That has been the funniest post I've read to date. I agree 100% with your #2.
Having worked at Harborview ER, I wish the AMA would have used a better study to back it's findings. It's a federally funded ER that pretty much everyone in the greater Seattle area without health insurance uses for their primary care (and obviously some people that have insurance). The motorcyclists I have seen brought into ER's must have generated much more expense in their treatment, judging from the expensive things I saw being done to them. Comparing that statistic with the relatively cheap to treat drunk knows that he/she has to be treated (by law) if they say, "I think I'm going to have a seizure" so that they can have a nice, warm place to sleep, and maybe get some food, is a poor comparison indeed. For one thing, the cost of the motorcyclist is more, yet on the other hand, there are a great many more people making up the 67% of the "general patient population" which is yet another horrible statistic, as Harborview is a TRAUMA center they see more expensive to treat and extensively injured patients than other hospitals, which would be a much better baseline of a "general patient population".
As an interesting side note, one of the most radiologically studied people in the USA lives here, he had over 200 X-Rays of his shoulder in one year because of his chronic dislocation problem. Anyway, shows how screwed up statistics are, and if you look at them closely, they don't add up to a darn thing.
Synthetic. Helmets. Japanese (maybe a HD someday). Red. Non-ABS. Radial. Hetero. PC (a Mac is in the future too). Digital. MP3. etc. etc.
luvmyvfr