Got pulled over today

[electr0n]

I had a bit of a scare myself a couple weeks ago. I was only going about 42 kph on a street with a 50 kph speed limit but I had no chain and thus couldn't pedal at the time. On top of that my bike looks peculiar with a 20" rear wheel and 24" up front so it stands out a bit. Anyway I stopped at a red light and realized there was a cop behind me. I got the feeling I was being watched. When the light changed green I went slow like 20 to 25 kph and let the cop go in front of me a bit of a way but I noticed he seemed to be going slow as well. After a bit of time he got out of sight so I continued on my way going slowly and sure enough another block later he made a u-turn to the other side of the road and pulled over to the side, I'm sure to observe my bike more closely as I passed. Nothing more came of it.

Now I've got a big mirror on my bike that's there to check for cops as much as it's there to check for traffic. I've also swapped the wheel setup around to dual 26" so I look a lot more like a normal bike again. I feel far less insecure riding my bike around now. A little stealth goes a long way.

 

[RoadWrinkle]

I wear helmet all the time, but people looks strange and sometimes yelling!

So for the test I took the helmet off for a long period, now people don't look and yelling at me anymore.... :?

But winter is coming so I will wear a helmet again....
Here they think wearing a helmet is stupid and maybe not good looking... :lol:

I guess it depends on the helmet, if manufacturers can get kids on skateboards to not only wear helmets but WANT to wear them because some designs are that cool, same goes for "big kids" on ebikes. On downhill's I can exceed 40MPH on my new build, so I wear a full face BMX helmet that looks pretty cool and I ride safer.

 

[RoadWrinkle]

Hangdog98:

I'm going to be kind, despite you having called me "stupid" and assume that you work for a helmet manufacturer or importer.

Yes you found me out, I am a Helmet importer, our world headquarters is based on this tiny island called "Maui" b/c we thought we would start off small...LOL! :lol: :lol:

 

[MAGICPIE3FOCUSPOWER]

I wear helmet all the time, but people looks strange and sometimes yelling!

So for the test I took the helmet off for a long period, now people don't look and yelling at me anymore.... :?

But winter is coming so I will wear a helmet again....
Here they think wearing a helmet is stupid and maybe not good looking... :lol:

I guess it depends on the helmet, if manufacturers can get kids on skateboards to not only wear helmets but WANT to wear them because some designs are that cool, same goes for "big kids" on ebikes. On downhill's I can exceed 40MPH on my new build, so I wear a full face BMX helmet that looks pretty cool and I ride safer.

Yup I am wearing snowboard helmet Bern Baker EPS white.
It's looking cool to me o well let those people watching and yelling.
I am caring about my brains

 

[cal3thousand]

My 2 cents:

I agree that overall risk and risk in the event of an accident are 2 different things. But they are not mutually exclusive of each other. Point being, that one can reduce their 'risk in the case of an accident' while also reducing the 'overall risk'. It is all a matter of what is inside the helmet at that point.

To reduce overall risk, always ride as if you do not have a helmet on. Whether wearing one or not.

To reduce risk in case of an accident, wear a helmet. (And ride as if you aren't wearing one).



To the comment about cars and peds wearing helmets: Cars are already covered in this fancy stuff called metal. In fact, that metal is designed such as to deform and absorb the energy in an impact, MUCH like a helmet. For pedestrians, we are born with feet and a "helmet" designed to deal with impacts that those feet might get us into. We are NOT born with "helmets" designed to deal with impacts that wheeled vehicles might get us into.

Humans have had a long desire to go faster than we were naturally designed to travel. And with any increase in speed, there should be a comensurate increase in safety measures to protect our soft bodies. Just look at sports to see. The faster the vehicle and the harder the surface, the more a helmet/cage/armor must offer. From basketball and golf that needs no helmets, up to horse racing which uses soft helmets, up to hockey and football which use varying forms of helmets and masks, then up to Formula 1 racing where HANS devices are required.

 

[John in CR]

To reduce overall risk, always ride as if you do not have a helmet on. Whether wearing one or not.

