There were far worse things that happened to bikers, of course. The first bike related fatality I remember from this year was on one of the first warm days we experienced in Minneapolis this spring. It involved a motorcyclist traveling on one of the highways at speeds later said to be in excess of 100 MPH when this state’s shitty infrastructure struck. The biker rode his bike into a pot hole, sending him and his bike flying and leaving a quarter mile long smear on the highway. This biker may have been wearing a helmet, but not much else in terms of protective gear.
Like that accident, last week, the interstates brought yet more motorcycle fatalities. One of these was along I-94 where it runs through North Minneapolis. There had been some big biker gathering in Uptown that night, and I suspect that this cyclist was from that group. They were traveling along with some other bikers when they somehow lost control and put the bike down on the ground at interstate speeds. The bike and its rider shot across the roadway, with either the driver or passenger on the bike getting run over by at least one car as they skittered across lanes (can hardly blame the motorists for that, though I’m sure it was traumatizing for them anyway). Speed may well have been a factor, and helmets probably wouldn’t have made much difference.
Then, just last week in my own neck of the woods, North Minneapolis, two guys on motorcycles got hit by a car that started through the intersection where the bikers had the right of way. One biker died, the other survived. Neither was wearing a helmet, and nobody involved in the accident, including the driver of the car that hit them, had licenses to operate the vehicles they were using that day. This accident was the car driver’s fault, but the fatality could have been prevented if the two bikers had taken the safety course that would have earned them the motorcycle endorsement. In that class, they might have learned about safety gear and what a good idea helmets are. This accident was at a low enough speed that the dead guy probably would have survived if he had been wearing a helmet on his head when he flew over the car and landed on his face.
What’s worse is that just a day or two later, at the vigil that was held for the fallen motorcycle rider, another biker got hit by a car. Thankfully, it was a minor accident, so nobody died.
So, lets talk helmets, because of all the stuff you could wear while riding a motorcycle, that’s probably the most important piece of protective gear in terms of keeping you from dying.
In Minnesota, we don’t have a helmet law. We used to, but then we got a former professional wrestler for a governor years ago, and one of the things he did while in office was wipe out the helmet law. I don’t really care. In fact, it’s nice that people can choose, but I really hope hey have a good grasp on the risk involved. However, in Minnesota, if you only have your motorcycle permit and not the full endorsement, you are required to wear a DOT approved helmet while riding. The DOT safety approval depends on how well the helmet scores in tests where it is fitted onto a head form with sensors and dropped from varying heights.
Back when I was in high school, I was on the debate team. My partner, Megan and I would hang out listening to Nine Inch Nails, Nirvana, and Stone Temple Pilots (it was the 90’s) then eventually get around to going over our file cards for policy debate. We had this awesome Samsonite briefcase that we would toss down the staircase at whatever school we were at for tournaments once we were done for the day, in an attempt to test how tough the case was -much like how I imagine one might test how tough a motorcycle helmet is.. It held up pretty well until a tournament at Spirit Lake, Iowa, after which the case burst open, sending our paperwork, case cards, and briefs all over the place. We were a bit more careful with the old Samsonite after that… Although, Spirit Lake, Iowa also fits with today’s theme, because Spirit Lake is where new Indian motorcycles are made (they are retro cool and absolutely gorgeous, but a bit out of my price range at this point, I’m afraid).
Anyway, back to the tangent before I get back to the topic at hand. Megan’s mom worked for the Medical Examiner’s office in Des Moines, and on one of the days I was over at Megan’s house, her mom had just returned from some work conference about traffic fatalities. I remember Megan’s mom telling us “If you’re going fast enough on a motorcycle, like highway speeds or faster, it’s not really going to make much difference if you’re wearing a helmet. You’ll end up looking like hamburger regardless.” She had some really gruesome photos of some accident scenes, which consisted of highways with streaks of what really did look like ground beef all over the place -the aftermath of a motorcycle accident at high speeds. The point that Megan’s mom was trying to drive home to us was to just avoid motorcycles all together. Which is why it was especially and tragically ironic to learn that a few years after graduating, Megan’s older brother, Aaron, was killed in a motorcycle accident. I don’t know if he was wearing a helmet or not. When I heard about what happened to him, there were two things that immediately came to my mind. The first was what a great time we all had when Aaron went along with Megan and I to Iowa City for the Nine Inch Nails concert where Marilyn Manson and the Jim Rose Circus were the opening acts (great show!) in a battered and rusty old lime green Ford LTD land yacht with flip up headlamps that we had to pry open with a stick to get the headlights to work. The second thing that came to mind was that talk from his mom about motorcycles and wrecks.
