Posted on by Sergeant Of Arms

To Helmet Or Not To Helmet, That Is The Question

Parts Unkown, AZ

A great question came up at dinner last night, “Do we require helmets on our rides?”  The quick answer is, no, we don’t require you to wear a helmet to participate in one of our rides, but since we do leave the state from time to time, you are subject to that state’s laws.  Helmet law included.

We do value your safety however and highly recommend that you do wear one.  Outside of the obvious reasons, here are a few other good reasons to wear a helmet:

  1. Protects you from flying debris. Arizona is tops in the nation for broken car windshields. Why? Flying debris like rocks on our roads. They don’t feel very good hitting your face and can possibly injure you and disorient you while riding at 75 mph down the road. Not a situation that’s good for you or me!
  2. The dehydration factor. The Arizona summers are hot! That hot air hitting your face directly, going up your nose and in your mouth will dry you our pretty fast. Dehydration along with the heat will start you on the path of heat exhaustion and heat stroke. See my comment on getting disoriented in point #1.
  3. Rain. During monsoon season especially, and this one has been wet, the rain drops sting and since you’re probably wearing some type of sunglasses that don’t seal well, you’ll get water in your eyes. Rolling down the road at 75mph with your face on fire and not being able to see is not a good situation for you or me.
  4. Think of others. This is a tough one to talk about. In the case that there is an incident, the rest of us have to bear witness of the aftermath. That’s something that none of us want to deal with and because our all of our rides are sanctioned by the AMA, we have to report on. You can’t unsee some of what happens in the worst case senario.

Though as a club, we tend not to be too preachy about helmets, be prepared for a random person to walk up to. you and pontificate about the virtues of wearing one.

As a whole, on 99.9% of our rides, we have 100% of the participants wearing helmets. We tolerate the few that don’t wear a helmet on our rides but will hope that you will make a responsible choice if you choose to join us on one.