First of all, that's not possible. Second there are a slew of factors that combine to make it so increased helmet use has not resulted in lower fatality and serious head injury. If people want to wear a helmet fine, just don't try to force it on everyone, and definitely don't step in using the cute little sayings typical of helmet preachers or talking about how someone without a helmet is a black mark for all. That crap is uncalled for and whoever is spewing it is getting shot down, because it's incorrect. There's no escaping the simple fact that in normal riding by an average adult that helmets don't improve safety, and if it wasn't true then you can bet your ass that the helmet preachers would proudly wave those statistics. It's not like seat belts in cars for which undeniable stats are readily available to prove the case.

By using what's inside your head regular road cycling can be a very safe activity, so safe for many that discussion of helmets is downright silly. Take the Netherlands for example.

Stop the fear mongering. If you want people to be safe on 2 wheels advocate things that do help. eg Avoid riding at night if at all possible. Have you seen the statistics for cycling fatalities after dusk? It accounts for half of adult cycling fatalities despite the percentage out riding only being a small fraction. Sure alcoholics with revoked licenses is a fair portion, but there's no escaping that it's drastically more dangerous. IOW focus on things that matter and drop the silly helmet campaign.

 

[HAROX]

To reduce overall risk, always ride as if you do not have a helmet on. Whether wearing one or not.

First of all, that's not possible.

Beg to disagree. If cal3000 feels it's possible, it's not only that, but it's entirely probable as well, as sure as there's a helmet worn by every soldier who's serious about slaying the enemy and making it home alive, John.

It's called fact mongering by the way.
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=54268

 

[spisska]

[...] eg Avoid riding at night if at all possible. Have you seen the statistics for cycling fatalities after dusk? It accounts for half of adult cycling fatalities despite the percentage out riding only being a small fraction. Sure alcoholics with revoked licenses is a fair portion, but there's no escaping that it's drastically more dangerous.

So if it's after dusk or later, and/or I've had a few, wearing a helmet would be safer? How dark does it have to be and/or how much alcohol do I or other drivers have to have had before wearing a helmet becomes safer than not wearing one? Do you have a measure in lumens? In blood-alcohol level?

I'm very concerned because I want to make sure I'm *not* wearing a helmet during the times when it's obviously safer not to.

If you don't like a helmet, that's okay. If you want to ride a motorized two-wheel vehicle without a helmet, that's also okay. If you want to do it in the pitch-dark, you have my blessing. Natural selection works in wondrous ways.

If you are arguing that when your head hits concrete with no protection, you are better off than if you had had protection, I have a bridge to sell you. Get in on this deal now because no one else believes it.

If you are arguing that an individual motorist can always be careful enough to avoid a collision, meaning that helmets are redundant, I welcome you to that opinion. And I welcome you to study statistics and to learn the real meaning of words like 'always', and 'never'. I would also invite you to always be careful. Because sure as shit not everyone around is being so careful.

The thing that's really funny is that I've broken two helmets in the middle of the day, with me sober as a judge, and with my bicycle in each case in absolutely peak condition. In fact, both times I was hit, I was stopped. In the more serious one, with worse brakes, I might have needed another foot to stop. Which would have put my vital organs under the right-front tire. As it was, I *did* stop. And even though my front wheel was destroyed, and I was knocked off the bike, and outer shell of my helmet broke, I walked home.

Perhaps if I weren't wearing a helmet, everyone would have been more careful. Perhaps I wouldn't have been hit at all. Perhaps the universe would have seen my wisdom in not protecting myself, and would have changed the asphalt to rubber, if for just the one second I was bouncing off of it.

So yes, it's absolutely true. Wearing a helmet is as bad for you as smoking and you shouldn't do it anymore. How else are you going to get a good night sleep except by bashing yourself on the noggin?

 

[RoadWrinkle]

"John in CR
First of all, that's not possible. Second there are a slew of factors that combine to make it so increased helmet use has not resulted in lower fatality and serious head injury. If people want to wear a helmet fine, just don't try to force it on everyone, and definitely don't step in using the cute little sayings typical of helmet preachers .

