Ben Roethlisberger bike crash

[yjleesvrr]

Bob - And those who want insurance companies to pry into their lives can choose to do so. Actually, insurance companies do pry into our lives, LOL. Anyway, that's the beauty of a free-market economy.

[Capt. Blackadder]

I am aware of most of those, as I work in Pubic Health.

Now... how did you end up in that line of work?

[beemerphile]

Interesting ebay auction on now...

http://cgi.ebay.com/Ben-Roethlisberger- ... dZViewItem

[coyofmo]

This is quite a donnybrook of a discussion..seems like everyone is focusing on Roethlisberger and his habits, then beating each other up when you all seem to be missing the real culprits here..that's the incompetant and probably blind old folks that are still driving and turned in front of him. Now it might be PC incorrect of me to pick on the elderly or blind, but I know a bit about this issue as I've work in ophthalmology now for 20 years. There is nothing more scarry than looking out the window of your clinic and seeing a patient you know good and well can't count your fingers 2 feet in front of their face, pulling their car into the parking space next to your new pickup. I went as far as to make sure that lady was going the oposite direction I was that day before I left work. We live in a society that above all seems to value independance (That's why some of you choose to ride w/out a helmet), and some folks just don't have family and friends to help them later in life, or don't want help. I'm not sure what the solutions are but a good place to start is mandatory driver competency testing and better driver training for those past a certain age. As far as my Doc's go, they counsel low vision patients extensively. When I'm doing what we call visual field testing, on most anyone, I try to demonstrate and explain how we each have natural blind spots in each eye. As for me, I drive like everyone else is blind because I know for a fact many people on the road actually are. Well that's my rant for the night. It was this or start b...ing about the cade and care reimbursments. Coy

[rph802]

Interesting ebay auction on now...

http://cgi.ebay.com/Ben-Roethlisberger- ... dZViewItem

I want to meet the numb nuts who actually bid $5500 on that. A bid is a bid and the seller has every right to sue the guy to get his payment and I bet that the "high" bidder is gonna try to get out of it saying "But it was a joke..."

Just wish I thought of it....

[sjbmw]

cmon, it's ebay. you don't sue anyone to get paid. all one does is deliver bad vibes, or negative feedback. kinda like organized whining.

good luck even finding him. ebay is the barbary coast of the new milennium.

[beemerphile]

The seller will have to file "non-paying bidder" in order to not get charged by eBay on the final value of the auction. Most of the bidders had reputations under 5 and probably IQ's under five as well. - Lee

[Shaman]

I am aware of most of those, as I work in Pubic Health.

Now... how did you end up in that line of work?

You get a Public Health degree and then work for an agency that deals with STDS and HIV. Lots of money in that in the 90s. I seen lots of pubic areas.

[Shaman]

that's the incompetant and probably blind old folks that are still driving and turned in front of him. Now it might be PC incorrect of me to pick on the elderly or blind, but I know a bit about this issue as I've work in ophthalmology now for 20 years.

Only because this is a MC forum.
I openly advocate for drivers test every 5 years for people over the age of 60. If they pass, great. If they don't.. well. There is the problem, much of the US requires a vehicle and offers no public transportation.

But I for one am tired of reading about elderly people crashing through farmers markets.

[Shaman]

cmon, it's ebay. you don't sue anyone to get paid.

Nope, but if he has Paypal, then eBay (which owns paypal) will freeze all his assets in his paypal account and not just the cost of the item.

[rdsmith3]

Look at all the retracted bids. I am surprised that eBay did not shut the auction down.

[toner87]

If Rothlisberger had a choice, would he wear a helmet when he's playing ball?
He probably would. Riding's like being a quarter back, it's a game where you have a goal and do your best to avoid the big monsters trying to get you. Using the proper equipment is common sense. Of course, I don't want to be told I have to wear a helmet, but do I? Yessirree.
T.

[rdsmith3]

'I'm fortunate to be alive,' Roethlisberger says
Steelers QB says he'll wear helmet if he ever rides motorcycles again
The Associated Press


Updated: 12:11 a.m. ET June 16, 2006
PITTSBURGH - A contrite Ben Roethlisberger pledged to wear a helmet if he rides a motorcycle again.

The Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback is also eager to get back on the field and start winning games once he recovers from facial injuries suffered in a scary wreck earlier this week.

In his first comments since crashing his motorcycle and undergoing seven hours of surgery, Roethlisberger released a statement through the team Thursday in which he apologized to the Steelers, fans and his family, and said he was lucky to have survived.

