On 9/11/2015 9:54 PM, John B. wrote:
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.

....

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

I believe that last figure is wrong.

First, from 1997 to 2007, the U.S. averaged only 730 bike fatalities per
year. That's a small number when compared to other TBI deaths, or other
deaths in general.

The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, in Victor G. Coronado et.
al., "Surveillance for Traumatic Brain Injury Related Deaths, United
States, 1997‑2007" Surveillance Summaries May 6, 2011 / 60(SS05); 1‑32
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwr...cid=ss6005a1_w
shows, in table 10, that for 1997-2007 there were an average of just 325
bicyclist traumatic brain injury (TBI) fatalities per year. The total
annual TBI fatalities from all causes averaged 53014.

Also note from the above data that only 44.5% of cyclist fatalities
(325/730) were due to head injuries .

And BTW, roughly 45% of fatally injured pedestrians also died of TBI,
according to that paper's data.

Americans have been convinced that bicycling is a huge risk of fatal
TBI, and is unique in this risk. It's an advertising scam, weirdly
adopted by the medical profession, which seems hell-bent on ignoring its
own data.

--
- Frank Krygowski