An Example of Lane Splitting

When we talk about lane splitting here in Washington State, the following clip demonstrates what we are talking about.  As you will see, there is plenty of room between lanes for the motorcycle to pass between.  The revving of the riders motor serves a couple of purposes.  One, he is alerting people outside of their vehicles to his presence, and also he is helping his motor not to "load up" with fuel.  There isn't any real excessive speed used.  While this video is a bit long; it does demonstrate quite well just how much room there is between lanes, and how easily a motorcyclist can utilize a portion of that space with just a little common sense and skill.

As you watch this video, think of how much less congested traffic could be if all the motorcycles seen in the video were not also parked in traffic.  But instead were moving between the lanes, and making room for other vehicles to move forward as well.  Also note, although it is a moot point in this video; that if there had been a collision between the motorcycle and any of the numerous vehicles being passed they would have been glancing, "sideswipe" blows, and not the much more severe direct impacts of either being rear ended or rear ending another vehicle.  

Catch you on the road sometime...

An Agenda Of Control

A couple of weeks ago, the Governor’s Highway Safety Association (GHSA) released its preliminary data and findings regarding motorcycle fatalities in 2015. The GHSA represents the state and territorial highway safety offices that implement programs to address highway safety.  This is a nationwide association, not just here in Washington.  Although GHSA’s primary mission is to improve traffic safety, their latest report appears to be more focused on the scientifically unsupported concept that universal helmet laws are the best way to reduce highway fatalities among motorcyclists.  Why do I say it is a “scientifically unsupported concept”?  Because even the Federal government’s own data shows that motorcycle helmets are “estimated” (that’s the word that NHTSA uses when presenting this statistic) to be 37% effective in preventing injuries and fatalities to motorcycle riders.  Another government statistic that would seem to fly in the face of the GHSA’s thinly veiled pushed for a national universal helmet law also comes from NHTSA.  That statistic shows that among helmeted riders killed in traffic accidents, 81% died from trauma to parts of their body other than their head.  In basically, in four out of five fatalities involving helmeted motorcyclists the helmet was irrelevant as a life saving measure.

It is important to remember that the GHSA is a political association.  It is basically a government lobbying organization with a political agenda.  That agenda is being passed off as one of traffic safety.  However, when the agenda continues to be followed even when the governments own data shows it to be of questionable effect in saving lives, one must consider that the true agenda is control.

The GHSA preliminary report suggests a possible 10% increase in motorcycle fatalities.  However, their data doesn’t draw a link to the possible rise and helmet use.  The fact that 2015 had in many areas of the country an extended riding season, wasn’t accounted for.  A significantly longer riding season would provide more opportunity for accidents to happen, and therefore; for a possible rise in fatalities.  Other factors that the preliminary report seems to discount or not consider are; the rise in ridership, the experience and training of the riders, as well as the inclusion of possibly faulty preliminary data.

California for example; had no change in its helmet law, even though it did experience a drop in fatalities.  What California did that was different, was put an emphasis on rider training.  The GHSA report barely mentions rider training as a factor in the formula.  It again, emphasizes universal helmet law as a prime factor in motorcycle safety.  Rider experience is obliquely considered in the report with a statement that 25% of all motorcycle fatalities involved unendorsed/licensed riders.

Perhaps the most telling statistic that shows that the GHSA is following an agenda other than the highway safety it proclaims to pursue, is the lack of connectivity between their praise of a universal helmet law and the data.  In Michigan in 2012 (the year they repealed their universal helmet law) there was a spike in the fatality rate, accompanied by a an even larger spike in millions of miles ridden..  However by 2014, the fatality rate dropped to 107, the second lowest rate since 2009.  Of the nineteen states that have a universal helmet law, twelve saw an increase in motorcycle fatalities between 2014 and 2015, while ten of the helmet choice (or no helmet law) states saw a decrease.  Again the data doesn’t support the GHSA’s position.
The bureaucratic mindset that would require a universal helmet law for motorcyclists is perhaps brought into focus by a letter from the CDC to US Congressman Thomas Petri in 2014.  Here are a few excerpts of the letter, with my commentary on each in parentheses.

1. “Motor vehicle crashes, including motorcycle crashes, are the leading cause of death in the first three decades of life.”  (The majority of those motor vehicle crashes do not involve motorcycles, yet only the motorcyclists are expected to accept the requirement that we wear a helmet.  What sort of uproar would spread across the country if the government push for a truly universal helmet law for all motor vehicle operators and passengers?  No doubt enough of one that even the idea is laughable among politicians and legislators.)