What appears to be impossible is getting John in Costa Rica to listen to any kind of sound reasoning when it comes to this topic. When he rants about helmet advocates using "cute little sayings" what he really means is that he cannot refute the logic and common sense arguments in favor of use. Most people can understand helmets reduce your risk of serious head injuries, simply because they protect your head, period. John argues that there is no correlation, but even a five year old can understand that a hard shell on your head will protect it. The point is using helmets affords head protection whether or not the statistical risk of any kind of accident that could lead to a head injury is unrelated to the fact that you are wearing one. roll:

 

[spisska]

Any chance 'John in CR' is really John McAfee? He really does sound that crazy ...

 

[RoadWrinkle]

Any chance 'John in CR' is really John McAfee? He really does sound that crazy ...

Funny comparison, but I believe "McDaffy" was an ex-pat living in Belize when he went off the deep end with drugs, hookers and handguns.

 

[RoadWrinkle]

RoadWrinkle,

Save your idiotic comments about helmets for elsewhere. There's not a shread of evidence that helmets increase overall safety. The primary reason (among others) is because of risk compensation. ie Your brain feels safer in a helmet, so you ride differently. It's no different that you naturally walk more carefully along a path with a sheer cliff than you do on a park sidewalk. The results of riding more dangerously or with less care have shown up here on the forum time after time with the most serious accidents happening to helmet worshipers.

Of course it makes sense to wear helmets for certain types of cycling where going down is so common place that it's part of the sport, and people know enough to make that choice without a mandate.

Your comment about someone not wearing a helmet being a bad thing for ebiking couldn't be further from the truth. In fact, it's you helmet worshipers who are bad for cycling in general, because it has lead to the perception that cycling is a dangerous activity. You don't worry about people walking on sidewalks wearing helmets, yet that's a more dangerous activity. I wouldn't doubt that you even wear a common cycling helmet, which is in direct contradiction to the fact that the majority of serious cycling head injuries are injuries to the face, not the top of the head which is about the only place where bike helmets are reasonably effective.

The overall safety ends up about the same, so if people what to wear helmets that should be their choice. Laws mandating helmets are the wrong way to go though, so keep the cute helmet worshiper comments that are borne of ignorance of actual facts and statistics to yourself. Helmets discourage cycling, and that's contrary to overall public health and safety.

John

None of this changes the fact that helmets protect heads. Why not just assume you may take a spill on a ride (like MTBer's or racers do) and protect your noggin accordingly.

 

[John in CR]

To the extent helmets protect heads they also result in more crashes. Otherwise there would be demonstrable decreases in fatality and serious head injury statistics to correspond with the increase use of helmets, but there aren't. People are getting hurt and killed at the same rates as they did back in the 70's when almost no one wore a helmet. Those are average though, so some people are better off with helmets, and it goes without saying that some cycling activities warrant a helmet, but people already make those choices without a mandate. Go do your own research. I've done my own and I'm not going to fall for the fear mongering. Here's just a taste to shut up you helmet worshippers http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/h...ets-should-not-be-compulsory-say-doctors.html , where the British Medical Journal came out against mandatory helmet laws for reasons such as "nowhere with a helmet law can show any reduction in risk to cyclists, only a reduction in cyclists" and
"It gives out the message that cycling is dangerous, which it is not. The evidence that cycling helmets work to reduce injury is not conclusive" and
"What has, however, been shown is that laws that make wearing helmets compulsory decrease cycling activity. Cycling is a healthy activity and cyclists live longer on average than non-cyclists."

Go sell fear somewhere else. Cycling is no more dangerous per mile than walking on the sidewalk. Imagine the kind of idiots you would be painted as if you went around telling people who walk that they need to wear a helmet and if they don't it reflects badly on all those who walk. :lol:

John

 

[HAROX]

Imagine the kind of idiots you would be painted as if you went around telling people who walk that they need to wear a helmet and if they don't it reflects badly on all those who walk. :lol: John

