Motorcycle helmets, anti-lock brakes are safety essentials

By The Montana Standard Staff - 10/23/2008

I recently read comments on the editorial page from a motorcyclist opposing the use of helmets.

I think that anyone stupid enough to ride a motorcycle over 10 feet without a good helmet should be allowed to do so. Let them kill themselves; why worry about the willfully stupid?

Now of course the anti-helmet rider will say, "What does an 87-year-old know about riding?" My late wife and I each rode our own bikes, one pair of Kawasaki street-legal dirt bikes and three pairs of BMW road bikes. Lucy calculated that all told we each rode just shy of 200,000 miles — about 22,000 on old railroad grades, mountain dirt etc., the rest, up the ALCAN Highway to Alaska three times, quite a bit in Germany, Austria, Belgium, Holland and all over the United States and Canada.

When I turned 82 and Lucy, my wife of 57 years turned 39, we rode over to Big Sky BMW in Missoula and I told Nate, "They're yours; write me a check." Two life savers are helmets and anti-lock brakes. Any biker who doesn't use these is just plain nuts. Even my Pennsylvania Deutsche head can't crack concrete, and if you lock your front wheel on wet, oil, or ice you are down in 10 feet or less.

Conrad R. Hilpert 1300 W. Aluminum St.

Butte