Trikki Beltran's bad concussion and his helmet

On Mon, 18 Jul 2005 04:51:15 GMT, SMS
wrote:

Werehatrack wrote:

Not an issue. Hasn't happened, and if it did, I'd make up my mind
based on the situation at hand. I can't predict the answer, and it's
irrelevant anyway. What *I* do is my choice; what *you* do is
*yours*. Every choice has consequences, possible and actual. Not all
consequences obtain in every instance. That does not change the fact
that they could.

Well-stated. Isn't it amusing to read anecdotes that are invariably
based on the premise of 'this is what I do, I've been doing it for a
long time, nothing has happened to me, so that proves that what I've
been doing is what everyone else should do too.'

Do you know you sound like a parady of yourself? It's the
"pro-helmet" people who are the ones saying "do it this way or you're
stupid" or "you never know, it could happen to you." I'm a helmet
sceptic. I wear one usually because it's easy. But simply asking for
back-up to the claims of the importance of helmets seems to threaten
you.

So I'll ask a specific question -- for you as a single person just to
describe your own calculus of the role of a helmet in your own riding:

If, for some reason, you couldn't find your helmet, would you still
ride your bike? I'm not asknig for a general prescription for
everyone. Just for you. No explanation needed. Just yes or no?

JT

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On Mon, 18 Jul 2005 05:56:28 GMT, Werehatrack
wrote:

On 17 Jul 2005 20:22:44 -0700, wrote:



John Forrest Tomlinson wrote:

What happens if you forget your helmet somewhere or it is misplaced?
Do you ride w/o it or do you put off riding till you can get a helmet?


Good question. I know of one instance where a guy's helmet was stolen
in the middle of a bike tour.

He rode on. Are there people here who would actually stop riding?

Are there people who'd see if there was one available that they could
borrow before they took that step?

For the sake of illustration, no in this example. No helmet
available.

Are there people who might make a different decision if the ride was
rural vs urban, trail vs street, night vs day, short vs long, etc?


I do like the fact that you are asking good questions about the
circumstances of the ride, and hope that illustrates that you actually
spend time thinking about the situations you ride in and *might* feel
safe enough to ride without a helmet on occasion.



I suspect that the answer to each of these could be "yes" in some
circumstances.

Thoughtful.

I also suspect that the majority, faced with a "ride without or walk"
scenario would ride, in most cases.

Good.


The helmet is protection from a
low-probability occurrence in most forms of cycling; absent a
requirement (which is not present in everyday riding in most of the
world) helmet usage infers nothing more than that the user finds the
investment (which need not be large) to be worthwhile in view of the
risk.

Ah, we are getting somewhere.

It does not necessarily signify anything else.

Right. But when people say "Never ride without a helmet" it means
something else. Even "I never ride without a helmet' shows a lack of
rational thought on their part.

JT





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Quoting wvantwiller :
David Damerell wrote in
Quoting Qui si parla Campagnolo :
Helmets-don't hurt, may help. What's so diffuclt to understand?
Why you think something that increases the lever arm won't hurt in
torsional impacts.
Why you think something that dissapates and redistributes the point
stresses that will inevitably also be present in the non-torsional part of
the impact isn't a good thing?

This does not imply anything about the relative degrees to which the
helmet exacerbates torsional impacts and lessens direct ones.

Furthermore, I was replying specifically to Peter Chisholm's comment; it
clearly is not so simple as he suggests, and I provided one example of why
not.

I personally knew at least one child and one father who would be alive
today if they had been wearing helmets after they died from the trauma of
minor bicycle falls;

Gosh. That's very interesting, because performing the control experiment
that would let you say this with such confidence would be illegal in most
jurisdictions. How did you arrange that?

I know of nobody who has died from a twisted neck.

Oh, well. Then it must never happen!

I also wish I had had a helmet on when I smashed my glass lens into my face
on a fall and took 8 stitches to put the eyebrow and other skin back in
place. It's nice to know you can duck and cover on a fall instead of
trying to keep your cranium off the ground.

So wearing a helmet *discourages* you from protecting your head in a fall?
If that attitude is widespread, that might explain why the things are
totally ineffective.
--
David Damerell flcl?
Today is First Potmos, July.

Quoting The Wogster :
The anti-helmet lobby has under-emphasized the ability of a helmet's
life saving abilities in a crash. They then think that the helmet is
useless in all cases, and fight against them.

Who are the anti-helmet lobby who fight against them? There's an
anti-compulsion lobby and a lobby opposed to their portrayal as the be-all
and end-all of cyclist safety, but I don't know of anyone who wants to
stop people wearing the things. Do you?

[Although, how could they under-emphasise helmets' effectiveness? As Guy
points out, the statistics show that it is effectively zero.]

but not in all cases. The safest is to ride with a helmet, using the
same riding style as if you don't have one.