2. “41% of operators, and 50% of passengers who died in 2010 were not wearing a helmet.” (Since fewer people died while NOT wearing helmets than while wearing helmets, what logic dictates that the government should force all motorcyclists to wear helmets?  So that 100% of the operators and passengers who die will be wearing helmets?)

3. “The CDC approaches motorcycle safety in the same manner as any other public health issues, such as heart disease, cancer, and asthma.”  (So our freedom to choose how we transport ourselves and the risks involved is a disease?  A disease that is actively and aggressively being sought a cure for?)

These demonstrate the bureaucratic mentality and its overreach in its search for control.  That is why it can be so important to resist efforts to inflict their control over our abilities to exercise our Rights and Freedoms.  The helmet issue is, in my opinion (and I am not a Constitutional scholar) a violation of our 14th Amendment Rights to equal protection under the law.  If all motor vehicle operators were equally treated in regards to the threat of “traumatic brain injuries” (TBI’s); either all of us should be required to wear helmets, or none of us should be.

The relationship between TBI’s and helmets can be simply shown with a raw egg in a Styrofoam cup.  If you drop the cup holding the egg, the cup may protect the shell from cracking, but it has no effect on the yoke from obeying Newton’s Laws and slamming into the shell.  Even if the shell doesn’t crack the yoke may still be ruptured by the force of the impact.  The yoke is your brain, and the Styrofoam cup is your helmet.

Catch you on the road sometime…

Filtering Forward

  While virtually the rest of the developed nations in the world not only allow it, but expect motorcyclists to perform the technique to filter forward through congested traffic.  Decades of experience from around the world has shown this technique to be safe and effective.  It has also been shown to benefit motorists in recuing their commute times as well.  It is really a simple concept; the smaller motorcycle left in the mainstream of traffic flow takes up the space of a much larger full size vehicle, wasting the rest of the lane with empty space that could be filled by a larger vehicle if the motorcycle was allowed to filter forward through the slow congested traffic.  Now multiply that wasted space several hundred to a thousand times (or more) over for all the motorcycles traveling along that congested highway artery corridor.  Allowing motorcyclist to filter forward between the lanes of traffic now opens up all that space that each individual motorcycle had been occupying for the use of larger vehicles.  Studies in Europe have shown that lane filtering can reduce congestion and commute times by an average of nearly 25 minutes.  Studies done in California have shown that when motorcyclists participate in lane filtering, it also reduces commute times.  As well as reducing the risk and severity of injury to motorcyclists.  Those same studies, also show that those participating in lane filtering tend to be the more experienced, better equipped riders. Also, that when an accident does occur, it is of a greatly reduced speed difference and glancing force than occurs when a motorcyclist remains in the mainstream traffic flow.  That would explain the reduction in severity of injuries.

During the Senate Committee hearing for ABATEs lane filtering bill, SB5623, the bureaucrats from the Washington Traffic Safety Commission showed two YouTube videos of people splitting the lanes at high speed as part of their testimony against the bill.  They also showed a video taken by a rider that was performing the technique properly.  However it also showed a  motorcyclist on a bagger try to fit between two large trucks when there wasn’t enough room.  The clip ended when the rider crashed, and high-sided off the bike, out of camera view.  However, that was not the end of the original YouTube video.  It actually shows the bagger rider standing back up, and then later, with his bike parked on the hard shoulder, standing there (with no visible injuries) being given a ticket by a law enforcement officer.  That part of the video would have actually gone a long way to show how safe lane filtering actually is.  Here is the full YouTube video continuing with the rest of the commute, and showing how successful proper lane filtering techniques can be. 

But the bureaucracies weren’t quite ready to think outside of the box yet, and refused to look at the decades of evidence from California and around the world.  To them, it was a new idea, and new ideas are frightening things.  Perhaps, after seeing a more successful demonstration of proper lane filtering people who do not ride may be a little more understanding of the technique.  Will there be crashes?  Certainly there will be.  But there are crashes now; because drivers and riders don't pay attention and use common sense, that will never change completely.  With all riding/driving, each situation you encounter should be dealt with in a common sense manner.  If there appears to be a tight squeeze to complete your path, slow down and stop if need be to wait for room to open up and proceed again.  Safety is up to each individual.  Both drivers and riders.

