This is from an online version of a Dover, NH paper.
Here's the news article....
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Motorcyclist killed in Dover
By BRUNO MATARAZZO Jr.
Democrat Staff Writer
bmatarazzo@fosters.com
DOVER — A 32-year-old Lee man died in a motorcycle accident on Main Street early Wednesday evening when he lost control of the bike and crashed into a tree on the sidewalk.
"It was just a horrific thing," said Gilbert Roy of Somersworth, who witnessed the accident.
Witnesses and passers-by watched in horror as firefighters worked desperately to try and save the crash victim, Erin J. Stein.
After putting his neck in a brace and turning him onto his back, firefighters performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on Stein as he lay on the sidewalk and while he was put on a gurney and then into the ambulance.
He was pronounced dead at Wentworth-Douglass Hospital. There were no other injuries in the crash.
Police say Stein, who was not wearing a helmet, lost control of the 1994 Honda motorcycle he was driving while trying to switch lanes just beyond Portland Avenue.
Roy, who was driving behind Stein, said traffic almost came to a stop when Stein went to move from the left lane to an open area in the right while accelerating rapidly.
Stein's motorcycle then fishtailed, lost control and struck a tree. The victim came to rest next to a tree between Portland Avenue and School Street but his motorcycle continued moving forward for another 30 to 40 feet.
Two women went to help Stein until police and firefighters arrived on scene.
In an unrelated incident, police had contact with Stein about three and a half hours prior to the 6:30 p.m. crash after a person had called police about a suspicious person.
Dover Police Capt. Gary DeColfmacker said Stein had pulled off the road and onto a private roadway because he was waiting for a cell phone call from Boston.
A police officer responded to make an assessment and didn't find anything unusual, DeColfmacker said.
Police said alcohol does not appear to be a factor in the crash.
Debris from the crash was scattered along the two lanes of the street, forcing police to close both lanes of the one-way road.
Police shut down the road for hours, diverting traffic onto Portland Avenue, as the Dover Police Department's accident reconstruction team investigated the crash.
This appears to be an editorial published a day later....
Friday, September 23, 2005
Might fatal accident have been avoided with a helmet?
Erin Stein of Lee was not wearing a helmet Wednesday night when he lost control of the motorcycle he was driving and crashed into a tree in downtown Dover Wednesday night. He was 32 years old and now he is dead.
Would a helmet have saved his life, or were his injuries of such a nature that he would have died anyway?
People at the scene did everything they could to make Erin Stein comfortable. Dover firefighters did everything they were trained to do. But it was too late. Stein was pronounced dead at Wentworth-Douglass Hospital.
Stein was a young man when he lost control of his motorcycle on Wednesday. He died on a street where traffic seldom moves in excess of 25-30 miles an hour, even on a midweek evening. No matter. The human body is not made to withstand the kind of trauma of even a low-speed collision with either a fixed or moving object.
There is protective equipment we are urged to use when driving or riding in or on a motor vehicle. Among the items are seat belts in cars and a helmet when operating or riding on a motorcycle. New Hampshire law requires the use of seat belts until the age of 18. After that we're expected to exercise an adult level of good judgment — whatever that might be.
Some motorcycle riders don't like the restrictions they feel when wearing helmets. Some say they lose the feeling of openness otherwise given them while riding their bikes. And it is one of the choices some zealously guard.
But at what price to themselves and their families?
Some children, more aware today of the risk of deadly diseases associated with smoking, plead with their parents and/or siblings to change that part of the way they live their lives. Maybe we can urge them to make similar pleas in the way their parents and siblings operate motor vehicles.
Thursday's reports of the accident allow the reader to infer head injuries being the cause of death — not unusual in such accidents.
Is a failure to wear seat belts or a helmet irresponsible? We're not going to make that call. It's one for each motor vehicle operator to make for his- or herself — at least until it begins to have a substantial material effect on other people.
We mourn for the families whose loved ones might not have died had they accepted the possibility of an extra degree of safety often offered by seat belts or a helmet.
We sometimes hear New Hampshire's bellicose motto "Live Free or Die" used to successfully beat back legislation regulating personal behavior such as the use of seat belts or helmets. Maybe it does apply. How far can or should the state go in hand-holding its residents? At what point do we say we are responsible for our actions as they apply only to ourselves?
At the same time, why not accept the reality with "Live Free or Die" that the choice sometimes provides a corollary — Live Free and Die.
We already know that physical life is finite. We do not understand why some of us insist on narrowing the measure by ignoring some of the road signs?
(The following uncalled for editorial sarcasm added by me...)
Abate of NH issued a statement that they will work for legislation to ban any trees within 100 yard of public roads......
"It's those damn trees, helmets have nothing to do with it!", said Cyrus T. Pudpuller, president of the local 'ABATE' chapter.
"They kill our guys, and the ones that line the streets of little towns deaden the rumble of our bikes. People can't hear us coming! We get killed! On top of that, birds live in them, and they crap on our bikes when we're parked outside of biker bars! They've got to go!"
Why die in a low speed, single vehicle crash?
Topic: Fatal accident/NH (Read 2395 times)