Mostly OT/Head Injury and Death

On Sat, 21 Mar 2009 14:37:00 -0700, "Paul M. Hobson"
wrote:

wrote:
Ask skiers wearing helmets if they'd slow down without the helmets.

I wouldn't slow down without my helmet. I only wear it b/c it's so
convenient. It's strapped on and my goggles are strapped to it = no yard
sale if I take a tumble.

The only thing I worry about when I'm on the slopes is my left wrist,
having spent the past 2 years recovering from two wrist surgeries.

Dear Paul,

Sure, you wear a helmet just to hold your goggles.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

Tom Sherman wrote:
Paul M. Hobson wrote:
wrote:
Ask skiers wearing helmets if they'd slow down without the helmets.

I wouldn't slow down without my helmet. I only wear it b/c it's so
convenient. It's strapped on and my goggles are strapped to it = no
yard sale if I take a tumble.

The only thing I worry about when I'm on the slopes is my left wrist,
having spent the past 2 years recovering from two wrist surgeries.

Can you wear an inline skating type wrist guard?


Those don't seem to help much -- especially the ones that fit under
gloves. Best thing to do is to not fall on my left wrist

--
Paul M. Hobson
..:change the f to ph to reply:.

wrote:
On Sat, 21 Mar 2009 14:37:00 -0700, "Paul M. Hobson"
wrote:

wrote:
Ask skiers wearing helmets if they'd slow down without the helmets.
I wouldn't slow down without my helmet. I only wear it b/c it's so
convenient. It's strapped on and my goggles are strapped to it = no yard
sale if I take a tumble.

The only thing I worry about when I'm on the slopes is my left wrist,
having spent the past 2 years recovering from two wrist surgeries.

Dear Paul,

Sure, you wear a helmet just to hold your goggles.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

No. Seriously, I do. I forgot the helmet a few weeks back and rode the
exact same way. It's more convenient for me. Plain and simple.

--
Paul M. Hobson
..:change the f to ph to reply:.

On Sat, 21 Mar 2009 18:41:16 -0700, "Paul M. Hobson"
wrote:

wrote:
On Sat, 21 Mar 2009 14:37:00 -0700, "Paul M. Hobson"
wrote:

wrote:
Ask skiers wearing helmets if they'd slow down without the helmets.
I wouldn't slow down without my helmet. I only wear it b/c it's so
convenient. It's strapped on and my goggles are strapped to it = no yard
sale if I take a tumble.

The only thing I worry about when I'm on the slopes is my left wrist,
having spent the past 2 years recovering from two wrist surgeries.

Dear Paul,

Sure, you wear a helmet just to hold your goggles.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

No. Seriously, I do. I forgot the helmet a few weeks back and rode the
exact same way. It's more convenient for me. Plain and simple.

Dear Paul,

Seriously, I have no doubt that you're different from everyone else
ever observed.

They just _think_ that they don't risk compensate.

:-)

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

Paul M. Hobson wrote:
Tom Sherman wrote:
Paul M. Hobson wrote:
wrote:
Ask skiers wearing helmets if they'd slow down without the helmets.

I wouldn't slow down without my helmet. I only wear it b/c it's so
convenient. It's strapped on and my goggles are strapped to it = no
yard sale if I take a tumble.

The only thing I worry about when I'm on the slopes is my left wrist,
having spent the past 2 years recovering from two wrist surgeries.

Can you wear an inline skating type wrist guard?


Those don't seem to help much -- especially the ones that fit under
gloves. Best thing to do is to not fall on my left wrist

A tadpole recumbent trike will prevent that, unless you ride like a
complete idiot.

--
Tom Sherman - 42.435731,-83.985007
LOCAL CACTUS EATS CYCLIST - datakoll

wrote:
Ask skiers wearing helmets if they'd slow down without the helmets.

Paul M. Hobson wrote:
I wouldn't slow down without my helmet. I only wear it b/c it's so
convenient. It's strapped on and my goggles are strapped to it = no
yard sale if I take a tumble.

The only thing I worry about when I'm on the slopes is my left
wrist, having spent the past 2 years recovering from two wrist
surgeries.

Tom Sherman wrote:
Can you wear an inline skating type wrist guard?


