BIG BEND BIKERS FOR FREEDOM We make no attempt to be "politically correct". Left, Right, or Center. "Argue for your limitations and they are yours" Bach
Independence day Freedom of the press to ignore its obligation
The obligation of the press and the reason they were provided Freedom was to serve as a watchdog for the rights of the citizen. Not to regurgitate governmental bureaucratic crap!
"Florida's Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles reports 521 Florida motorcyclists died in 2006, 21 of them in Polk County. Of the statewide fatalities, the agency said 39 percent were not wearing helmets."
That means 61% who died were wearing helmets doesn't it? Of the 39% of motorcyclists not wearing helmets that died, how many died of head injuries?
Motorcyclists in Florida accounted for 8 percent of registered vehicles in 2006 and 17 percent of traffic fatalities, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association."
Unless the helmet was a factor in causing the crash this sentence has no relevance does it?
Two weeks ago, an accident in Lakeland killed a motorcyclist and critically injured his passenger. The Sheriff's Office said neither was wearing a helmet. It was at least the third motorcycle fatality in Polk County since February involving a rider not wearing a helmet.
How many people died in auto crashes in Polk County since February? How many of those people that died were wearing helmets?
While some helmet opponents say the increase merely reflects increased ridership, the institute (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety ) reported that deaths per mile traveled rose 38 percent. Deaths per registered motorcycle rose 21 percent after the repeal.Both the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the National Transportation Safety Board have criticized the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (the agency responsible for collecting Vehicle Miles Traveled) reliance on invalid Vehicle Miles Traveled data. So which is it? It can't be both ways. You can't cite data that you have already questioned as to it's validity can you?
Figures from the Florida Department of Transportation show motorcyclists made up 5.34 percent of highway fatalities in 1999 and steadily increased to 15.48 percent in 2006.
Despite their reluctance to publish the data, we do not choose to view the general public as fools. Just look around you as you drive. Is their any doubt in your mind that motorcycles have become the new fashion accessory and that the numbers on the road have increased dramatically?
NHTSA estimates helmets prevented the deaths of 1,658 bikers nationwide in 2006 and suggests another 752 could have been saved if all motorcyclists wore helmets. If all bikers wore headgear, the agency says, 37 of every 100 unhelmeted riders killed in accidents would survive.
NHTSA's statistics as we have noted before are reliably unreliable. I have seen this quote before from NHTSA but have yet to see the magical formula by which they are able to divine these statistics. It is akin to dropping a jar of multi colored marbles on the floor and being able to predict the direction and distance each one will travel. Purty smart huh?
And of course when I come to a paragraph such as the following in a public newspaper then I know I need to read no further. It is in such that they convict themselves as to their ignorance re the origins of the declaration of the Independence, the constitution and their own cherished "Freedom of the press". If they can not be trusted to understand their own mandate they can not be trusted to carry it out!
Of course, many laws favor the public good over individual liberty, and helmet advocates point to the medical costs generated by motorcyclists who incur severe head injuries. NHTSA offers several studies comparing treatment costs for helmeted and unhelmeted riders involved in crashes, including a 1994 study suggesting the latter generate three times the hospitalization costs.
Nowhere in any document that I can find leading to the birth of our nation can I find where money trumps, freedom, individual rights, and liberty. In fact ideas of freedom, individual rights and liberty were so cherished by the parents of this country that they not only bore the financial costs of obtaining it but added their blood to ante. And they granted the press freedom so that they may be the watchdogs of the government to insure that the blood they used for currency to purchase our individual liberty would not be wasted. The press, our elected representatives, our appointed judges and our own apathy have failed them.
God Forgive Us.
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