Dear Poirot,

Yes, I am familiar with that skull-breaking excuse (while their true motive is to control and harass).

As I mentioned here more than once, I refuse any Medicare payments anyway. I pay all my medical expenses myself, ditto for rehabilitation if I ever need it: I also have a private-health insurance, but I would only ever claim on items for which Medicare does not provide anything (such as private hospital bed): where Medicare contributes even a cent, I would not claim on that item and pay it all myself.

If I break my skull, regardless how it happens and I'm unable to speak for myself, then I already left instructions through the "E-health" ("my health record") system, requesting that under no circumstances should Medicare claims be made in my name, but I rather have it paid from my own pocket. Mind you, they provided no space to declare that, so I had to do so via the "allergies" page, listing "Medicare" as an allergy I have...

If I were allowed to ride a bicycle in Australia (other than the stationary ones in the gym), then I would be more than happy to take up a special skull-breaking bicycle-insurance - and insurance companies would likely be more than happy to sell those.

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Dear Banjo,

It seems that the discussion has turned to be about Yuyutsu rather than about the intrusions of political parties into our private space and the need to punish them for it. Perhaps you would like to say something about it?

Yuyutsu, You are very, very fortunate that you can afford to pay for everything yourself. Not everybody is in that position - and not necessarily because they are lazy lay-abouts.
So I am happy to accept that you can spurn the law about bicycle helmets (and safety belts?). But I would really like everyone else who can't afford to pay their own way and who depend on medicare to wear them.

The Cossomby,

The vast majority of people should be able to afford a bicycle-head-injury insurance. I estimate that once its common and streamlined it should cost around $30/year, perhaps in combination with other medical extras.

For those who want to ride a bicycle but really cannot afford even this, I suggest that we should have a charity that will pay off their insurance costs.

Regarding seat-belts, I was wearing them long before it became law: when the first seat-belts appeared, my parents just thought that it was a great invention. Perhaps I should have stopped when it became law, but by then the habit was already entrenched.

About 22 years ago, the husband of a friend of mine suffered brain-damage in a car crash. He is still alive, in a nursing home, but for all that time has needed full-time care.
I got to know his wife a couple of years after the accident. She told me that one of the most shocking things was to visit him in hospital shortly after the event. He was in a ward full of mostly young men with brain injury from similar accidents; she described the scene, bed after bed of comatose bodies, with limited function and little hope for any. Talking to relatives of the other patients, she realised that this wasn't just her family's tragedy - but many family's tragedy. She had no idea of the scale of such injuries, and neither had I. In fact I can still remember exactly where we talked and my shock at the picture she painted.

So, money or insurance to pay for medical expenses or nursing care (for 20+ years?) is one thing. But wouldn't be better to minimise such injuries? Especially in young men who may mistake that hormone driven feeling of invincibility for 'freedom'? Isn't that what laws for bicycle helmets, seat-belts etc are for?

I still know that family, and the scars are still there. The children grew up only knowing their father as a incoherent invalid in a wheelchair.

Dear Cossomby,

<<But wouldn't be better to minimise such injuries?>>

In fact I have already minimised it: what's ever safer than not riding a bicycle?

Mind you, this increases my other risks: obesity, heart problems, diabetes... but never mind, I'm now quite unlikely to fall from a bike and break my head though I'm more likely to suffer a debilitating stroke as a result.

Your friend's husband sadly was injured while in a car: are you suggesting that car drivers/passengers should also wear helmets?

I will never again wear a helmet for the same reason that I will never again carry a gun, even if it were legal: I was forced to do both as a conscript. Let me tell you just one thing about that period: if I had a choice, then I would rather spend those years in the condition of your friend's husband than in the army. A state that takes the "liberty" to order its citizens to wear a helmet might just as well order them to wear uniforms, carry guns and be turned into killing-machines. What's more dangerous - battlefields or bicycles?

Yuyutsu,

I'm curious...

Do you per chance look both ways before you cross the road?

Givien your seemingly absolute predilection for doing exactly as you please regardless of the risk or the cost to society, it would seem superfluous to take any precautions at all against any such injuries that would arise from stepping blindly onto the road.

When all is said and done, no doubt you could pay for your medical care.

Regarding seat belts - which you apparently regard as some quaint habit your parents instilled in you. We recently were stopped at traffic lights when a big van smashed into the back of us at around 50-60 kms an hour without braking. The smash was enormous! it was so big that I immediately thought that we'd all be injured...but we weren't.

We were all wearing seatbelts.