Saw a bicyclist take a nasty spill today

On Fri, 19 Feb 2016 14:46:09 -0800, sms
wrote:

On 2/19/2016 2:02 PM, Joe Riel wrote:
Sir Ridesalot writes:

On Friday, February 19, 2016 at 4:41:15 PM UTC-5, sms wrote:
On 2/19/2016 12:17 PM, Duane wrote:
On 19/02/2016 2:34 PM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
I was out riding and took a shortcut along a paved MUP. I saw a
bicyclist a ways ahead of me take a really nasty tumble when he hit
some thin black ice. I saw his head hit the pavement at least three
times as he tumbled. I could hear his helmet hitting the pavement as
well as see the impacts. It looked as if a couple of times his head
bounced off the pavement. WOW! I guess his helmet helped because he
was able to get up on his own. He didn't seem confused but I rode with
him for about 20 minutes to make sure he was okay.

Cheers


Roads are nasty here too. Been having this snow/ice/rain/freeze/snow
repeat cycle lately. It's actually better when everything stays frozen
from December to March.

There is NO ABSOLUTE PROOF that those three hits on the pavement would
have been any worse had the cyclist not been wearing a helmet.

If the cyclist had not been wearing a helmet he would have been riding
much more carefully and would have never encountered the black ice. He
would have had a truck driving in front of them to clear the ice using a
flame thrower. He also would have had studded tires.

This whole story is just a lame attempt at promoting the use of helmets
by trying to imply that hitting your head on the pavement is a bad
thing. The next thing you know someone will be promoting helmets for
people walking in icy sidewalks.

You are frikkin amazing! You're thousands of kilometers from the event and yet you can tell that the bicyclist said to himself, "Hey, I'm wearing a helment so it doesn't matter how I ride"?

The ice was INVISIBLE! Idiot!

The guy hit his head hard at lest three times!

Steve was being facetious.

It's okay, being facetious isn't always a good idea on Usenet. I was
trying to fulfill Frank's job requirement of always coming up with an
excuse as to why someone whose helmet protected them would not have
needed protection if they had not been wearing a helmet, and coming up
with other potential dangerous situations where helmets are not normally
worn.


And, unfortunately, due to your usual inane posts everyone believed
that you were serious.
--
cheers,

John B.

On Fri, 19 Feb 2016 13:41:06 -0800, sms
wrote:
The next thing you know someone will be promoting helmets for people
walking in icy sidewalks.

It's a good pointer, sms, thanks for making it. After 25 years of
working with hundreds of people with brain injuries I have seen 2
cyclists with TBIs (one of which occurred in the 1930s when he was a
tyke and the other in 1969 as an adult). About 20% of the TBIs I have
seen were assaulted, about half were in motor vehicle accidents and the
rest were pedestrians, a few attempted suicides (shooting yourself in
the head is no guarantee you will die), falls down stairs or in the
bathroom. We should probably all wear helmets all the time- after all,
they do in the NFL!

Per Tim McNamara:
We should probably all wear helmets all the time- after all,
they do in the NFL!

I would contend that, if the NFL banned helmets and body armor, brain
injuries would drop dramatically.
--
Pete Cresswell

On 2/20/2016 5:10 AM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per Tim McNamara:
We should probably all wear helmets all the time- after all,
they do in the NFL!

I would contend that, if the NFL banned helmets and body armor, brain
injuries would drop dramatically.

Probably you are wrong. There would likely be no change in concussion rates.

http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/The-312/May-2012/A-Brief-History-of-Football-Head-Injuries-and-a-Look-Towards-the-Future/

On 2/20/2016 5:10 AM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per Tim McNamara:
We should probably all wear helmets all the time- after all,
they do in the NFL!

I would contend that, if the NFL banned helmets and body armor, brain
injuries would drop dramatically.

Actually, if they went to helmets more similar to the design of bicycle
helmets, and replaced them after every impact, they would likely reduce
brain injuries. They type of helmets they use transfer the impact to the
head rather than absorbing the impact and destroying the helmet.

https://goo.gl/aGpcQb

On 2/20/2016 9:05 AM, sms wrote:
On 2/20/2016 5:10 AM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per Tim McNamara:
We should probably all wear helmets all the time- after all,
they do in the NFL!

I would contend that, if the NFL banned helmets and body armor, brain
injuries would drop dramatically.

Actually, if they went to helmets more similar to the design of bicycle
helmets, and replaced them after every impact, they would likely reduce
brain injuries. They type of helmets they use transfer the impact to the
head rather than absorbing the impact and destroying the helmet.