Catch ya on the road sometime...

No Better Than The Taliban

In 2001, the Taliban with their fanatical intolerance of anything not of their own religion, used artillery and dynamite to destroy two 1,700 year standing Buddha statues carved into a sandstone cliff.  It made no difference to them that these were the tallest statues of a standing Buddha in the world.  Or, that these statues had existed for about the same time as their won religion.  Their fundamental beliefs had become so intolerant of anything that was not Islamic that they went out of their way to destroy these two statues in remote Afghanistan.  The Foreign Minister of Afghanistan, Mullah Wakil said; "We do admit the relics were the cultural heritage of Afghanistan, but the part that contradicts our Islamic beliefs, we would not like to have them anymore."

Close mindedness is not an affliction of the Taliban alone.  That same mentality is showing its face in other parts of the world as well.  Just take a look at Ninevah, and how ISIS destroyed artifacts from ancient Babylonian and Assyrian cultures.  Wiping out the traces of their own heritage using jackhammers because it wasn't Islamic. Even though Islam would not exist for a thousand or so years after these artifacts were created.  The hatred of anything not of their beliefs has cost the peoples of the world a piece of all our heritage as humans.

This sort of thing has happened many times throughout history.  It is a shame, but one of the things that makes archaeology such an interesting science to study the past, and learn from it.  Intolerance has always seemed to be condemned by the "enlightened" of the world.  Unless it is their own beliefs that the intolerance coincides with.  The thought that a symbol must mean to everyone what it was originally meant to mean, and whose meaning cannot evolve into something different is a symptom of rigid and intolerant thought.

Sadly, that same rigidity of thought, and intolerance is showing its face here in the United States more and more.  As only one example, take a look at the ripple effect from South Carolina's condemnation of the Confederate flag, and removal of it from the state capitol grounds.  Within days, with mainstream medias focus, the meaning had continually been emphasized what the designer of the flag meant it to mean.  As well as how wrong that mentality was in today's society.  However the idea that the symbols meaning has evolved over the last 150 years was either downplayed, or completely ignored.  It was now only a symbol of racism and hatred.  A symbol that deserved to be removed from American society completely, because some found the meaning of this symbol to be offensive and disturbing.

The Bars and Stars flag was now deemed politically incorrect.  Even though it had evolved into a symbol of rebelliousness against the establishment of governmental over regulation, a symbol of pride for rural people from across the nation, not just the south.  It has come to the point that wearing a ballcap with a Confederate flag on it can get a student suspended from school for being a distraction from good education.

Then the ripples spread.  Soon, anything Confederate was deemed to be racist, and in need of excising from society.  Whether it was Confederate gravestones, monument to Confederate generals and politicians, to the name on a school.  Even though the graves and monuments of the Confederates had by law long ago been acknowledged to be American military graves and monuments, the politically correct ignored that and claimed since they were Confederate they were nothing more than racist.  It had become an intolerant belief that anything Confederate was deemed unworthy of being admirable in anyway.

It is actually rather ironic that it is more acceptable to purchase and display the flag of ISIS than it is to fly the Confederate Battle Flag.  The Taliban and ISIS have no tolerance for symbols and relics of history not of their own.  They have no compunction about removing and destroying the reminders of a past they find offensive to their tender sensibilities.  The "enlightened" peoples of the world were horrified at the destruction of artifacts by both the Taliban and ISIS.  Yet many of those same "enlightened" people have not a ripple of regret or distaste when a monument here in the United States is removed or destroyed because it is a Confederate, or some other site is currently deemed politically incorrect.  If you destroy symbols of the past, because you have this belief that the symbol is somehow evil.  Or that the people who erected it are somehow bad enough to warrant erasure from social memory, than you are no different than ISIS or the Taliban.

A case in point, is the Confederate Monument on Stone Mountain in Georgia.  It is the largest bas relief sculpture in the world (rather like the Buddhas of Bamiyan that were blown apart by the Taliban).  The head of the NAACP in Atlanta has called for the destruction of the sculpture.  Saying; "Those guys need to go.  They can be sand-blasted off, or somebody could carefully remove a slab of that and auction it off to the highest bidder.  My tax dollars should not be used to commemorate slavery."  Demanding to have the carved mountainside sculpture removed because it is racist and offensive is no different than the Taliban or ISIS wanting to destroy historic artifacts because of what they say it represents.  The Confederate Memorial Carving depicts three Confederate leaders of the Civil War; President Jefferson Davis, and Generals Robert E. Lee and "Stonewall" Jackson astride their favorite horses.

