I wear a lid for many reasons: I guess, principally, because I would be very quickly nicked and taken to court if I didn’t. I also wear a helmet because I reckon it increases the odds of my surviving intact. Then again, a couple of my lids are quite sexy looking (I think) and I like wearing them. (In my more excitable or reflexive moods, I also get off on the image.) But mostly, these days, I wear a helmet out of habit. It never occurs to me not to.
It only takes a bit of common sense, though, to work out that the government does not force me to wear the damn thing because it is concerned with my welfare or because it wants to nanny me. That’s just plain daft. Governments reason with a calculator, not with their hearts (bleeding for humanity, I don’t think!). So, why should their attitudes to the wearing of lids be any different? They aren’t. Obviously! As far as I can see, government does not misunderstand my need not to be nannied but has its own agendas.
So, really, I reckon that's the wrong question. Legislation which enforces the wearing of helmets may be annoying to some people, but I can’t help thinking it’s pretty trivial in comparison with many other issues facing us. Personal freedom at this level? I can think of more genuine freedoms that are worth fighting for. How big a deal is it - really?
Am I sounding world weary about this? I guess I am. Well that’s how I’m feeling right now.
Hmm! What shall I wear today? Is this a fetish perhaps?
An obsessive need for security? Or just an absent-minded
habit of acquisition.