Helmets Part 1,489,348 - To Wear Or Not To Wear
- Thread starter knoxie
- Start date
Reid Welch
1 MW
Rather colored, all these anti-helmet screeds.
We will "prove" what we want to believe; this is human nature.
I will wear my BMX helmet because it's clearly more helmet than the absurd "hair net" helmets worn by roadies.
It already saved my scalp from a terrible gash; that metal awning described in a prior report gave my head a wake-up knock.
Had I not had the helmet on I would been partially scalped---and would've spent thousands of dollars in the local ER room,
where even a tetanus shot cost $800 to any uninsured person who is not an indigent.
And too, my brother's motorcycle crash: no head injury.
His Bell helmet (fiberglass shell, styrofoam liner)--took the hit.
---
Helmets work to help save heads.
I can't -feel- my helmet when its on.
It's light enough, even though it's a BMX model,
and it does not make my "head twice as big",
nor does it cause me to have a "false sense of security".
Such bullshit as I read at that page linked above I've never seen before.
It's just nonsense to say helmets cause crashes or to imply that they can in any way worsen the results of an impact.
Ah. I've got mine. frock everyone else. Just don't give them medical treatment on my bill--I don't want to pay for their freedom to go green
as artichokes.
We will "prove" what we want to believe; this is human nature.
I will wear my BMX helmet because it's clearly more helmet than the absurd "hair net" helmets worn by roadies.
It already saved my scalp from a terrible gash; that metal awning described in a prior report gave my head a wake-up knock.
Had I not had the helmet on I would been partially scalped---and would've spent thousands of dollars in the local ER room,
where even a tetanus shot cost $800 to any uninsured person who is not an indigent.
And too, my brother's motorcycle crash: no head injury.
His Bell helmet (fiberglass shell, styrofoam liner)--took the hit.
---
Helmets work to help save heads.
I can't -feel- my helmet when its on.
It's light enough, even though it's a BMX model,
and it does not make my "head twice as big",
nor does it cause me to have a "false sense of security".
Such bullshit as I read at that page linked above I've never seen before.
It's just nonsense to say helmets cause crashes or to imply that they can in any way worsen the results of an impact.
Ah. I've got mine. frock everyone else. Just don't give them medical treatment on my bill--I don't want to pay for their freedom to go green
as artichokes.
TylerDurden
100 GW
You dont' have to be a researcher to lie...
...but it helps.
8)
...but it helps.
8)
Matt Gruber
1 MW
my bike path is NOT connected to the street, except at each end.
i take it this is very unusual.
there is a grass medium about 10' wide. it is nearly private. no cars.
i take it this is very unusual.
there is a grass medium about 10' wide. it is nearly private. no cars.
Reid Welch
1 MW
I forgot to thank you for your link, Miles.
Thanks!
Tylerrrrrr :lol:
news item:
Yes, helmets do save lives
Thanks!
Tylerrrrrr :lol:
news item:
Yes, helmets do save lives
TylerDurden
100 GW
On the same page as the Raiders helmet story...
http://www.raidersonline.org/blog/2006/06/super-bowl-qb-in-motorcycle-crash.html
"According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Roethlisberger flew into the Chrysler's windshield and then hit the ground head first. Blood pooled around him on the pavement..."
http://www.raidersonline.org/blog/2006/06/super-bowl-qb-in-motorcycle-crash.html
"According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Roethlisberger flew into the Chrysler's windshield and then hit the ground head first. Blood pooled around him on the pavement..."
Reid Welch
1 MW
________________
Reid Welch
1 MW
Hairnet helmet designers can be such 
whores.
This extreme example illustrates why it's pro bono to have some governmental restraints
against garbage pimped on the market as gold.
Trek is a firm run by either fools or mendacious liars.
Only fools or mendacious liars would promote such ---- in the first place
whores.This extreme example illustrates why it's pro bono to have some governmental restraints
against garbage pimped on the market as gold.
Trek is a firm run by either fools or mendacious liars.
Only fools or mendacious liars would promote such ---- in the first place
Reid Welch
1 MW
TylerDurden said:On the same page as the Raiders helmet story...
http://www.raidersonline.org/blog/2006/06/super-bowl-qb-in-motorcycle-crash.html
"According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Roethlisberger flew into the Chrysler's windshield and then hit the ground head first. Blood pooled around him on the pavement..."
Similar scenario as my brother's accident. He was going 40mph.
He broke only his leg. His leg bent the corner post of a chain link fence many feet away from the impact.
For the next twenty years I'd see that post every time I drove LeJeune Road. They finally redeveloped the property.
Two inch galvanized pipe.