If a mountainside sculpture of three men on horseback commemorates slavery, how big of a stretch is it to demanding the faces of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson be removed from Mount Rushmore, since they were actual slave owners?  If a person or a group tries to place historical events or monuments into a black and white, right or wrong, bi-chromatic pallet something is wrong.  Nothing, not even the Civil War, is simply right or wrong.  Therefore, no symbol of the Civil War can be totally good or bad.  I find it humorous that many of the people that claim the Confederacy was racist and evil; also happen to love the antebellum architecture of the cities of the South.  The fact that the economic wealth of the South, and therefore the old buildings within the cities, were a direct result of slavery.  Yet no one has called for the destruction of the antebellum architecture of the South.

At what point does this belief that if something offends you, it should be removed go too far?  If you are browsing social media sites and see something that you find offensive, continue on, and do not return to that page.  We each have a different set of beliefs, and experiences that colors our individual points of view.  When a person, or group decides that what someone else has found to be admirable or worth memorializing about our history is perhaps only in poor taste and they want it banned, then they have begun to go down a path of intolerance that is difficult to step off of.  When they then decide it is offensive and distracting for another person to wear a Confederate flag ballcap; but not an ISIS flag, a nazi swaztika, then the symbols are not being treated equally.  The reason for the 'offensive' label seems to become more of a political propaganda tool than an actual societal belief.  Racism has become the default claim about too many things in society today.  I truly hope I live to see the day that Dr. Martin Luther King's "dream" was about.  "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."

When that day comes, society will be able to look back upon the racism of the past, and teach it's young members what a terrible evil it was, and all the many faces racism had.  On that day, their will no longer be any preference given to a person because of their race.  Only for their character and qualifications, will people be judged.  To do otherwise, for any reason, is to promote racism.  To try to remove or revise our history claiming it was " racist" blankets all those involved with the same cloth whether guilty of that claim or not.  That is true racism.  Those that want to destroy the symbols of a past they do not personally feel pride in on the grounds of conflict with their beliefs, or some vague expression of racism, are guilty of racism.  In my humble opinion, there are no good racists, and anyone who quickly and repeatedly uses the "race card" to denounce another person or community, is a racist and no better than the Taliban or ISIS.  We must be ever vigilant against the forces that could destroy our heritage for their own agenda.  Perhaps then we can experience the day that Dr. King dreamed of when he spoke his dream before the Lincoln Memorial that one day; "...the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood."

When we stop looking at our past for reasons to divide and hate ourselves, we will finally be able to all share in the "American Dream".  However, if we keep moving down the path of political correctness and intolerance of concepts and ideas not our own, than we will end up being no better than the Taliban, and ISIS.  Destroyers of the worlds ancient heritage, destroyers of our own heritage, destroyers of the foundations of our culture and civilization.

Catch ya on the road sometime...

Propaganda In Waco Being Mirrored In Washington?

It has been seven weeks since the tragic deaths in Waco.  Yet people are still sitting in jail on trumped up bonds of $1 million dollars each.  The charges of 'participating in organized crime' based on a generic 'fill-in- the name' warrant with no probable cause to base it upon.  Beyond of course the fact that those arrested were all present at the scene of a tragic shooting.  A shooting where; beyond the fact that almost half the victims were shot by police, the Waco PD have only released contradictory and inflammatory comments regarding the shootings.  The City of Waco, and McLennon County have fought to keep video from inside the Twin Peaks restaurant from being used in bail reduction hearings for those who have been incarcerated for seven weeks now.  Due Process was thrown out of Waco in this instance.

The mainstream media had barely even made note of the fact that Waco PD, acknowledged at least 4 of the 9 shooting victims were killed by police.  Or that the Waco PD barricaded the local Harley Dealership for several days following the tragedy.  Even though it was over a half mile away from the scene of the shooting.  Little is mentioned of the fact that Waco PD released word for all motorcyclists to stay off the streets in Waco for their own safety.  Because police are "unable to tell between law abiding motorcyclists and those intent on criminality."  Was that really the case, or was it they didn't care to make the differentiation?