Paul M. Hobson wrote:
Those don't seem to help much -- especially the ones that fit under
gloves. Best thing to do is to not fall on my left wrist

Tom Sherman wrote:
A tadpole recumbent trike will prevent that, unless you ride like a
complete idiot.

I don't know how well that'd do in the Cascade Concrete or how I'd even
get it on the lift!

g
--
Paul M. Hobson
..:change the f to ph to reply:.

Paul M. Hobson wrote:
wrote:
Ask skiers wearing helmets if they'd slow down without the helmets.

Paul M. Hobson wrote:
I wouldn't slow down without my helmet. I only wear it b/c it's so
convenient. It's strapped on and my goggles are strapped to it = no
yard sale if I take a tumble.

The only thing I worry about when I'm on the slopes is my left
wrist, having spent the past 2 years recovering from two wrist
surgeries.

Tom Sherman wrote:
Can you wear an inline skating type wrist guard?


Paul M. Hobson wrote:
Those don't seem to help much -- especially the ones that fit under
gloves. Best thing to do is to not fall on my left wrist

Tom Sherman wrote:
A tadpole recumbent trike will prevent that, unless you ride like a
complete idiot.

I don't know how well that'd do in the Cascade Concrete or how I'd even
get it on the lift!

Switch to X/C skiing to avoid falls.

--
Tom Sherman - 42.435731,-83.985007
LOCAL CACTUS EATS CYCLIST - datakoll

In article ,
wrote:

On Fri, 20 Mar 2009 22:59:09 -0700 (PDT), Dan O
wrote:

On Mar 20, 10:45 pm, Bret wrote:
On Mar 20, 2:57 pm, Frank Krygowski wrote:



On Mar 20, 3:27 pm, Dan O wrote:

On Mar 20, 9:06 am, Frank Krygowski wrote:

In another article,http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29772691/ :

"The National Ski Areas Association (NSAA) of the United States
estimated 43 percent of skiers and snowboarders wore helmets in the
2007-08 season, against 25 percent five years earlier.
...

"The increase in the use of helmets has not reduced the overall
number
of skiing fatalities," the NSAA said in a statement. "More than half
of the people involved in fatal accidents last season were wearing
helmets."

So more than half the fatalities were in helmets. But fewer than
half
wear them. IOW, helmet use is _positively_ correlated with
fatality.

Risk compensation, anyone?

People who intend to ski as fast as they possibly can are the ones
more likely to wear a helmet.

Would they ski quite as fast, or in quite as risky a manner, if they
did not wear a helmet?

Judging by those figures above, probably not.

It's a chicken and egg question. Are people wearing helmets because
they're doing something dangerous or doing something dangerous because
they're wearing helmets? You think it's the latter. The former makes
much more sense to me but I don't know. You seem pretty sure of
something that is unknowable without more information. Maybe you're
the type that just doesn't know how to day "I don't know".

Bret

They don't go especially fast *because* they happen to have a helmet
on; they put on the helmet because they intend to go fast, and mean to
ameliorate the obvious risk.

Dear Dan & Bret,

The often-cited Munich taxi driver study measured and observed that
the taxi drivers routinely drove faster and followed more closely when
they drew an ABS taxi from the driving pool.
http://pavlov.psyc.queensu.ca/target/chapter07.html

Two things are often noted about risk compensation:

1) We often insist that we don't compensate for perceived risks.

2) We all compensate for risk when observed.

Ask skiers wearing helmets if they'd slow down without the helmets.

If they answer yes, then it's risk compensation,

If they answer no, then a study like the Munich taxi study is
practically a sure bet to show that they slow down, no matter how much
they insist otherwise.

That's why insurance companies stopped giving customers a discount for
anti-lock brakes--risk compensation led to the same level of
accidents.

For the bonus question, Carl, what recent (widely available on new cars,
but became widespread after ABS) safety feature on cars appears to be
creating a statistically significant safety improvement?

http://www.iihs.org/research/topics/esc.html

(summarizing work published in:

Traffic Injury Prevention 5:317-25
Traffic Injury Prevention 7:319-24

--
Ryan Cousineau http://www.wiredcola.com/
"In other newsgroups, they killfile trolls."
"In rec.bicycles.racing, we coach them."

