On Sat, 3 Oct 2015 13:28:36 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

On Sunday, September 20, 2015 at 5:19:45 PM UTC-7, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 20 Sep 2015 16:34:38 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

On Sunday, September 13, 2015 at 6:41:45 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 9/12/2015 5:00 PM, Phil W Lee wrote:
John B. considered Sat, 12 Sep 2015 08:54:40
+0700 the perfect time to write:


About 75% of all bicyclists who die each year die of head injuries.

I think you'll find (unless it's very different from the UK, which
seems unlikely given the common mechanism of injury) that it's 75%
that have a brain injury at the time of their death, which may well
have occurred anyway due to other injuries.
Not much point in keeping your head in one piece if you've bled out
anyway. And even a motorcycle helmet won't save your head if a heavy
truck drives over it, or even some much lighter vehicles. So the most
you can do is cite that 75% as an upper bound.

I suspect the origin of the overestimate was a propaganda statement that
"75% of bicyclist fatalities involve a head injury." At least, that's
the way I first saw it expressed years ago. (Sorry, no citation.)

That version may be literally true - as in, the dead cyclist may have
had his abdomen run over by a truck's wheels, and he also got a little
scratch on his head. But the phrasing was obviously intended to trick
the reader into believing that helmets might prevent something like 75%
of fatalities. And other helmet proselytizers missed the subtlety and
went for the straight-out lie.

Similarly, after the infamous Thompson & Rivara paper of 1989 claimed
that helmets prevent 85% of head injuries, another paper used that
number to claim universal helmet use would prevent 85% of American bike
fatalities. And astonishingly, that made it through peer review.
--
- Frank Krygowski

Helmets are designed to do one thing and one thing only. It was designed around the old coaster bike where you were trying to make an emergency stop you would stand up. That put your head about 2 meters above the ground. The helmet was designed not for a collision but for a sideways fall from that standing position.


Wherever did you get that idea?

I grew up in an era when there wasn't anything except coaster brakes
and I never, and I've never seen anyone, stand up to brake with a
coaster brake. And, I might add, I grew up in a rather mountainous
part of New Hampshire where one used the brake a great deal of the
time.

As an aside, the first mention I see to "bicycle helmets" dates back
to the 1880's, while the "coaster brake" seems to have been first made
in 1898.

I can't even imagine how you would put a coaster brake on hard without standing on it. Can you explain how a brake that relies on the pressure on a single pedal can possibly be put on in an emergency stop WITHOUT standing on the brake?

You cannot even watch kids riding coaster brake bikes or even BMX bikes with coaster brakes that aren't standing on the pedals for control.

Well, I suspect that it might depend on how well maintained your rear
hub is/was. I can't remember ever having to "stand" on the pedal to
make the bike stop although I do admit that when my Dad bought my 1st,
2nd, 3rd hand first bike the brake didn't work at all until I it.

Largely, I suspect because the brake was on the rear wheel and even a
little force to actuate the brake resulted in a forward weight shift
and the wheel locking.

In fact one of the stunts that the "accomplished" rider used to
demonstrate his skill, dexterity and general superiorly (as well as
showing off to the girls) was to pedal as fast as you could, and just
as you went in front of the girls, lay the bike over and stamp on the
brake. If you were really "good" the bike would make a skidding 180
degree spin as it stopped. Very hard to do standing on one pedal.

From your post it seems likely that you either have never ridden a
coaster brake bike or simply don't know what you are talking about.
--
cheers,

John B.