On Sat, 12 Sep 2015 22:00:14 +0100, Phil W Lee
wrote:

John B. considered Sat, 12 Sep 2015 08:54:40
+0700 the perfect time to write:

On Fri, 11 Sep 2015 20:05:48 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 9/9/2015 1:39 PM, wrote:
On Wednesday, September 2, 2015 at 9:53:16 AM UTC-7, 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

Stephen - while you are correct that there isn't a shred of evidence that helmets do much of anything there is also no evidence that they do not do SOMETHING. Hence I wear a helmet despite knowing the technical difficulties of designing such a device.

One aspect of the helmet nonsense that amazes me is that such statements
always apply only to bicycling. They're never applied to the other
activities that generate far more TBI fatalities or serious injuries.

You know, things like walking near traffic. Riding in motor vehicles.
Using ladders, descending stairs...

The Center for Brain Injuries Services
http://www.headinjuryctr-stl.org/statistics.html
has it that, in the U.S., between 75 and 100,000 individuals die of
Traumatic Brain Injury annually.

Over 50% of those who sustain a Brain Injury have been intoxicated at
the time or injury.

51% of these injuries, or from 38 to 50 thousand are the result of
Motor Vehicle Accidents

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.

Nope. I was using the numbers posted on the site I referenced. Which
says, specifically, "About 75% of all bicyclists who die each year die
of head injuries". No if, and, or but, about it, that is what they
said.

(And everyone knows that what you read on the Internet is always
correct!)

So... looking at Danger, Danger, wearing a helmet while motoring might
save as many, oh say 50,000 annually, and wearing a helmet while
bicycling might save as many as ~700 X .75 or ~525.

525 would be the maximum even theoretically possible, if helmets were
100% effective, and no other life threatening injuries occurred at the
same time.

When a team of pathologists and epidemiologists studied the UK cycling
deaths in detail, it was found that even if every TBI in the area
covered by the helmet was prevented by their use, 3 lives a year would
be saved. All the others would have died from other injuries anyway.

The lesson is, of course, that while it certainly should be mandatory
for cyclists to wear a helmet it is totally unnecessary for the
motorist.

Logic, of course, is very pervasive :-)

One of the major causes of TBI that I've seen cited is falls in the
shower. With slippery conditions and hard surfaces all around, it
really isn't all that surprising. Maybe we need better standards for
shower caps?

Enforcement might be tricky though - I can imagine that there would be
strong resistance to the shower police checking up on possible illicit
scofflaw showerists.

Obviously the easy way to ensure compliance with the law is simply to
outlaw "showers". After all, Queen Elizabeth ( Elizabeth I), was said
to bath once a month and what is good for royalty should be more than
sufficient for the masses.
--
cheers,

John B.