From reports that have been released since the shootings.  It is becoming more and more clear that law enforcement in Waco, and McLennon County, paint all motorcyclists with the same broad brush.  It appears that they perceive all motorcyclists as criminals of the lowest kind.  Seeing only their twisted vision of criminality on two wheels.  There is no room for divergence from their paradigm of motorcyclists being criminals and "gang members".  Why else would the City of Waco fight against a subpoena demanding the release of the internal video recordings from Twin Peaks restaurant?  The video does not show the parking lot, or what transpired there.  But it does show individuals inside the restaurant not taking any part in the violence in the parking lot.  The video is reported by Associated Press reporters to show the opposite.  People moving away from the front of the restaurant and taking cover in the bathroom and kitchen.  The very opposite of how Waco PD first described the incident starting.  But, not surprisingly, the main stream media have deemed to play down that fact.

Now the Fox channel in Seattle has broadcast a report on the biggest "biker gang" in the state.  Connecting the Waco tragedy to the Bandidos here in Washington.  With repeated, but vague references to the shootings in Waco, and 9 dead, the report makes it appear all the dead were at the hands of the club members at Twin Peaks.  The report attempts, in the reporters view it appears, to be a balanced report.  Although repeated references to "biker gangs", and relying on the words of a "gang detective" in silhouette to give credence to the threat of the Clubs here in Washington.  Feeding the reporter the same tired old lines about the violence of "biker gangs", and how retribution for Waco will come.  The same fear mongering that led to the denial of Due Process in Waco, is apparent here.

Here is the video report from Fox's Q-13 in Seattle.  Watch it, and decide for yourself if this is further fear mongering, or just a lackadaisical effort of reporting.

Catch ya on the road sometime...

Symbols and Perceptions

Recently there has been a violent reaction by many people as to what the confederate battle flag symbolizes.  Sadly, this has all boiled to the surface after a shooting in a black church by a lunatic who posed in photos with the flag.  Because of those photos, the debate on what the flag symbolizes has focussed not on what the flag symbolized during the Civil War, or what many Americans see it as a symbol of today, but on what the politicians in the 1960's saw the flag as a symbol of.  The maddening head long rush to remove this "symbol of hate" is turning people against each other.  Factionalization is rearing its head on this matter.  Bringing intolerance from both sides, and leaving little in the way of compromise on the issue.  

Political Correctness has seized on the issue of the Confederate battle flag as being evil.  People caving in to peer pressure and attempting to remove the flag from the public eye.  Even to the point of removing a television program because the heroes car has the flag on its roof.  Even though that program was not an evil program, nor were any of the protagonists in it.  It is the symbol that is suddenly so evil it must be removed from society.  The very fact that this is about what that flag 'symbolizes' is divisive.  It means different things to different people.  No one can tell another what a symbol means to them.  Because no one else knows how another person perceives the symbol in their own life, and what their experiences have shaped their own opinions to be.

If one individual places certain symbolism to a thing, that many others cannot agree with, that thing does not suddenly become a hate filled symbol for everyone.  Were that truly the case, then the flag of the United States would have long ago been labeled as an evil symbol.  Groups have over the years draped themselves in the American flag while espousing hatred and racial inequality.  Yet Americans realize that it is only symbolic of such things to those groups and individuals.  But because of the outrage connected to the shooting of the members of a black church by a white racist, emotions are overwhelming logic.

To me, the flag that is stirring up all this debate is actually more than one flag.  The square flag with the red background and the blue "X" with white stars on it is the battle flag of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.  The rectangular flag of similar design is the flag of the Confederate Army of Tennessee.  Some see those two flags especially, as symbols of Americans fighting and dying for causes they believed in.  There were several causes wrapped up into what are commonly called the "Rebel" flags.  Racism was only a small part.  

Today, many people look at those flags as a symbol of resistance to the control of a centralized Federal power over reaching and trampling on the Civil Rights of its citizens.  Others see it as a symbol of having a self-sufficient rural independent lifestyle.  Others still see it as a symbol of defiance against the establishment, and yes there are some who view it as a racist symbol thanks to the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacy groups who have usurped it over the years.  None of these perceptions is wrong.  Just as none of the perceptions of it representing hatred and evil are wrong.  They are personal perceptions of a symbol.  What is wrong is trying to control how others see a symbol.