Bike helmets cost as little as $15, they're made of a dirt-cheap
substance, they're designed only to (just) pass a minimal and simplistic
impact test, they "have to" be replaced after any minor impact, and they
sell at amazing profit margins. And that last fact is the true reason
for their existence.

Pro football helmets cost ten times as much, are much more complex,
using much more expensive and thoroughly tested materials, must pass
much stricter tests, and are usable after hundreds of impacts.

The problem with pro football helmets is, essentially, risk
compensation. Players feel protected by their helmets (and their body
armor) so they subject themselves to intense multiple impacts. It's now
becoming known that the protection is overstated, and the overall effect
is probably increasing danger. In fact, the sport of American football
is markedly different in its strategy and player procedures than it was
before the body armor. (The same is true for boxing. In bare knuckle
boxing, blows to the head were far less common than in today's boxing
with gloves.)

All this is a foreseeable result of exaggerating the protective
capability of a "safety" device. But that doesn't keep people from
claiming that bike helmets are "85% effective."


--
- Frank Krygowski

On 2/20/2016 8:41 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 2/20/2016 9:05 AM, sms wrote:
On 2/20/2016 5:10 AM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per Tim McNamara:
We should probably all wear helmets all the time- after
all,
they do in the NFL!

I would contend that, if the NFL banned helmets and body
armor, brain
injuries would drop dramatically.

Actually, if they went to helmets more similar to the
design of bicycle
helmets, and replaced them after every impact, they would
likely reduce
brain injuries. They type of helmets they use transfer the
impact to the
head rather than absorbing the impact and destroying the
helmet.

Bike helmets cost as little as $15, they're made of a
dirt-cheap substance, they're designed only to (just) pass a
minimal and simplistic impact test, they "have to" be
replaced after any minor impact, and they sell at amazing
profit margins. And that last fact is the true reason for
their existence.

Pro football helmets cost ten times as much, are much more
complex, using much more expensive and thoroughly tested
materials, must pass much stricter tests, and are usable
after hundreds of impacts.

The problem with pro football helmets is, essentially, risk
compensation. Players feel protected by their helmets (and
their body armor) so they subject themselves to intense
multiple impacts. It's now becoming known that the
protection is overstated, and the overall effect is probably
increasing danger. In fact, the sport of American football
is markedly different in its strategy and player procedures
than it was before the body armor. (The same is true for
boxing. In bare knuckle boxing, blows to the head were far
less common than in today's boxing with gloves.)

All this is a foreseeable result of exaggerating the
protective capability of a "safety" device. But that
doesn't keep people from claiming that bike helmets are "85%
effective."



But within the metaphysics of sports helmets, they correlate
to fewer leg injuries in cyclists and more leg injuries in
other sports:

http://www.channel3000.com/news/stud...njury/38089644

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

Per sms:
I would contend that, if the NFL banned helmets and body armor, brain
injuries would drop dramatically.

Probably you are wrong. There would likely be no change in concussion rates.

I based that contention on a discussion I heard by several older
world-class former welterweight contenders.

Their consensus was that brain injuries in boxing were almost unknown
back in the bare-knuckle days. i.e. old boxers did not turn up
punch-drunk.

The reason: fighters could not afford to trade punches and therefore
their brains did not get rattled around. Boxing was essentially an
endurance contest: circling, feinting, trying to get in that first
punch. Once the first punch was landed, the fight was soon to be over
because a person can't take that much in the way of bare-knuckle
punches.

I extrapolated that to football because no padding or helmets would make
it impractical for players to use their bodies as weapons.

OTOH, it wouldn't be football anymore... more like a USA version of
rugby.
--
Pete Cresswell

On 2/20/2016 8:15 AM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:

I extrapolated that to football because no padding or helmets would make
it impractical for players to use their bodies as weapons.

OTOH, it wouldn't be football anymore... more like a USA version of
rugby.

Except prior to all the protective equipment used in football their were
more injuries not less. The concussion issue was not really solved by
the type of helmets being used, as that article explains. The fact that
the helmet is designed to endure multiple impacts is one of the problems.

Obviously the teams would not like the idea of having to replace the
helmets every time one of them has an impact, it would delay the game
tremendously.

The reason that bicycle helmets are so effective at preventing brain
injuries is because they are "single impact." The same goes for a lot of
other safety equipment that is designed for crashes. Numerous case
studies have shown bicycle helmets to be extremely effective and
preventing brain injuries.

A study published in the British Medical Journal stated that at
realistic impact speeds of 12-14 MPH, bicycle helmets changed the
probability of severe brain injury from extremely likely (99.9% risk at
to unlikely (9.3% and 30.6% risk at 12 and 14 MPH respectively).