@aaron, i would have to disagree. if you suffer a TBI you’ve then signed your family and immediate others into a lifetime of care. this is not fun and i wish this on no one! i do think that wearing a helmet should be your right and not a law… this comes from someone who’s been skateboarding for 30 years and chose to wear a helmet very infrequently. primarily when i was skating “bigger stuff.” now, when i go to the skatepark, i make every effort to wear a helmet, especially when i force myself to wear a helmet every time i get on a bike. @scott, i had a couple stingray’s that we definitely weren’t wearing helmets, for that matter, shoes were optional most of the time. interestingly though, just this morning i saw this guy blasting through the highway doing about 90 on his motorcycle with his helmet attached to his seat. i was wondering what went through his head to decide that he’s not going to wear his helmet today? maybe because it was a beautiful sunny day? i don’t know. what struck me was the outcome of his reckless driving ‘could’ be serious. then i thought about how the guy might crash and his helmet “saves” his life and brain but he’s paralyzed for life; maybe he’d been better off not wearing a helmet in that case?! i regress… for me, i owe it to my family to wear one. to each their own.