Howz that? Idiot-mongering now, John? Imagine there's no heaven, it's easy if you try...
A good friend of mine crashed. It took fifteen years for him to die from his brain injury. He didn't make the statistical breakdown. He got up, dusted himself off, and slowly deteriorated. He made it to fifty, and died from a complicated mess, which was 'brain oriented'. The dude could tear a Volkswagen engine down in the morning and have it back together by dinnertime. He was a genius. He didn't need a helmet.
When I ride in the snow, I wear a helmet. When I ride at night, the same. In the dicey stuff, mud, gravel, a helmet. All the rest of the time, a baseball cap, at 8 mph, not 80 mph. And I ride a lot in snow and at night.
You all can believe what you want about statistics, or the consumer index, or any other analysis. I knew a guy who didn't want a helmet and hit his head. It's okay. It's a free choice. Philosophize, moralize, it will make no diff. John doesn't need to change your mind. I don't need to change his.
But it's fun to bring it up, just to see if he's still being the bad mad genius. John's fun to piss off. He writes better.

 

[AussieJester]

Cycling is no more dangerous per mile than walking on the sidewalk.

Come now John, you haven't cycled in years, you doing 160km/hr on home brewed electric bike... some would call an unlicenced motorcycle with faux pedals!

Should we not be looking at the benefit of a helmets for motorcycle riders such as yourself? not bicyclists which as far as i know not many on this site are, with the exception of your buddy Chalo this iste is for those with motors on bicycles, travelling often at far greater speeds than a cyclist you are getting your helmet statistics from...jm2cw ::gets chips and sits back::

KiM

 

[RoadWrinkle]

Mods cleared the user profile changes...was not an Ipad issue....

 

[Lebowski]

cool hacking John !

didn't know stuff like that was possible

 

[mark5]

Beware fellow ESer's I believe "John in CR" hacked my ES account after our heated exchange re helmets in this thread. After we also exchanged some nasty(on his part) PM's, he added the avatar displayed and the symbol as well as changing the "rolling eyes" smilie I used in my previous post here to what apparently is his picture as shown here:


My smilies panel now shows this pic: as the rolling eyes smilie symbol.

I Cannot change the avatar and it does not show up in my user control profile/edit avatar field. Though it does show up in my user profile.

These described hacks are not visible on my two PC's but when I pull up my account with my IPAD they are. Could any Apple users PM me and describe the avatar you see for my account?

On an iPad I see nothing at all where your avatar would be, same as with a PC.

How did you get to the conclusion that a long-time, well-respected E-S member would hack your account because of a disagreement.

If your iPad browser is giving you problems you can try closing the app:

How to Close an iPad App
http://ipad.about.com/od/iPad_Guide/ss/How-To-Close-An-iPad-App.htm

 

[full-throttle]

Yeah, ipad does that time to time.. Stupid apple
I really don't think John had anything to do with it

Oh and lids ain't bad! Mkay

 

[Hangdog98]

The relative safety or non-safety of bicycle helmets is an entirely different issue to that of compulsory use.
If you want to wear one, good for you. Buy one and wear it. If you want to wear a helmet whilst showering or Nordic walking, good for you, I don't care. Wear a diaper to the movies if you want, I don't care.

BUT, to advocate that others should be forced to wear helmets is bordering on mental illness (much like the paranoia of account hackers). Get help dude, seriously.

 

[hjns]

Just my 0.02 here.

Here in Switzerland, helmet regulations for ebikes are now the following:

• motor assisted topspeed <= 25kmh and maximum power <500W - no helmet needed
• motor assisted topspeed > 25kmh and <= 45kmh and maximum power <500W - bicycle helmet needed + moped insurance
• motor assisted topspeed > 25kmh and <= 45kmh and maximum power >= 500W and <1000W - moped helmet needed + moped insurance
• motor assisted topspeed > 45kmh and/or maximum power >1000W - motorbike helmet needed + complete license for a motorbike

So, to me, it actually makes sense. Speed is an important risk factor, therefore, the obligation to wear a helmet is linked to the maximum speed of the vehicle.

 

[John in CR]

cool hacking John !

didn't know stuff like that was possible

I don't have a clue what that quack stalker helmet religion fanatic is talking about, but he's way out there if he thinks I can hack anything beyond some metal or wood. Hell, I don't even have a smart phone or laptop.

