A motorcyclist participating in a protest ride against helmet laws went over his handlebars, hit his head on the pavement and was killed, police said Sunday.
The motorcyclist, 55-year-old Philip A. Contos, likely would have survived the accident if he’d been wearing a helmet, state troopers said.
The accident happened Saturday afternoon in Onondaga, a town in central New York near Syracuse.
Contos was driving a 1983 Harley-Davidson on a helmet protest ride organized by the Onondaga chapter of American Bikers Aimed Towards Education, or ABATE, troopers said. The organization states that it encourages the voluntary use of helmets but opposes mandatory helmet laws.
Contos, of Parish, hit his brakes, and his motorcycle fishtailed and went out of control, flipping him over the handlebars, police said. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.
New York is one of 20 states that require all motorcycle riders to wear helmets. Lobbying by motorcyclist groups has led some states to repeal helmet laws.
A helmet that meets federal standards reduces the wearer’s chances of being killed in an accident by more than 40 percent, said safety consultant Jim Hedlund, of the Governors Highway Safety Association.
While I agree helmets save lives the difference between “likely” and definitely is a very broad gap. The article as you posted does not support the tittle of the article. I actually find it a bit crass to use this type of unfortunate, very sad incident to propagate a stance one way or another. It completely disrespects the man and his family. We have no way of understanding what led to the accident. Perhaps a car stopped short in front of him. With that analogy we can say cars are the main factor and therefore if there were no cars on the road he likely would have lived. Maybe it was a pothole and the state is to blame for failure to maintain a roadway. Lots of variables, without links to the story, make this biased and therefore void of consideration.
Well ugh, I just copied and pasted something I found interesting.
Steve, personal question, sure you don’t mind: are you anti-big government? I know you live in TN where it’s mostly republican… I just don’t understand why all these anti government people would go as far as to say “no helmet laws, and no text messaging laws either, blah blah blah”. I’m fairly conservative myself, but I think there need to be some safty laws, within reason…
I wasn’t directing that at you Aggie. I was making a point just how biased the article was written. Lots of conjecture in it.
Actually I grew up in NJ. I personally don’t think government needs to be involved so much in our lives. There are certain things that do need to have regulations and I believe a helmet law, just like seat-belts do not infringe on the rights of happiness. I do think it jeopardizes more than just one person when someone isn’t wearing safety belts and helmets. So yeah we need some laws, but we don’t need government regulating every damn thing. Big government, just like the Soviet Union, North Korea, and how many other failed systems? Government is not the solution. I cringe when I hear about putting so much money into health care, but making cuts to schools and education. Our first and foremost path any society should look at is educating our society so that one day we won’t need massive pharmaceuticals and their likes. Don’t even get me going on that. Health care absolutely should be a right for everyone, but at whose expense?
I do not label myself as a conservative or liberal. I’d say I’m a liberal conservative.
I believe in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Again though, it wasn’t directed at you, unless you wrote that article which was opinion and not news. A disgraceful attempt at journalism. If I submitted something like that for my classes I would have failed.