|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
Question for the anti-helmet guys
"Mike S." wrote: If you went out on your ride tomorrow and KNEW that you were going to crash and hit your head, would you wear a helmet? Dumb question. I wear a helmet whenever I ride for the same reason I wear a seat belt when I drive: Some day I *might* crash, and the helmet/seat belt *might* save my life or reduce my injuries. It offers some protection, and it's not a big inconvenience. More to your question, before the UCI required pro racers to wear helmets, many riders chose to wear them in what they considered dangerous conditions. Art Harris |
Ads |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
Question for the anti-helmet guys
Art:
You and others don't seem to understand the question. It's not for those of us who wear helmets - it's for those who DON'T!!! I know why I wear mine, you know why you wear yours. The question was for people who don't wear a helmet, and I think it's a very valid question that has so far been skirted around by just about everyone who's answered. So, if you don't wear a helmet, and you knew you were going to get into an accident the next time you go for a ride {and I'll add my own caveats here : 1) The only way out of this is if you neve ride a bike again. It's going to happen the next time you ride, period! 2) You don't know the severity of the accident. It might be a bump and then again you might do an endo and land upside down - you don't know!). The question is (from memory) "Would you wear a helmet?" Inquiring helmeted minds want to know. Matt Harris wrote: "Mike S." wrote: If you went out on your ride tomorrow and KNEW that you were going to crash and hit your head, would you wear a helmet? Dumb question. I wear a helmet whenever I ride for the same reason I wear a seat belt when I drive: Some day I *might* crash, and the helmet/seat belt *might* save my life or reduce my injuries. It offers some protection, and it's not a big inconvenience. More to your question, before the UCI required pro racers to wear helmets, many riders chose to wear them in what they considered dangerous conditions. Art Harris |
#3
|
|||
|
|||
Question for the anti-helmet guys
Matt Locker writes:
So, if you don't wear a helmet, and you knew you were going to get into an accident the next time you go for a ride {and I'll add my own caveats here : 1) The only way out of this is if you neve ride a bike again. It's going to happen the next time you ride, period! 2) You don't know the severity of the accident. It might be a bump and then again you might do an endo and land upside down - you don't know!). The question is (from memory) "Would you wear a helmet?" Inquiring helmeted minds want to know. Taking the question as you posed it, the answer for most people is likely to be yes. If people are rational, the decision will be based on a cost--benefit basis, where the benefit of wearing the helmet is proportional to the probability of an accident times the degree to which the helmet can be expected to mitigate the injuries. In real life, the first probability is quite low, and the second quantity is modest -- helmets help in certain situations, but are clearly limited in what they can do. In the context of the question, the first probability is magically set to 1, which mean the benefits will almost certainly outweigh the costs (except for people with very high costs, or who believe that helmets may have zero or negative effects on injury[1]). But in real life, thoughtful non-helmet wearers weigh up a very small probability of a rather modest protection, and find it's not worth the cost. This is entirely reasonable and only appears weird if you can't deal with probability[2]. Anyway, what's motivation for the question? If you wanted to know whether helmet non-wearers thought helmets had any positive effects, you could have asked directly. Brendan [1] This is not _a priori_ implausible -- the mechanism by which helmets might cause rotational brain injury is clear, but it is very hard to quantify how much it happens relative to protection from linear accelerations. It could well be part of the explanation why head injury rates don't seem to decline much with growth in helmet usage. [2] It has to be said, though, that humans tend to be very bad at probability calculations, particularly when thinking about very low probabilities of very bad outcomes. -- Brendan Halpin, Department of Sociology, University of Limerick, Ireland Tel: w +353-61-213147 f +353-61-202569 h +353-61-390476; Room F2-025 x 3147 http://www.ul.ie/sociology/brendan.halpin.html |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
Question for the anti-helmet guys
Matt Locker wrote:
The question was for people who don't wear a helmet, and I think it's a very valid question that has so far been skirted around by just about everyone who's answered. You can't seem to understand your question's absurdity. Therefore, you can't understand why it's not worth answering. Say, I don't see that you've answered Trent's "very valid" and exactly parallel question regarding walking across a street. So let's make a deal: you answer Trent's question, then use that to explain _your_ usual choice on the important issue of pedestrian helmets. ;-) When you do, I'll tell you what I'd wear in _your_ scenario. -- Frank Krygowski |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
