Some tragic news with a twist comes to us from the long holiday weekend, as we get word that a helmetless rider from Onondaga, NY died after crashing his 1983 Harley Davidson motorcycle during a protest rally.
Though it’s always unfortunate when we lose a member of the motorcycle community, this story has a bit of irony as we learn that Philip A. Contos was participating in a motorcycle helmet protest when the 55-year-old flipped over the handlebars of his motorcycle, and hit his head against the pavement.
According to the attending physician, and based off the evidence and information at the scene of the accident, Contos would have survived the fall had he been wearing a DOT approved helmet, but instead sadly perished from his injuries.
Contos was riding with the Onondaga chapter of American Bikers Aimed Towards Education (ABATE), an organization that states it encourages the voluntary use of helmets but opposes mandatory helmet laws (for a comparison in arguments, that’s like saying you don’t believe in god, but consider yourself to be ‘spiritual’).
Motorcycle helmet laws have been a hot-button issue for years now, with states like New York enacting mandatory helmet use laws, while just recently Michigan put the idea of repealing its helmet law to its state legislature.
Here at Asphalt & Rubber, we’re keenly in favor of state helmet laws, and critical of the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA), the organization that’s supposed to lobby for the benefit of motorcyclists, for its stance on anti-motorcycle helmet legislation.
Source: The Post-Standard
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