“In the past few days, I’ve gained a new perspective on life,” the Super Bowl-winning quarterback said in a statement released just hours after he was discharged from a hospital. “By the grace of God, I’m fortunate to be alive ... “

The 24-year-old Roethlisberger wrecked his bike and cracked his head on a car windshield Monday. He was discharged from Mercy Hospital late Wednesday night.

The youngest quarterback to win a Super Bowl was not wearing a helmet when he crashed into a car that was turning left in front of his motorcycle. Pennsylvania’s mandatory helmet law was repealed in 2003.

But Roethlisberger said in the statement that if he ever rides a motorcycle again “it certainly will be with a helmet.”

Doctors have said two rounds of tests showed no brain injuries, although there was a mild concussion. Doctors used small titanium plates and screws to reassemble Roethlisberger’s broken jaws and repaired other broken facial bones. He also lost two teeth and chipped several others, doctors said.


In the statement, Roethlisberger said he realizes he has a responsibility to safeguard his health in the offseason so he can continue to lead the team.

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, citing confidentiality laws, has refused to confirm media reports that Roethlisberger does not have a valid Pennsylvania motorcycle license.

Roethlisberger appeared to address those reports in his statement.


“I never meant any harm to others nor to break any laws,” Roethlisberger said. “I was confident in my ability to ride a motorcycle and simply believed such an accident would not happen to me.”

[rest deleted]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13279232/

[DSKYZD]

What really gets under my skin is Greg from 2 Wheel Tuesday on Speed channel told Ben that he could have any Arai helmet he wanted for free.

Rewarding the guy for his poor judgement? Tsk tsk tsk Each of us is more deserving of a new helmet than he is. Sure it may help him set a good example, after the fact!!! Arai or whoever is sponsoring the deal would be better off giving away helmets to real motorcyclists.

This is just one of things that got under my skin and started crawling.

DSKYZD

[toner87]

Free and Easy Riders

By JOHN TIERNEY
Published: June 17, 2006
NY Times Op/ED

Until his head collided with a windshield, Ben Roethlisberger savored the liberty of riding a motorcycle without a helmet. Now the Pittsburgh Steelers' quarterback says he has "a new perspective on life."


"If I ever ride again, it certainly will be with a helmet," he announced on Thursday, the day after leaving the hospital.

There's a lesson here for libertarians — and don't worry, it's not that we must pass laws mandating helmets for everyone. There's a better way to protect riders: libertarian paternalism, which is not as oxymoronic as it sounds.

The term was coined by a law professor and an economist at the University of Chicago, Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler. They want to preserve your liberty to make choices, but they'd also like to improve your odds of choosing what you really want.

If Roethlisberger had done a sober cost-benefit analysis, he never would have gotten on a motorcycle. Even a minor accident — a spill that shattered his elbow — could have ended his career and cost him tens of millions of dollars.

Now he's got a new perspective, and so do the many motorcyclists who will be wearing new helmets this weekend after the publicity about his accident. But their new perspective isn't entirely rational, either. Their odds haven't changed just because of one accident. Why should they start wearing helmets now?

Because they're making decisions the way most humans do — haphazardly. We're guided more by one recent horror story than by reams of statistics. Unless pressed, we tend to avoid thinking about unlikely events, like traffic accidents, or problems in the distant future, like how we'll finance our retirement.

We'll choose something simply because we think it's what most other people would do. Our decision often hinges not on the facts but on how the facts are presented: if told there's a 10 percent chance of dying from a medical procedure, we're less likely to go ahead with it than if we're told there's a 90 percent chance of living.

Given all these foibles, Sunstein and Thaler argue, it's naïve to assume that people are making fully informed choices. Since people's choices often depend on how the options are presented, authorities should practice a mild form of paternalism: point people toward what experts think is best for them, but don't force them to go there.

This might mean simply providing the public with information and advice. Or it could mean changing the options available, as was done in experiments with 401(k) plans. Instead of giving workers the traditional option to enroll in the plans, employers automatically enrolled everyone and gave them the option to withdraw. As a result, far more workers set aside money for retirement.

How would you apply this libertarian paternalism to motorcycle helmets? I consulted Sunstein and Thaler, as well as Edward Glaeser, a Harvard economist who's more skeptical about this approach. He worries that bureaucrats and politicians are prone to making their own bad decisions when they turn paternalistic. They've made it their business to stigmatize certain behaviors, like homosexuality, and they've deluged people with dubious guidance, like the changing edicts on what Americans should eat and how much they should weigh.

