OLD BLASTARD: Time to talk about hats

If it's spring, and it is, it must riding season, which it is.

It's also time for the annual and tired and trite debate over helmets.

In Michigan, the wears and the wear nots are fighting in the legislature, trying to get the state's 40-plus year-old law overturned. The annual fight goes on in Virginia and just about every state with a helmet law. It also goes on in about every state without a helmet law as the feds push to get every rider regulated and his/her head stuck in Styrofoam and plastic/fiberglass shells.

Currently, 27 states have partial helmet laws that require riders of certain ages to be covered and other riders to go free.  Twenty states have full coverage helmet laws for everyone and three  -- Iowa, Illinois and New Hampshire -- have no helmet laws.

Virginia requires anyone not on a moped to wear a DOT-approved helmet.

What the NTSB will push this spring is legislation to force folks in those three states to helmet up, amend the 27 other states to require all persons to encase their craniums in foam and's helmeted wish list:

Three states (IL, IA, and NH) should enact legislation to require motorcycle operators and passengers to wear an FMVSS 218-compliant helmet.

An assortment of rainman's safety gear.

I don't care what you wear. Wear a football helmet, whatever. Personally, I wear a helmet and I would even if Hell freeze over and the insurance industry, which donates a whole lot more money than we riders, somehow loses in the legislature. I also wear a full face helmet, for a variety of reasons.

First, I feel safer.

Second, I am safer.

Third, I want to feed myself should some moron in the Camry Sea out there decide to hang a left into Walmart for that sale he's dying for and willing to let me die for, as well.

Fourth, I am safer.

A German review of bike wrecks in that country showed that 19.4 percent of the time, the right chin takes the first hit. About 15.2 percent of the time, it's the left chin. The left forehead gets it 8.2 percent of the time, the left forehead 10.1 percent and then it pretty much decreases as you go along.

Where the head falls

I once determined, God only knows how being as it involved math, that a 3/4 helmet will be effective in 45.5 percent of get-offs, but miss out on 54.5 percent of impacts (chin plus face shields. If  you have no face brace, you have no face protection.)

If  you have a half-helmet, you're protected 28 .5 percent of the time and wide open 71.5 percent of the time (chin, face shields, lower half of the sides of the head and temples.)

If you have a beanie, well, don't worry about it. If you wear nothing, well, you know what you got for protection.

In Australia, studies show that white helmets are 33 percent safer than any other color, except maybe high-viz yellow.

But that's me. That's the way I roll. I  often -- 90 percent of the time -- wear padded overpants and nearly 100 percent of the time I wear a padded jacket while I spend 60 percent of my time in a padded room.

Just kidding about the room.

Sort of.

I don't believe that the fullface harms my vision or my hearing -- I used to ride a half-helmet -- and I don't believe they are dangerous or they wouldn't ride them in motorcycle racing at 200 mph.

I also don't believe you have to wear one. I don't believe you need to wear the same amount of protection that I do. You are free to choose how much risk you are willing to take. You are free to decide the level of safety with which you are comfortable.

Just think about it before you get on the bike. Research, if that's your way, and look into what the risks are. Then embrace them.

It's all about the ride.