 

[gogo]

A bicycle helmet's main function is as an abrasion protection device, and secondly, if the abrasive surface is pointy enough, it spreads the force. If you smack your head into soft turf, wearing a helmet could be worse than not if it 'catches' and twists your neck.

Helmets marginally protect from concussion. When you smack your brain against the inside of your skull, its bad. If wearing a helmet causes more speed and risk taking, and therefore increased and more severe head smacks, they are a net negative in that regard.

I live in Iowa where the 'lobby' prevailed momentarily to get helmet laws passed, but now we don't have any helmet or eye protection laws. Arizona has a mandatory eye protection (if no windshield) law. The windshield exception is a seriously flawed, but it makes the ignorant feel better.

People (cops) get stupid about laws. While stopped in Arizona traffic, I flipped the shield on my full-face helmet partially open and got a visual reminder from the motorcycle cop next to me that it should be closed (to qualify as eye protection?). If I would have tilted my head slightly it would have qualified, technically, as a windshield. The main reality of this situation was that its a common practice to flip the shield up slightly while stopped and then flip it shut once moving. Keeping it shut is less safe (too hot and you can hear more while stopped).

The more unneeded laws we have, the more bullchip you get from unthinking power-trippers under the color of authority. Having experienced both, I vote for Liberty.

As for the 'value to society' of reduced financial liability, that is an argument against socialism, not for more laws. I don't need more stinking laws. 8)

An interesting facet of helmet use in Arizona that I was aware of when I lived there:

ARIZONA'S SECRET HELMET LAW*
Since 1988 Arizona has had a helmet law, which affects every motorcyclist in the state. The result of not wearing a helmet in Arizona can be far more disastrous than a traffic ticket.
In Arizona if your head is injured in an accident and it can be proven that a helmet would probably have reduced or prevented the injury you may be prevented from receiving any money from the other driver even though he caused the accident.
This law is not in any statute but was a court decision. It has not been widely reported in the papers and few motorcyclists are aware that not wearing a helmet may result in their not being able to collect any money for serious head injury.
As a former judge and trial lawyer I have seen motorcyclists with horrible brain damage who are unable to get the money they need for their medical bills and family because they didn't wear a helmet.
It is common knowledge that juries do not like motorcyclists who don't wear helmets and punish bikers by giving them less money for injuries even though the injuries were to their legs or arms and a helmet wouldn't have made any difference.
This is obviously unfair but it is a fact. Your decision to not wear a helmet may prevent you from getting money from the other driver's insurance on your insurance. …

You get the bullchip with or without the unneeded laws.

Cops should not be initiating contact with citizens for trivial crap that poses no immediate danger to the public. No registration should only be ticketed incidental to a legitimate contact. We have become far too tolerant of 'fishing' by police.

 

[John in CR]

The more unneeded laws we have, the more bullchip you get from unthinking power-trippers under the color of authority. Having experienced both, I vote for Liberty...........

Cops should not be initiating contact with citizens for trivial crap that poses no immediate danger to the public. No registration should only be ticketed incidental to a legitimate contact. We have become far too tolerant of 'fishing' by police.

+1 though I'm as bad as anyone else about tolerating their "fishing", since I try to skate thru any encounter as quickly and smoothly as possible allowing my rights to be trampled a bit.

 

[RoadWrinkle]

The relative safety or non-safety of bicycle helmets is an entirely different issue to that of complusory use.
If you want to wear one, good for you. Buy one and wear it. If you want to wear a helmet whilst showering or Nordic walking, good for you, I don't care. Wear a diaper to the movies if you want, I don't care.

BUT, to advocate that others should be forced to wear helmets is bordering on mental illness (much like the paranoia of account hackers). Get help dude, seriously.

This is not paranoia, check it out for yourself:I did not add this avatar and it appeared right after we exchanged some nasty PM's. Note the "twisted evil" smilie in the upper right corner...clearly this is a malicious hack.


Here is the pic that appears in place of the "rolling eyes" smilie on my user panel:


too much of a coincidence, first the argument with him, then these show up the next day...