Ken had a helmet--and it was fiberglass and styrofoam,
He had spray painted the thing dayglow green
and I recall what it looked like after the crash
these thirty seven years later. It was mashed in one quadrant.
He would've been dead on the scene without that old Bell helmet.
Very little has changed in the basics:
A shell of either ABS (more common today)
or fiberglass mat and resin (universal then, and still today; it's better in energy-absorbing crush)
with styrofoam or other non-resilient foam inside to take a one-time crush-set.
Permanently deformable foams are best by accounts I have read
and by the brother I still have.
xyster
10 MW
You seem to be arguing, Reid, that lack of a helmet law presents an impedance to you and your loved ones wearing a helmet. I see little or no question in this thread's arguments that helmets have, and will continue to, save the lives of many helmet wearers. The questions, two global, one personal, seem to be:
1) Where helmet laws are in effect, is there a net decrease in bicycling as an alternative form of transportation; and hence a net negative over the long term when ancillary effects such as pollution and the health benefits of regular exercise are also considered?
2)How far along the path to totalitarian nanny-state do we wish to trek? And at what monetary and spiritual cost? After all, enacting and enforcing law costs money too....
3) By what right do you, a helmet-law advocate, presume to tell me, a generally law-abiding, self-governing competent adult, I must wear a helmet when I have demonstrated I'm perfectly capable of weighing the risks myself -- 90+% of the time wearing a helmet by choice? Because it costs you more in insurance or taxes if, on some occasion I'm not wearing a helmet, I become an invalid?
Why shouldn't I reply by advocating a law restricting your choice of batteries, preventing you from legally deploying those lithium polymer batteries you just bought because of their substantially higher risk of uncontrolled combustion compared to the lead batteries you've been using (of course there'd be a grandfather clause for those of us already using lithium :wink: )?
After all, if you burn down your garage, my homeowner's insurance rates might rise.
1) Where helmet laws are in effect, is there a net decrease in bicycling as an alternative form of transportation; and hence a net negative over the long term when ancillary effects such as pollution and the health benefits of regular exercise are also considered?
2)How far along the path to totalitarian nanny-state do we wish to trek? And at what monetary and spiritual cost? After all, enacting and enforcing law costs money too....
3) By what right do you, a helmet-law advocate, presume to tell me, a generally law-abiding, self-governing competent adult, I must wear a helmet when I have demonstrated I'm perfectly capable of weighing the risks myself -- 90+% of the time wearing a helmet by choice? Because it costs you more in insurance or taxes if, on some occasion I'm not wearing a helmet, I become an invalid?
Why shouldn't I reply by advocating a law restricting your choice of batteries, preventing you from legally deploying those lithium polymer batteries you just bought because of their substantially higher risk of uncontrolled combustion compared to the lead batteries you've been using (of course there'd be a grandfather clause for those of us already using lithium :wink: )?
After all, if you burn down your garage, my homeowner's insurance rates might rise.
Reid Welch
1 MW
Xyster, I don't care to be paying for life support for adults who by free will
prefer to ride without a helmet, crash, and do not conveniently and promptly die.
How about children under the age of 16? Are they mentally equipped to make the decision to fail to wear a helmet,
OR is a mandatory helmet law fitting, fair and right for children ( I say it is).
And if you recall, I advocate all adults sign a crudely Orwellian
"I don't want to wear a helmet" waiver releasing society from all responsibility to pay for their long-term care.
That means places where like here in Florida/USA there is no universal health care.
That is, if you go helmetless and crash but don't die, the inconvenience and cost of being a disabled person or a vegetable
are all yours to enjoy
I believe some responsibility is in order.
I believe we can't have it all ways.
On this latter point you and I are in agreement.
No need to make absurd extensions of logic. Maybe read the BMA report and its citations on the previous page.
Those physicians are no less sensitive as a group than you are.
Yet they turned track and decided to advocate for mandatory helmeting;
to save people from themselves---or is it to save the UK's health system from
needless burdens---or is to save the physicians from seeing
so many brains in pulp reality?
PS: Do you advocate voluntary use of seat belts in cars too?
On what grounds? Is it better to be 'thrown clear' in a wreck?
Almost every bike accident is a 'thrown clear' incident.
prefer to ride without a helmet, crash, and do not conveniently and promptly die.
How about children under the age of 16? Are they mentally equipped to make the decision to fail to wear a helmet,
OR is a mandatory helmet law fitting, fair and right for children ( I say it is).
And if you recall, I advocate all adults sign a crudely Orwellian
"I don't want to wear a helmet" waiver releasing society from all responsibility to pay for their long-term care.
That means places where like here in Florida/USA there is no universal health care.