But Glaeser does see a role for paternalism when dealing with a problem as clear-cut and serious as motorcycle fatalities. He, Sunstein and Thaler like the idea of encouraging cyclists to wear helmets by changing the options they face. Instead of telling them that a helmet is optional — the default situation in most states — tell them a standard license comes with the requirement to wear a helmet.

If a libertarian cyclist objected, he could apply for a special license to ride without a helmet (along with a decal for the motorcycle so the police wouldn't stop him). He'd have to provide proof that he carried enough insurance to cover the costs of an accident so that taxpayers wouldn't get stuck with the bill. And he'd have to learn about the risks, perhaps by attending a short class or watching a video of it on his home computer.

The class shouldn't be an exercise in fear-mongering. It could include testimonials from intelligent motorcyclists who've weighed the risks and still want the joy of the wind on their faces. But before anyone gets this license, he ought to see a good analysis of the injury statistics and hear about the benefits of helmets — including that new perspective from the Steelers' quarterback.

[yjleesvrr]

Hey, how 'bout getting a license too? The media pundits seem to be missing this, unless the stories I've read that Ben didn't have a license were simply rumors. Seems to me this is where his bad decisions started. Riding without a helmet is second. Riding a bike that has as much power as some mid-sized cars as a novice is third.

I know from living in a college town that most football players aren't the brighest bulbs in the closet, but you don't need 150 IQ to know that proper licensure, protective equipment (as has been pointed out football players wouldn't dream of taking to the field without them), and not getting above your head is generally conducive for one to live a longer life.

[Boxer]

On FOX news they were saying he had a "Learner's" permit. I don't know what that means in PA.

[DSKYZD]

I had heard the learner's permit expired in March and that in PA with a leaner's you're required to wear a helmet. Maybe after he gets his free helmet the state of PA DMV will give him a free motorcycle endorsement.



DSKYZD

[rdsmith3]

It looks like the number of fatalaties has increased at a much greater rate than the increase in riders. I don't think it is accurate to attribute this increase solely to the repeal of helmet laws. Obviously, if there are a lot of new riders, that is a big contributing factor. Nevertheless, I believe that the non-usage of helmets has played some role in the increase in deaths.

Study: Motorcycle fatalities soar after helmet law repeal

MELBOURNE, Fla. (AP) -- Motorcycle fatalities involving riders without helmets have soared in the nearly six years since Gov. Jeb Bush repealed the state's mandatory helmet law, a newspaper reported Sunday.

A Florida Today analysis of federal motorcycle crash statistics found "unhelmeted" deaths in Florida rose from 22 deaths in 1998 and 1999, the years before the helmet law repeal, to 250 deaths in 2004, the most recent data available.

By comparison, Florida logged 270 deaths of riders without helmets during the 1990s, when riding without a helmet was illegal, according to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports.

Total motorcycle deaths in the state have increased 67 percent from 259 in 2000 to 432 in 2004, statistics show.

Records also show a corresponding rise in the popularity of motorcycles in the Sunshine State. Motorcycle registrations have increased 87 percent in Florida since Bush signed the helmet law repeal on July 1, 2000.

The debate over motorcycle helmet safety resurfaced last week when Pittsburgh Steelers Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, an advocate of helmet-free riding, broke his jaw, nose and several teeth in an accident. He underwent seven hours of surgery.

Merritt Island motorcyclist and helmet law opponent Dave Carroll said the helmet law debate is misguided.

"The media spent way too much time harping on the helmet issue and not enough on the cause of the accident," Carroll said. "What causes most of the crashes is cars. Usually, it's the car driver turning left at an intersection and causing an accident because they didn't see us coming."

Physicians and insurance companies say helmets are crucial safety gear.

"We used to call (helmetless riders) 'organ donors,' because they break their head and not their body," said Dr. David Harbour, who works in the emergency room at Wuesthoff Medical Center in Rockledge. "You can actually fix a broken bone. But if you hit your head and hurt your brain, there's little we can do to fix that."

---

Information from: Florida Today, http://www.floridatoday.com

[rph802]

Made an interesting observation riding through NH (ie no helmet law state) for about 45 minutes last Friday. I encountered 22 people (riders and passengers) and all but 6 were wearing helmets. Obviously I dont have anything to compare this too and its a random and limited sample BUT this seems like an awful high percentage for a no helmet state. There were different types of bikes, cruiser, sport, and naked and all the unhelmeted riders were on cruisers. Now I have seen people stop just over the VT/NH border, pull over to the side of the road and pull off their lids. Were more people keeping the helmets on b/c of this high profile incident?? Maybe.....