a person who gets injured by the choice of not using a seat belt or helmet imposes his choice on others through the cost of accident insurance, or if he is unable to pay his medical bills he imposes the cost through the government, which may pay his bills.

I think someone told me that some health insurance (hospitalization insurance) will be void if the injuries are the result of a motorcycle accident involving a helmetless rider. So think of what a $235,000 hospital stay including brain surgery to relieve swelling might do to a family! That's a mite selfish of the rider, yes? Same deal for the woman who "just isn't comfortable" with the seatbelt on, or who is worried it'll wrinkle her outfit, or whose cousin's friend's aunt's brother-in-law was (allegedly) decapitated by his seatbelt in an accident. (There are always people who think it's smart to treat the anomalous .0002% chance occurrence as the most likely thing, and base decisions of that coming to pass. Shit, if even 49 out of 100 uses of a seatbelt resulted in a fatality, the 51% save rate of seatbelts would make them the better bet. And we can be thankful that the margin is not even nearly that close!)"

As if you approve highly of them. You state you don't approve of mandating things but quote arguments in favor of seat belt laws and heavier consequences for failure to wear a helmet to back up your earlier assertion that its good when someone dies due to lack of seat belt and the world needs a reduction in the number of such people who don't wear seat belts using air water and space. Its your "they got what they deserved" attitude I take issue with.
I've read a lot here and usually I DO agree with PJ on most issues but that particular post just pissed me off. Would you feel the same gloat the same and chuckle the same if someone you know went in without a Cypres that could have saved them?

Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

[CanuckInUSA 0]

#### Molson, the Big Rock will be flowing freely (I hope you like Micro-brews) as we're on the same side of the fence when it comes to helmet/safety legislation. Ultimately we're on our own when it comes to looking out for ourselves, right? We don't need the feds to tell us how to live our lives. I'm not as different from you as you think I am. I just don't like GWB.

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

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" If you DO have a nasty crash, there is a tremendous likelihood that your seatbelt, only if worn, will save you from serious injury or death. I'd like to know if Lurch disputes that fact. "

I do not dispute that fact. I dispute your expressed opinion that it is fucking stupid of me to use my own judgement and decide if and when I wish to wear one. I occasionally do, in dense, fast twitchy traffic on the interstate, when I judge the real risk of undodgeable wreck and ejection to be particularly high. I'm not arguing against wearing a seat belt....I'm arguing against being required to wear one for reasons you seem to endorse, viciously. Your post is somewhat confusing for that reason. You say one thing but express opinions and data that seem to argue another.

Your approach to deciding when and where to wear a seatbelt seems predicated on your presumed ability to determine when and where you are likely to have an accident in which a seatbelt will save you from harm. That's a fallacious proposition that ignores the fact that very rarely do people have car accidents that they expect they are about to have!

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" That kind of death is indicative that he was a stupid person with shitty judgment, and I think the world needs a decrease in the number of such people using up air, water and space. I don't sympathize with a schmuck who takes himself away from his wife and kids because he's too fuckin' dumb to know that seatbelts save lives. "
You say you don't favor mandating things but it is exactly this sort of thinking that results in mandating things.

Just because I note that seatbelt use would save lives, that non-seatbelt use is stupid and courts disaster, and that people who don't wear them are probably pretty dumb, that doesn't mean that I call for and endorse laws that require their use. It should be a common-sense thing, especially if one reads stories in the paper, as I do, in which it is common -- common -- to read of a driver who is killed without a seatbelt and a passenger or two who are unharmed but for minor scrapes and bruises because they were wearing a seatbelt.

If you could demonstrate some reason, some practical reason, why seatbelt use should be avoided when possible, as seems to be your argument (or else, why not just wear it ALL the time to be covered for both when you don't need it as well as when you do?), I might consider your point of view valid. But so far all you seem to offer is rebellion at being told by law you have to wear a seatbelt. What's your big reason for wishing to not wear it when you feel it is "safe" to not do so?

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As if you approve highly of them. You state you don't approve of mandating things but quote arguments in favor of seat belt laws and heavier consequences for failure to wear a helmet to back up your earlier assertion that its good when someone dies due to lack of seat belt and the world needs a reduction in the number of such people who don't wear seat belts using air water and space. Its your "they got what they deserved" attitude I take issue with.

Why do you take issue with it? It's an extension of your own argument that it should be up to the individual to decide whether or not to wear a seatbelt! I am taking it to the logical conclusion of those who favor self-determination: "If you have a choice to either prepare for disaster in order to avoid being killed by it or not, and you choose not to, you have to accept your own death by your own negligence, and I accept it just fine too." It's easy enough to be a tremendous lot safer on the road by simply buckling a seatbelt, but many don't do it. I DO relish their stupid deaths because they're asking for it: they have no valid excuse for not wearing a seatbelt, and the laws that require their use don't even enter into it. I do not lament the deaths of people who brought it on themselves by hubris, arrogance, stupidity or ignorance. There are better, more worthy people to mourn, that's for sure. And one fewer idiot on the road to potentially cause me an accident is just fine by me.

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I've read a lot here and usually I DO agree with PJ on most issues but that particular post just pissed me off. Would you feel the same gloat the same and chuckle the same if someone you know went in without a Cypres that could have saved them?

Because being a skydiver has engendered in me a feeling of kinship with my fellow skydivers of all stripes and colors, NO, I don't gloat and chuckle about CYPRES-less deaths. I do feel, however, that people should make that choice also with a full understanding of what it may do to them, and I have more respect for CYPRES jumpers than non-CYPRES jumpers, I think. If there are practical reasons for not using one, that's different. (I'm not sure what they are but I'm sure there have to be some. High probability of an intentional low opening is one, but I don't know when or why you'd do that. Maybe an AFF instructor sticking with a student who has major troubles/mals.) But all skydivers are my brothers and sisters, and I don't glory in any of their misfortunes, ever.

-

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

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#### Molson, the Big Rock will be flowing freely (I hope you like Micro-brews) as we're on the same side of the fence when it comes to helmet/safety legislation. Ultimately we're on our own when it comes to looking out for ourselves, right? We don't need the feds to tell us how to live our lives. I'm not as different from you as you think I am. I just don't like GWB.

Did I say I liked him? When?! Where?!

See my reply to the "I couldn't care less" thread.

I am voting for him because the alternative is a bigger threat to what I care about than he is.

-

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[CanuckInUSA 0]

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See my reply to the "I couldn't care less" thread.

I don't read every thread ... just as I don't expect you to.

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[udder 0]

howdy

In the great land of Aus here the government tells us to wear seatbelts. For something that so easy to use, it takes 2 seconds to do. What would you do if some idiot side swiped you arond a blind corner. Or say to those who are alive because there seatbelt saved them when a tyre blowout sent the car rolling down an embankment. Seatbelts save lives. If its your mothers I doubt you be standing here ranting.

Pete

"In one way or the other, I'm a bad brother. Word to the motherf**ker." Eazy-E

[PhillyKev 0]

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When did I ever say I was a Nader supporter??

You didn't, that's why I asked. Because you seem to share his views.

[CanuckInUSA 0]

Who said anything about wearing or not wearing seatbelts?

For the record I always wear mine regardless if I'm in the front or the back seats.

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[skydiverton 0]

I wear a helmet because I have to. I wolud like to drive with just my sunglasses.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Using your droque to gain stability is a bad habit,
Especially when you are jumping a sport rig