That is, if you go helmetless and crash but don't die, the inconvenience and cost of being a disabled person or a vegetable
are all yours to enjoy
I believe some responsibility is in order.
I believe we can't have it all ways.
On this latter point you and I are in agreement.
No need to make absurd extensions of logic. Maybe read the BMA report and its citations on the previous page.
Those physicians are no less sensitive as a group than you are.
Yet they turned track and decided to advocate for mandatory helmeting;
to save people from themselves---or is it to save the UK's health system from
needless burdens---or is to save the physicians from seeing
so many brains in pulp reality?
PS: Do you advocate voluntary use of seat belts in cars too?
On what grounds? Is it better to be 'thrown clear' in a wreck?
Almost every bike accident is a 'thrown clear' incident.
xyster
10 MW
Does it matter if they paid via their insurance? Isn't that what pooled risk is about? Or is your monetary argument reserved for the legions of uninsured?
I agree with a helmet law for children under 16. The great majority of children of that age and less are not yet experienced enough to weigh the risks adequately (I certainly wasn't). Though most parents are, kids out and about can't (yet) be watched 100% of time, and I hope, so that they can become self-governing adults, they never are. A warning and/or ticket from a police officer in such cases I think is a reasonable "reminder".
By "society" do you also include private insurers?
And such is the nature of freedom .... had people been as risk adverse as many are today, we'd never have explored the oceans, space, or for that matter have come down from the trees.
Indeed we are.
Honestly, the lithium battery extension was not absurd in my mind. You read all the reports at RCgroups.com of damaging fires, even a garage or two burning down. We're taking a calculated risk with our lithiums greater than we need to since we already have safer chemistries at hand. Why? Freedom to experiment, to try for something better, to ride longer and farther...I agree a helmet doesn't unduly restrict freedom to ride as one wishes the way heavy SLAs do. The extension has to do with the personal choice to take an unnecessary risk, whether it's a helmet or using lithium batteries.
Like so many other well-meaning government attempts to save people from themselves -- drug and alcohol prohibition comes to mind -- the end result is in diametric opposition to the lawmaker's intention.
It's certainly not that - physicians love seeing brains; few like seeing people die.
xyster
10 MW
PS: Do you advocate voluntary use of seat belts in cars too?
For competent adults, yes.
Personal freedom; rolling back of the nanny-state; acknowledgment laws regulating behaviors often have unintended consequences, sometimes so severe as to effect the opposite of what the lawmakers intended. Also, I prefer to see people's personal risk assessment abilities honed rather than overridden. We risk devolving ourselves over generations of behavior hyper-regulation.
You're certainly not going to succeed in persuading me differently by attempting to gross me out
I went to medical school (MD program); withdrew during my third year. I've worked in an ER, dissected human cadavers, and trained as an EMT.
For competent adults, yes.
Personal freedom; rolling back of the nanny-state; acknowledgment laws regulating behaviors often have unintended consequences, sometimes so severe as to effect the opposite of what the lawmakers intended. Also, I prefer to see people's personal risk assessment abilities honed rather than overridden. We risk devolving ourselves over generations of behavior hyper-regulation.
Sometimes. Seatbelts also kill by lacerating the liver. But on the whole, the evidence is clear we're much better off wearing them not. I wear a seatbelt, always.
You're certainly not going to succeed in persuading me differently by attempting to gross me out
I went to medical school (MD program); withdrew during my third year. I've worked in an ER, dissected human cadavers, and trained as an EMT.
Reid Welch
1 MW
I can't even stand to dismember fried chicken
Anyway, you live in survivalists' country.
I live in the belly of the beast.
You'd make a good (edit) mortician.
I'd make good flower arrangements
for funerals.
Anyway, you live in survivalists' country.
I live in the belly of the beast.
You'd make a good (edit) mortician.
I'd make good flower arrangements
for funerals.
xyster
10 MW
Without their skin, humans and chicken look basically the same. I still have flecks of innards and the smell of embalming fluid stuck between the pages of my Grant's Dissector
There's just no avoiding the mess coming home to roost with you http://www.amazon.com/Grants-Dissector-Eberhardt-K-Sauerland/dp/0683307398
Reid Welch said:
So what are you kicking about? If Fla has no universal health care, doesn't that blow your only argument? There's no need to sign an Orwellian piece of paper cuz your not paying for someone else's stupidity anyway.
A guy I once worked with drove a scooter to work & asked to opt out of the universal health care here in Canada because he didn't want to wear the helmet. They don't let you opt out. Went so far as not paying the premiums & they came after him with collection agents & threats of legal action. Think he held out for about a year.
