my empirical guess would be, that in an accident, a motorcycle rider has a higher chance of survival by being seperated from the bike......whereas in a vehicle accident, the survival rate is higher when wearing a seatbelt and contained within the automobile. either that....or it's about money.
I think the guy isn't arguing that seatbelts should be installed on motorcycles. I think he's arguing that it's stupid to force people to wear seatbelts in a car when you're free to hop on a motorcycle.
Ticketing people for driving without their belt on results in more money for the government. Prohibiting people from riding motorcycles (which means no one is buying them and gassing them up) results in less money for the government. As an aside, they can't put a seat belt on a bike because I imagine that would be even more dangerous considering the bike has a better chance of crushing the rider and or breaking their back from whiplash. The best they can do is a helmet law. But really it's a great question. Although I think it's idiotic to not wear a seat belt, I have difficulty seeing why it shouldn't be a personal choice.
Had the Mrs get booked for driving without a seatbelt by a cop on a motorbike... now how about that one. I said did you ask 'wheres yours?'.
People drive in cars more often. Being attached to a bike during an accident is less safe than being able to stay restrained in a car.
Why aren't there seat belts on buses? School buses especially? Why don't auto passengers wear leathers? I don't think seatbelts provide any safety margin for bikers where it is conclusively proven they do fo cars. The issue is containment within the safety cage. If you can't imagine yourself ripping all the skin off your face as you smash in to the windshield, then imagine the trouble you are saving your EMS workers. I could have said it was a conspiracy of the organ donor lobby.
This is something I've wondered about for a while. Are there any statistics available on how much more likely one is to die when riding a motorcycle vs driving a car? It seems like it is much more risky to ride a motorcycle than it is to drive a car without a seatbelt. From wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorcycle_safety#Accident_rates "Motorcycles have a higher fatality rate per unit of distance travelled when compared with automobiles. According to the NHTSA, in 2006 18.06 cars out of 100,000 ended up in fatal crashes. The rate for motorcycles is 55.82 per 100,000."
I remember listening to a radio interview with some of the X Games motorcycle guys. Basically none of them rode motorcycles on the roads and said anyone who does is a complete idiot (and keep in mind these guys are doing 720 backflips on their motorcycles) because it's so dangerous.
Higher cost and possibly lower risk. I think when the idea of seatbelts was first raised, one of the key objections the auto industry probably had was cost. I guess the government was willing to accept that argument for buses, given the higher number of seats and lower and less frequent demand for buses, which probably makes them significantly less profitable. The governmen hedge against less seatbelts was probably increased training or separate licensing for bus drivers.
All I know is that it is a pain in the ass when they have to shut down the highway to scrape and powerwash the remnants of a person off the road because the weren't wearing a seatbelt.