On Mar 21, 3:00*pm, Michael Press wrote:
In article
,



*Bret wrote:
On Mar 20, 9:45*pm, "
wrote:
On Mar 20, 8:07*pm, Tim McNamara wrote:

" wrote:

When I whacked the side of my head in a CX race I also got a bunch of
gravel cuts (actually it was the second time I'd fallen on this short
loose descent). We had a friend who was an EMT at the race and she
cleaned up my cuts while making a lot of small talk with me, which
later I realized was also a subtle way of doing a mental/head-injury
evaluation.

Good call, that was probably exactly what he was doing. *"Who's the
President" is really not that great a question for assessing these
things. *Also, since problems can develop over time, he was probably
re-checking periodically.

She. *I don't remember if she actually re-evaluated me,
but since we were more or less in the same place over
the next couple of hours and I was capable of holding
a conversation with the rest of the hangers-on at the
scorers' tent, effectively yes.

I was once in that situation and was asked what day it was, *I
answered "They tell me it's Thursday". Apparently, I'd already been
asked that question and been corrected.

-- What day is it?
-- Four.

--
Michael Press

I did something like that once without the benefit of a head injury.
At the crucial moment of a very hard race I noticed that my front tire
was going soft. I waited until we crested the climb that we were on
and then I did what I had rehearsed in my mind, I raised my left hand.
That was supposed to produce a quick front wheel change (left hand for
front wheel, right hand for rear wheel) but instead the neutral
support guy jumped out of the the car and yelled, "Which wheel do you
need"? I responded "Left! ... I mean front"!

Bret

In article ,
Michael Press wrote:

In article
,
" wrote:

On Mar 20, 10:45*pm, Bret wrote:
On Mar 20, 2:57*pm, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Mar 20, 3:27*pm, Dan O wrote:
On Mar 20, 9:06*am, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

In another article,http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29772691/*:

"The National Ski Areas Association (NSAA) of the United
States estimated 43 percent of skiers and snowboarders wore
helmets in the 2007-08 season, against 25 percent five
years earlier.
...

"The increase in the use of helmets has not reduced the
overall number of skiing fatalities," the NSAA said in a
statement. "More than half of the people involved in fatal
accidents last season were wearing helmets."

So more than half the fatalities were in helmets. *But
fewer than half wear them. *IOW, helmet use is _positively_
correlated with fatality.

Risk compensation, anyone?

People who intend to ski as fast as they possibly can are the
ones more likely to wear a helmet.

Would they ski quite as fast, or in quite as risky a manner, if
they did not wear a helmet?

Judging by those figures above, probably not.

It's a chicken and egg question. Are people *wearing helmets
because they're doing something dangerous or doing something
dangerous because they're wearing helmets? You think it's the
latter. The former makes much more sense to me but I don't know.
You seem pretty sure of something that is unknowable without more
information. Maybe you're the type *that just doesn't know how to
day "I don't know".

This argument about ski helmets and behavior also suffers from a
lack of information. We don't have any idea whether the ski
fatalities discussed refer to only in-bounds or also out-of-bounds
skiing, and whether they are strictly impact related accidents. On
a bike, the main cause of getting hurt is crashing, but this is not
always so in skiing. Even if you only consider crashing and rule
out avalanches, most ways of riding bike are pretty safe (excluding
at night without lights, and some extreme downhill MTBing). This
is not so true of downhill skiing, where style can have a big
effect on how likely you are to get hurt.

I hesitate to get involved in a helmet thread, but IMO looking at
fatalities is not a great way to measure whether helmets do
anything. Many fatalities (ski or bike) occur in impacts where
only a helmet the size of a Green Bay Cheesehead could have helped.
IMO the effect of helmets is more likely to occasionally mitigate
what would have been a bad concussion into a mild concussion, or a
mild concussion into just a sore spot. Whether this is worth
anything is up to the wearer.

And now that you are involved, head injuries beyond abrasions are
from stopping and sloshing, and from neck twists, neither of which
are ameliorated by bicycle helmets. Even when a bicycle helmeted head
strikes an object, the head decelerates. Helmets do nothing to
prevent neck twists.

Helmets may make neck twists worse by providing a larger circumference
"head", making it easier to hit the ground, and also "grabbing" the
ground. Although I have no idea if there is any data on this kind of
thing, e.g., whether anyone has been tracking changes in the rates of
neck injuries to cyclists after the widespread use of helmets took hold.