Being Safe

The other night in Northeast Minneapolis, two young men rode their bicycles down the darkened street. They rode side-by-side like jockeys in a steeplechase, occupying most of the road, talking loudly as they made their way toward wherever they needed to be at 10 in the evening. They rode without helmets. They were, in their own minds, pretty damn badass.

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You can see the same attitude everywhere you look, almost always exhibited by males aged 14-24. Crossing the street against traffic, not really bothering to look, assuming that polite, observant and socially inferior drivers will avoid mowing them down out of respect — and fear. Riding bikes at night without helmets or reflectors, weaving through traffic with nary a care. And (here we broaden the age range of likely offenders out to 18-60) riding down the highway on a motorcycle at 80 miles an hour wearing a T-shirt, jeans and a free wild mane of hair.

Now, it's common knowledge that reckless movement through traffic minus a helmet often = brain injuries or death. It's explicitly stated by The Man all over the place. More importantly, it's intuitive. Despite this, scads of mostly male people act like jackasses on a daily basis.

Everybody knows it's cool to defy death; at least some of the calculus must be: "I'm moving at high speeds! Without adequate protection! I survived! Yes! Me = cool! Me... = cool."

The nuance that gets lost in this line of thinking is this: It's cool to defy death when you achieve something concrete. Preferably something that benefits lots of people. Thus: unless there's a really, really big wager at stake, playing Russian roulette is only cool in a very limited, nihilistic way; it's mostly just colossally dumb. And on the flip side: Luke Skywalker surviving the Death Star trench in order to fire a proton torpedo into the small thermal exhaust port right below the main port is cool. Indiana Jones defying the death-dealing Thugee cult in order to rescue child slaves is cool. And US troops liberating Europe from Nazi domination is cool.

Biking down 13th Ave. at 10 p.m. without a helmet is not cool.

It is GOT-damn stupid. And who pays the price when a car pops out of a driveway, or jumps a light, or plain old doesn't see your very cool but poorly reflected and non-helmeted badass self? Insurance companies. Relatives — but mostly mom and dad. And, assuming you survive, Mr. Possibly Brain Damaged For Life Non-Helmet Wearing Douchetard, you, because you get to be a bedridden incontinent semi-vegetable.

And that's about as cool as Kevin Federline wearing beige sweatpants.

Being safe, however, is insanely cool.

Or, actually, let's rein this in. It's not uncool at all. It's as cool as walking on the sidewalk, wearing a seat belt, or wearing a 'chute when you leap from an airborne plane. It's un-stupid.

This begs the question: Will the young people ever learn? Almost certainly not. Undoubtedly in Roman times, the badass sons of senators rode around in chariots going dozens of miles per hour without any sort of protection, smacking each other with horsewhips and scroll-cases, and generally acting like jackasses. With, of course, sometimes fatal consequences.

And when we're finally riding the hoverbikes we've been promised by the Jetsons, there will be some percentage of punks who won't bother donning their astrohelmets or whatever they'll be called.

We can cut the numbers down, though. We can log onto the Internets and say sternly: "Damn you, you damn kids with your reckless ways! You are endangering yourselves! And let's not forget your poor family!"

On second thought, speaking out can only make the situation worse. This may be something Darwinian evolution will have to work out by itself — presuming that global climate change hasn't wiped us out first. In the meantime, those of us cool enough to wear head protection get to relish the opportunity to die of other, less preventible causes.

Like, uh, cancer. And Alzheimer's.

Sweet.

— James Norton (jrnorton@flakmag.com)

— graphic by Aaron Lane