So the signed piece of paper thing is a non-argument, they're not gonna let you waive anything. Once the devil (government) in the guise of a nanny gets their foot in the door (or as I perceive it, crawls up yer a$$) they're embedded & you can't get them out. When was the last time the government rescinded any laws to give up control?
When are ya gonna order yer Newt-Suit?
Should work well to protect you when riding with yer new lithium pack!
Like the slogan on the 'Strawberry-Shortcake Home Pregnancy Test Kit' sez:
"It's nice to be sure"
Reid Welch
1 MW
Who's paying for indigent care? --the taxpayers, guy.
It's very expensive to insure for health here---I cannot afford it myself.
Yes, the legions of uninsureds include myself.
I could become part of the "problem" (burden) if I get seriously ill but don't die.
So--hope I make a clean break of it, feh.
I will at least wear the stupid helmet.
----
xyster
10 MW
Particularly poor judgment of the imminent risk assessment sort costs expensive car:
http://tinyurl.com/yo9w9d
<p align="justify"><img src="http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/03_02/splashnav02_468x300.jpg" align="right"><i>This is what happened to a driver who put her faith in her satellite navigation system – she ended up in deep water. The £96,000 Mercedes sports car was swept away in a swollen river and the motorist had to be rescued as it sank....
Although the track is signposted as unsuitable for motor vehicles', the driver carried on and found herself at a ford in the village of Sheepy Magna.
Still accepting what the satnav told her, she set out to cross the ford, but it was swollen after days of heavy rain.
The Mercedes SL500 was swept 600 yards downstream, bouncing fromone bank of the River Sense to the other as the woman, in her late 20s and from London, frantically tried to escape."</i></p><br clear="all">
If only there had been a law....
http://tinyurl.com/yo9w9d
<p align="justify"><img src="http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/03_02/splashnav02_468x300.jpg" align="right"><i>This is what happened to a driver who put her faith in her satellite navigation system – she ended up in deep water. The £96,000 Mercedes sports car was swept away in a swollen river and the motorist had to be rescued as it sank....
Although the track is signposted as unsuitable for motor vehicles', the driver carried on and found herself at a ford in the village of Sheepy Magna.
Still accepting what the satnav told her, she set out to cross the ford, but it was swollen after days of heavy rain.
The Mercedes SL500 was swept 600 yards downstream, bouncing fromone bank of the River Sense to the other as the woman, in her late 20s and from London, frantically tried to escape."</i></p><br clear="all">
If only there had been a law....
Reid Welch said:
Oh dear dear...
See, no one else has called a helmet stupid.
At the risk of repeating myself, it's having a law about it, that's stoopid. AFAIK there's no law requiring cars to come equipped with doors, yet you don't see people stripping them off as soon as they get the car home from the dealership.
Nobody has a problem with laws that govern someone's actions when those actions impact on someone else, ie. there is a contention like in theft or murder.
The consequences of not wearing a helmet only affect yourself, that much is plain.
So the nannys attempt to leverage a rationale in order to get around that simple fact. This necessarily gives rise to the brother's keeper argument:
That because we live together in a society there is a monetary impact on every one else in society, & therefore we simply claim the right to tell you what to do.If you applied that to the broad spectrum of human activity, then nobody would be allowed to do much of anything, ever, anywhere that involved the slightest amount of risk. I believe that the risk assessment is best left up to the one that will pay the larger price with his own well being & not society at large which is only monetarily affected.
TylerDurden
100 GW
Again with the irrational extremes.
Come up with any good reason why a helmet law is bad.
Come up with any good reason why a seatbelt law is bad.
Come up with any good reason why a speed law is bad.
Bullshit extremes are simply childish paranoia.
Here's your REAL slippery-slope:
Cars were more dangerous before safety belt laws.
People refused to wear them for trivial reasons.
Airbags were developed. People were killed in the process, but they work better now (for average adults, but not kids).
You pay about $2,000 more for your car because it has airbags.
Multiply that $2,000 times all the cars sold in N. America.
(Try getting one disabled, even if you meet the criteria.)
Come up with any good reason why a helmet law is bad.
Come up with any good reason why a seatbelt law is bad.
Come up with any good reason why a speed law is bad.
Bullshit extremes are simply childish paranoia.
Here's your REAL slippery-slope:
Cars were more dangerous before safety belt laws.
People refused to wear them for trivial reasons.
Airbags were developed. People were killed in the process, but they work better now (for average adults, but not kids).
You pay about $2,000 more for your car because it has airbags.
Multiply that $2,000 times all the cars sold in N. America.
(Try getting one disabled, even if you meet the criteria.)
