Use your noggin...
or pay the price.
I
by Roger Moroney
n 1971 I took my motorcycle licence test...
and I think I was helmetless. Because I
was certainly helmetless when I bought
the CB100 that year to get me to work
and back, although to their credit the
lads at the shop pretty well insisted I get
one, which dad was happy to pay for as
I’d exhausted my savings on the deposit.
But I didn’t have to wear it because
it was not a legal requirement to do so.
It wasn’t until 1973 that it became
compulsory for riders and passengers
to wear a safety helmet.
I can remember seeing pictures of early traffic
department motorcycle-borne officers riding in
their finest uniforms, with boots and gloves of
course, and their very flash peak hats with the
traffic department emblem stitched to the front.
One of the guys where I worked had a Kawasaki
350... the twin version which came under the
branding of A7 Avenger. It could move...really
move. And he’d scream off on the thing after
work, helmetless, while I effectively putt-putted
away in my direction home, helmetless. He let me
take it for a bit of a squirt one ‘smoko’ time and
I was hooked on the horsepower of the thing.
And yep, I did the squirt helmetless.
That taste of extra tow led me to replace
the 100 with a 350 about a year later,
although I went down the CB350 path as I’d
developed an equal liking for four-strokes.
I changed jobs for one in town closer to
home and occasionally wore the helmet, but
on warm and bright days often just left it
sitting on the shelf by my bedroom door.
Crazy, but hey, that’s the way it was,
although I can only sit here now and
ponder that had the introduction of the
helmet legislation been staged in 1968 one
of the kids in the six form of the school I
attended and who had a motorcycle would
72 KIWI RIDER
It’s all fun, freedom and
wind in your hair until it’s
not. This happened to the
editor’s mate ‘just’ riding
his bike 100m back to his
van at a bike show.
The two photos show
post-accident damage and
post-titanium plate inser-
tion. Wear your helmet.
Photos: Sam Matthewman