Incidentally, when I was an undergrad, I had another friend name Megan who imparted the following wisdom as it had been drilled into her by her parents: "Better to have a bucket on your brain than your brain in a bucket." I agree.
So, back from the tangent to talk about helmets. I have two. I bought a full face helmet (DOT approved) with a carbon fiber finish to it. I repainted the silver parts of that helmet a matte black because I didn’t like the look of it stock. Then, I have an open face helmet that I bought at a garage sale last year for $5. It looked like it had never been used, and the guy I bought it from said he got it for his wife, who decided after one or two rides that she didn’t like being a passenger on the motorcycle with him, so he sold it to me.
It just so happens that my sister needed somebody to watch her kids for a few hours on Saturday while she ran some errands with her husband. I had been meaning to spend a bit of time that day customizing my open face helmet, yet here I was, agreeing to baby sit. Well, I always like to bring a fun activity or two to do with the kiddos, so I packed my helmet, some paints, sanding paper, masking tape, and other supplies into a box, then grabbed an old snowmobile helmet I bought at a garage sale and tossed that in, too, along with a solar car kit I bought for the kids previously, and off I went to baby sit.
I arrived at my sister’s house and set up my stuff in the solarium. As usual, we had the precursory discussion of “Auntie Val’s Cardinal Rules”, which the kids know so well, they can recite them without even thinking.. They are 1) No whining, 2) No crying, and 3) We all stick together. We can bend the crying rule a bit if somebody falls and skins their knee or something, but it’s mostly in place to prevent meltdown/tantrum situations.
My 4 year old nephew, Lucian, immediately called dibs on the solar car kit, which suited 6 year old Maeryn just fine, because she had been eyeing that snowmobile helmet, anyway. I explained how to mask off areas where paint wasn’t wanted and set my niece to work on her helmet while I helped Lucian with the solar car.
Maeryn had the basics taped off pretty quick and came back asking what the next step was. I sent her off with some construction paper and markers to draw out some design concepts for her helmet. In the meantime, Lucian and I completed the solar car only to find that on an overcast day, it wasn’t going to move much for us unless we held a lamp directly over it.
Lucian was off to play with the car while Maeryn brought over some of her drawings. Because we had discussed Horse Power earlier, she figured a pony theme might be good.. Then she thought better of it. After all, when the sky is the limit, why stop at ponies and horses when you could put a unicorn on your helmet. So, she drew one unicorn for the front of the helmet, and another for the back.
We taped off the entire helmet, then used her designs as templates to razor cut through the masking tape (I handled the X-acto knife)
Then, we set up an outdoor spray area and put down a coat of white primer and paint in one specially formulated for plastic applications.
When that was done, we set the helmet in front of a fan to dry. Maeryn then set off to conduct some type of “scientific study” on the cat, which I later overheard involved collecting a hair sample, which she and her brother planned to get by using their kiddie safety scissors to snip a lock of hair from the animal. Thankfully, the subject of this study, a fluffy white cat named “Professor Von Foofenstein” -aka “Foof”, made himself scarce until I was able to confiscate the scissors and explain that the cat shed enough fur all on his own that they didn’t need to do anything other than brush the little beast to get a fur sample. They got their sample, from which the knowledge gained by studying it somehow led them to develop a new and improved cat toy that they cobbled together from some kite string, a popsicle stick., the handle from a lint roller, and some part of an old Christmas ornament. More importantly, the development of this new cat toy kept the kids busy long enough to buy me a bit of time to prep and paint my own helmet.
First, I razored off the decals, which left a bunch of stick-um behind on the helmet.
I then used peanut butter to remove the sticky crud (it works really well, you just rub it vigorously with a paper towel over the sticky stuff)
Then, I masked off the helmet but for the snaps for the visor on the front and the stripe I wanted down the center. Originally, the plan was to have a matte black stripe so this helmet would match with my other one. I was explaining this to Maeryn and Lucian, telling them that the contrast would be not in color but in how the texture of the finish reflected light to create a visual effect that would look really cool. To this, my nephew replied “it’s not THAT cool.” Then, my niece recommended I should use the dark red paint for the stripe. Well, who am I to argue helmet design with the creator of the famed Unicorn helmet? Besides, I can always redo it later.
Maeryn gave me credit for making a nice looking helmet, even if it did pale in comparison to her unicorn helmet. She even offered to model it for me.
And speaking of the Unicorn helmet... After the paint dried, Sharpie marker was used to add in color to the design. Maeryn decided she liked Sharpies, and took the liberty of using them to add some more flare to her unicorn helmet.
Behold!
The front of the helmet.
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