On Thu, 3 Sep 2015 09:33:01 -0400, Stephen Harding
wrote:

On 9/2/2015 9:15 PM, John B. wrote:
On Wed, 2 Sep 2015 12:53:12 -0400, Stephen Harding
wrote:

On 9/2/2015 9:42 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 9/2/2015 7:04 AM, John B. wrote:
On Wed, 02 Sep 2015 00:35:10 -0300, Joy Beeson
wrote:


I've had three helmet-thunking falls in the last fifty years.

I think it was in the eighties that I touched wheels while on a
multi-day tour. Got up and finished the ride.

A couple of years ago I slipped on some rotten leaves concealed under
what appeared to be a drift of dry leaves, and had the same exact
fall. The muscles attached to my ribs were still feeling it two
months later; I don't bounce like I uster. (I did ride home, but
after stiffening up, I could just barely walk.)

A couple of months ago I dropped a piece of paper while stopped to
read a map, and thought I could pick it up without dismounting. Sense
of balance ain't what it used to be; being tangled in the bike, I hit
like a bag of wet cement and banged up the same ribs. But it was only
one day before I could cough; the wet leaves took a week.

Today -- clock just struck, make that yesterday -- I made a pit stop
at a playground. It was the middle of a school day, so the place was
deserted. I looked all around: yes, there are no witnesses. I
climbed the spiral slide -- and failed to duck under a bar at the top
that was meant for much shorter people.

Worse, between my sweat-soaked clothes and my body occupying more
degrees of the curve than the designer planned, I went down so slowly
that I almost had to push. No fun at all.

And the moral is? Wear a helmet on the slide ? :-)

If people would take the "Always wear your helmet!!!" advice more
literally, we'd enjoy LOTS more "My helmet saved my life!!!!" stories.
Wearing it on a playground slide is a step in that direction, all right!

Oh wait... the CPSC is disagreeing:
http://www.cpsc.gov/en/Newsroom/News...n-Playgrounds/


Shame on you, Joy! ;-)

While I don't doubt that a helmet, at times, can indeed keep your
noggin' intact, I think mostly it doesn't. Would one really have had a
head bashing event without one? If so, what else would have been
bashed? Ribs, heart, spleen, et al.? Depends what you've run into I guess.

By all means wear a helmet if you feel you are otherwise defying death
while riding a bicycle. And if it gets someone riding a bicycle, then
it has been at its most effective to my mind.

I used to ride a motorcycle and would feel naked without a helmet. Even
though neighboring states of NH and RI didn't require them, I would
never ride without one when in those states.

But I don't feel that way about riding a bike. My knees, shins, hips,
elbows, wrists and shoulders would be more likely to take knocks than my
head.

Of course wearing one can't really hurt. But will one apply such same
reasoning to driving a car or walking?

It's all a matter of danger perception and how effective you believe a
helmet is. Not wearing one isn't a case of stupidity or death wish as
some helmet zealots often seem to say or imply (not that you are saying
such things).


SMH


I have no doubt that if you bash your head on the ground that a helmet
might help. On the other hand it didn't help me when I crashed hard
enough the break my pelvis. In fact, as I believed that I might have
lost consciousness in the fall, I examined my helmet very closely
after getting out of the hospital. Not a mark or scratch on it
anywhere.

--
cheers,

John B.

I totally agree. And that head bashing might be due to tripping on the
sidewalk, falling down some steps or even an airbag going off in your
car from an accident.

There are definite times when some sort of head protection would have
mitigated a serious injury.

But just as we don't wear helmets or flame retardant suits in
automobiles (except racers of course), a helmet on a bicycle, IMHO,
isn't really a necessity either.

It just bugs me when bicycling advocates *themselves* sometimes paint a
picture of riding a bicycle without a helmet as a death wish.

You're riding a bicycle, not a Formula I around Monte Carlo!

One of the problems is that it appears that many equate "might" with
"will", as in "a helmet might save you when riding a bicycle".

But then, if one looks into the matter a bit deeper one discovers that
the important aspects of a bicycle, "safety helmet" appear to be, as
described on this site a while ago, "lighter and cooler", thus
seemingly emphasizing that safety apparently isn't part of the
determining factors in selecting which helmet to purchase.

In fact I recently read an advert for "the latest model" in a safety
helmet maker's offers and the words, "safety" and "safe" did not
appear at all and the emphasis was that this new addition to the
product line was "cooler", "colorful" and lighter weight".

In sort of makes one wonder whether helmets are actually purchased
based on which helmet is actually a safer product, or simply as a
fashion statement.

--
cheers,

John B.