It is also rather amusing to me, that many of the same people who are so vociferously denouncing the symbol of the "Rebel" flag as a symbol of evil and hatred think nothing of wearing a Chez Rivera t-shirt and calling him an revolutionary worth admiring.  Chez was a communist strong man who had no qualms about imprisoning, or killing, any one he deemed to be 'counter-revolutionary'.  He trampled the Civil Rights of the citizens with total disregard.  Ordered the execution of thousands of his own citizens.  Yet his image is one to be raised up as an example of a admirable person by many of the same people pushing to remove the "Rebel" flag from our society as symbolizing hate and racism.  I wonder how many citizens would approve of their children being taught history by teacher who openly praise and glorify a communist mass killer?  To many, Chez is a symbol of the counter-culture held over from the 1960's.  To many of the liberal left, the 1960's counter-culture is still something to be idealized.  Reusing its symbols in the modern day amongst younger generations who have no idea of the meaning of the symbols from before.  They place their own meaning to those symbols, and have no issue with doing so, as the symbols are held to be their own.  However to even suggest that a symbol can have a different meaning to citizens now than it did in the 1960's will bring contempt and verbal attacks upon ones intelligence, or morality. 

 The double standards of many in this hostile dispute about the symbols of American history simply amazes me.  To suggest the symbols that some do not support or agree with should be removed, such as the "Rebel" flag on the capitol campus in Charleston (even to the point of insisting the flagpole is somehow tainted and must also be removed), only further aids in the dissolution of Civil Rights of the individual.  There was an option to put it to a vote of the citizenry whether to remove the flag from the capitol campus.  Those Democrats so hurriedly trying to remove it strongly opposed the option of letting the citizens voice their opinion on the subject.  The citizens couldn't be trusted to vote the way the politically correct zealots in South Carolina's legislature wanted?  Is that the reason, or was it simply a disregard for anything other than personal feelings of their own?  

Either way, I will continue to fly the "Rebel" flags I own from time to time when I deem it appropriate to do so.  Just as I will continue to keep the Nazi flag my father brought back from World War II.  I do not see it as a symbol of evil, but with the two bayonet slashes across the swaztika I see it as a symbol of freedom defeating an evil regime.  It is all in the perception that makes a symbol a symbol.  Good bad or indifferent.  The more we try to nail the sandals of conformity onto the feet of those who think differently from ourselves, the more we will continue to fracture.  The more we fracture and factionalize the further we move from the nation Dr. King spoke of on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial that morning in Washington DC.

Catch you on the road sometimes...

Questions

There are those who think that if you oppose mandatory helmet laws it means that you are; ignorant, reckless, foolish, or a combination of all three.  But when you introduce facts about the law and the motorcycle helmet standard, many of those same people turn to denigration of your information without really looking at it.  Or try to change the discussion into a personal attack.  Either you attacking their position, or vice versa.

I will offer up a few questions here regarding mandatory helmet laws, and motorcycle helmets.  Think for yourself, do your own research into what I say, then answer for yourself the questions I ask.  If more people start asking the questions, then perhaps more people will come to understand why the majority of states in the US allow riders the choice whether to wear helmets or not.

1.  If motorcycle helmets are the safety panacea many pro-helmet law supporters claim, why is it the number of fatalities have dropped significantly in Michigan since repeal of the mandatory helmet law there in 2012?

2.  As motorcycle helmets "break-in" and begin to better conform more to your head, why do manufacturers suggest they be replaced every 3 to 5 years?

3.  Can law enforcement tell by looking at a motorcycle helmet if it will meet the federal standard?

4.  Why is it laughable to suggest that occupants in automobiles be mandated to wear helmets when studies show significantly more people, both in real numbers and percentages, suffer head injuries during accidents in those types of vehicles?

5.  Why is it that Washington State mandates motorcyclists to wear
helmets that are rated to attenuate an impact of 13.4 mph, but doesn't require bicyclists to wear helmets as well?

6.  Why is it that the "Social Burden" argument is often raised to support mandatory motorcycle helmet use, yet other activities that are repeatedly shown to have much more of a "Social Burden" than motorcycling are condoned (smoking and alcohol use are just two examples)?  

There are more questions to be sure.  These few are enough to make a good start.  This is just skimming the surface, and much more data exists for those who wish to look.  Here is a fact you may find interesting, especially since Washington States helmet use fluctuates between 90 to 100 percentile.  81% of all helmeted motorcycle fatalities die from non-head related injuries.  

Think it over, and decide for yourself where you stand on whether or not individuals should be allowed to make the choice for themselves whether to wear a motorcycle helmet.

Catch you on the road sometime...