Unfortunately you can't do that. Even people who know about risk
compensation risk compensate.
--
David Damerell flcl?
Today is First Potmos, July.

I wonder what company provides their insurance since that is the most common
rationale (dictionary please) I hear for mandadamntory hell-mutt use.

Wear a hell-mutt or not as you please but understand the risks and benefits.
The conspiracy of ignorance masquerades as common sense.


"John Forrest Tomlinson" wrote in message
...
The local bicycle/pedestrian advocacy organization near me organizes
charity rides where they suggest adults wear helmets -- helmets are
easy to get for most people and can probably help sometimes. But they
don't require it. Bicycling is not *that* dangerous and they'd prefer
people ride w/o a helmet than not ride at all. This is in New York
City.

JT

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Michael Press wrote:
Nobody thinks or
has ever thought that bicycle riding is high risk behavior.

Whenever non-cycling folks at work (i.e. most of them) see me for the
first time walking in or out of the office with my bike and care enough
about it to ask me how far I ride, they also invariably make a comment
about how dangerous they think it is, how crazy I am to ride a bike
to/from work, etc.

I suppose you might argue that it's not bicycle riding they think is
high risk, but bicycle riding on roads with cars during commuting times
as opposed to toodling around on bike paths in the park.

--
I do not accept unsolicited commercial e-mail. Remove NO_UCE for
legitimate replies.

Quoting wvantwiller :
Also, I suppose you were there and can vouch that my other example that
I'd be a few stitch marks to the better if I had been wearing my helmet
is ALSO false?

JT's done the rest fine, but this is the other resort of the pro-helmet
lobby - twist away from the specific false claim that the things save
lives or permanent brain damage and get into injuries - injuries which,
like this one, are pretty unpleasant but cause no permanent damage.

Of course that keeps the claims from being provably false, because no-one
is as interested in collecting statistics on minor injuries, but even if
helmets do help there, so what? We make the decision to risk minor
injuries for convenience every time we go out without BMX elbow and knee
pads.
--
David Damerell flcl?
Today is First Potmos, July.

David Damerell wrote:
Quoting wvantwiller :

Also, I suppose you were there and can vouch that my other example that
I'd be a few stitch marks to the better if I had been wearing my helmet
is ALSO false?


JT's done the rest fine, but this is the other resort of the pro-helmet
lobby - twist away from the specific false claim that the things save
lives or permanent brain damage and get into injuries - injuries which,
like this one, are pretty unpleasant but cause no permanent damage.

Of course that keeps the claims from being provably false, because no-one
is as interested in collecting statistics on minor injuries, but even if
helmets do help there, so what? We make the decision to risk minor
injuries for convenience every time we go out without BMX elbow and knee
pads.


There's plenty of faulty logic on any side of the argument, such as
jumping to the conclusion that people take more risks if they wear
helmets. Also, that if all you might get is an unpleasant mild
concussion that there is no reason to wear one.

On Mon, 18 Jul 2005 08:58:36 -0700, "(PeteCresswell)"
wrote:

I don't wear a helmet windsurfing unless I'm out in conditions beyond what I'm
used to - like winds beyond the low thirties - but this guy is no dummy and he
is so vastly-experienced that I've got to take notice of his rationale.

So by the same token the eminent British neurosurgeon, experienced in
dealing with the aftermath of traumatic brain injuries, seen riding to
and from his consulting rooms on a Brompton folding bike, wearing a
suit and no foam hat, is an indication that if you ride around town on
a Brompton, you're perfectly safe.

Hey, as a usually bareheaded Brompton rider, I like this extrapolation
from single data points game :-)


Guy
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

"Let’s have a moment of silence for all those Americans who are stuck
in traffic on their way to the gym to ride the stationary bicycle."
- Earl Blumenauer

On Mon, 18 Jul 2005 08:30:20 -0500, catzz66
wrote:

There's plenty of faulty logic on any side of the argument, such as
jumping to the conclusion that people take more risks if they wear
helmets.

Barry Pless, editor of Injury Prevention, used to argue exactly that,
especially in the case of children.

And then he co-authored "Risk compensation in children’s activities: A
pilot study" (Mok D, Gore G, Hagel B, Mok E, Magdalinos H, Pless B.
2004. Paediatr Child Health: Vol 9 No 5 May/June 2004), in which the
conclusion was reached that

"The results indicate that risk compensation may modify the
effectiveness of (protective equipment) for children engaged
in sports and leisure activities. Conversely, the findings
also suggest that those wearing PE may be a cautious
subgroup."

So perhaps they haven't so much jumped to the conclusion as been
reluctantly forced to it?


Guy
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

"Let’s have a moment of silence for all those Americans who are stuck
in traffic on their way to the gym to ride the stationary bicycle."
- Earl Blumenauer