Reid Welch
1 MW
Toorbough ULL-Zeveigh said:
:lol:
Oh, well, here we are. It is plainly sure:
The Thread just found this lump
of ka-ka in its Pampers.
The Thead is sure abashed;
rightly so, I'd say.
Tyler termed it best.
So I'll just call it - - - -
"Come up with any good reason why a speed law is bad."
In Oregon, when the speed limit was raised from 55 mph to 65 mph, traffic deaths decreased.
Yes, decreased!
The Oregon State Police Chief said: "We have to rethink the 'Speed Kills' thing. It's 'Speed Variation' that kills."
Hmmm.
This why I believe that an electric bike is safer than a non-electric bike in in-town traffic, as now I travel at same speed as the rest of the traffic (Go with the Flow).
"Come up with any good reason why a helmet law is bad."
When the many counties that enacted "Helmet Laws",
the rate of head injury rose as bike ridership decreased.
Meanwhile, the many counties didn't enacted "Helmet Laws",
during the same time frame, the rate of head injury stayed the same as did bike ridership.
It seems that with fewer bikers on the road in countries with "Helmet Laws", Car drivers grew less use to having to contend with bikes on the road.
The Result of "Helmet Laws": fewer bikers riding, but with a higher rate of helmet use, but also an increase of rate Head Injury to the fewer bikers who still rode. So as a rider, Helmet or Not, the danger has increased.
Was this the "Intended result" that was expected, I think not.
Let's look at another sport where Helmet use has increased.
Skiing/Snowboarding:
The 25% who wear Helmets have 40% of the head injuries.
Hmmm.
Let's look at the Math:
Helmet wearing rate of head injures:
40/25= 1.6 times more head injures than the average skier
Non-helmet wearing rate of head injures:
60/75= 0.8 times more head injures than the average skier.
It seems that Helmet wearers have TWICE the rate head injuries as Non-helmet wearers.
Hmmm.
How can this be:
"With a Helmet I ski the Trees more and since hitting the limbs don't hurt with a helmet on, I ski closer to the trees."
They ski faster too.
This is a very common thing to be heard in skiing circles.
Things in life are rarely as simple as we would hope.
The world is a very complicated place, many things are counter-intuitive.
The Unintended Results of the "Nanny State" are good reasons to question the whether
the Law enacted actually have the desired results.
I beleive that these are good reasons to look carefully at actual results of a "Law", rather than to hold to preconsieved theories that are base on faulty information and logic.
In Oregon, when the speed limit was raised from 55 mph to 65 mph, traffic deaths decreased.
Yes, decreased!
The Oregon State Police Chief said: "We have to rethink the 'Speed Kills' thing. It's 'Speed Variation' that kills."
Hmmm.
This why I believe that an electric bike is safer than a non-electric bike in in-town traffic, as now I travel at same speed as the rest of the traffic (Go with the Flow).
"Come up with any good reason why a helmet law is bad."
When the many counties that enacted "Helmet Laws",
the rate of head injury rose as bike ridership decreased.
Meanwhile, the many counties didn't enacted "Helmet Laws",
during the same time frame, the rate of head injury stayed the same as did bike ridership.
It seems that with fewer bikers on the road in countries with "Helmet Laws", Car drivers grew less use to having to contend with bikes on the road.
The Result of "Helmet Laws": fewer bikers riding, but with a higher rate of helmet use, but also an increase of rate Head Injury to the fewer bikers who still rode. So as a rider, Helmet or Not, the danger has increased.
Was this the "Intended result" that was expected, I think not.
Let's look at another sport where Helmet use has increased.
Skiing/Snowboarding:
The 25% who wear Helmets have 40% of the head injuries.
Hmmm.
Let's look at the Math:
Helmet wearing rate of head injures:
40/25= 1.6 times more head injures than the average skier
Non-helmet wearing rate of head injures:
60/75= 0.8 times more head injures than the average skier.
It seems that Helmet wearers have TWICE the rate head injuries as Non-helmet wearers.
Hmmm.
How can this be:
"With a Helmet I ski the Trees more and since hitting the limbs don't hurt with a helmet on, I ski closer to the trees."
They ski faster too.
This is a very common thing to be heard in skiing circles.
Things in life are rarely as simple as we would hope.
The world is a very complicated place, many things are counter-intuitive.
The Unintended Results of the "Nanny State" are good reasons to question the whether
the Law enacted actually have the desired results.
I beleive that these are good reasons to look carefully at actual results of a "Law", rather than to hold to preconsieved theories that are base on faulty information and logic.
TylerDurden
100 GW
Kyle said:
Indeed.
Perhaps protecting that particular segment of the gene-pool is counterproductive in more ways than one.
8)
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