He was riding a bright blue crotch-rocket, slowed down to change into the lane behind the police car.<\/p>\n
He wore a white t-shirt, black athletic shorts, tennis shoes, no helmet covering his just-beginning-to-grey hair.<\/p>\n
I winced as I imagined his legs pulpy from road rash, as I thought of his wife grieving because a traumatic brain injury left her husband a man she didn’t recognize.<\/p>\n
I’ve seen the after-effects of motorcycle accidents when the motorcyclist was taking all the precautions. Seeing a biker *not* taking the precautions is excruciating for me.<\/p>\n
I want to say something, wish there were some way to let bikers know what kind of risks they’re taking when they dress so inappropriately. But I fear the backlash.<\/p>\n
“You just want to take away my liberty,” they might say. “It’s a free state.”<\/p>\n
And so it is. There are no laws in Kansas requiring helmets for motorcyclists. Kansas law dictates neither your headwear nor your clothing for riding a motorcycle. You may ride however you wish.<\/p>\n
And I rejoice that the state is not infringing upon your liberties.<\/p>\n
But I truly wish that you would not take your liberty as a license to take risks that can cause you and your family such pain. I wish that you would use your liberty to ride safely and joyfully.<\/p>\n
I don’t want to take away your fun–I want you and your family to enjoy long, productive, healthy lives free from harm. <\/p>\n
That’s why I wince, that’s why I cringe, that why (on emotional days) I tear up when I see you riding bare-headed, bare-armed, bare-legged. Because I want your liberty to produce life<\/i> rather than destruction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
He was riding a bright blue crotch-rocket, slowed down to change into the lane behind the police car. He wore a white t-shirt, black athletic shorts, tennis shoes, no helmet covering his just-beginning-to-grey hair. I winced as I imagined his legs pulpy from road rash, as I thought of his wife grieving because a traumatic … Read more Liberty and License<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11622"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11622"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11642,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11622\/revisions\/11642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}