Question for the anti-helmet guys
Brendan:
The question has been asked 1000 different ways over the years and all it does is cause endless waste of bandwidth. I believed that the original question that my "updated" question referred to is valid and my caveats only attempted to make it more so. I was really hoping some anti-helmet types would answer it. As usual noone did - they skirted the issue entirely. MOO, Matt Brendan Halpin wrote: Matt Locker writes: So, if you don't wear a helmet, and you knew you were going to get into an accident the next time you go for a ride {and I'll add my own caveats here : 1) The only way out of this is if you neve ride a bike again. It's going to happen the next time you ride, period! 2) You don't know the severity of the accident. It might be a bump and then again you might do an endo and land upside down - you don't know!). The question is (from memory) "Would you wear a helmet?" Inquiring helmeted minds want to know. Taking the question as you posed it, the answer for most people is likely to be yes. If people are rational, the decision will be based on a cost--benefit basis, where the benefit of wearing the helmet is proportional to the probability of an accident times the degree to which the helmet can be expected to mitigate the injuries. In real life, the first probability is quite low, and the second quantity is modest -- helmets help in certain situations, but are clearly limited in what they can do. In the context of the question, the first probability is magically set to 1, which mean the benefits will almost certainly outweigh the costs (except for people with very high costs, or who believe that helmets may have zero or negative effects on injury[1]). But in real life, thoughtful non-helmet wearers weigh up a very small probability of a rather modest protection, and find it's not worth the cost. This is entirely reasonable and only appears weird if you can't deal with probability[2]. Anyway, what's motivation for the question? If you wanted to know whether helmet non-wearers thought helmets had any positive effects, you could have asked directly. Brendan [1] This is not _a priori_ implausible -- the mechanism by which helmets might cause rotational brain injury is clear, but it is very hard to quantify how much it happens relative to protection from linear accelerations. It could well be part of the explanation why head injury rates don't seem to decline much with growth in helmet usage. [2] It has to be said, though, that humans tend to be very bad at probability calculations, particularly when thinking about very low probabilities of very bad outcomes. |
#6
|
|||
|
|||
Question for the pro-helmet guys
I will answer your question. I don't walk in the street, if I do I face
traffic. I look both ways and am very safe. I don't consider my pedestrian acts as dangerous to me. Sure they could be - a tree could fall on me, or someone could shoot me from a car/house. Such is life. The odds are very low. Put me on my bike. I'm in traffic, being passed by who knows who all the time, cars pulling in front, rocks/sticks/glass/animals on the road. A much more dangerous environment. I wear a helmet because I believe it helps minimize the risks to my brain. I wear gloves because it helps protect the hands as well as padding them. I wear a mirror because it helps to keep track of my surroundings. But **** still happens. I've fallen once and hit my head hard. I'm quite certain the helmet helped a lot. If it wasn't for the helmet, at a minimum I would have lost a lot of my scalp to the pavement. Quite probably the impact was strong enough to have sent me to the hospital with concussion or worse. I had no time to respond when the accident occurred and there was nothing I could do to stop it. As it was the only skin lost was on the rest of my body. You can do what you like as you know. But why is that noone will answer the !@#$#%^ question???? MOO, Matt Trent Piepho wrote: In article , Matt Locker wrote: You and others don't seem to understand the question. It's not for those of us who wear helmets - it's for those who DON'T!!! I know why I wear mine, you know why you wear yours. The question was for people who don't wear a helmet, and I think it's a very valid question that has so far been skirted around by just about everyone who's answered. So, if you don't wear a helmet, and you knew you were going to get into an accident the next time you go for a ride {and I'll add my own caveats Matt, why don't you answer this one first? Say next time you cross a street on foot, some driver talking on a cell phone decides to make a right turn on red without looking and hits you at about 15 mph. You slide up the hood and smack you head on the windshield and fall to the ground. Would you want to be wearing a helmet? The only way to get out is to never cross a street again. No fair dodging the question by saying you'll never get hit crossing a street, or that a helmet would do no good. You make think you're much safer on foot than on a bike, but that doesn't matter here. You're going to be unlucky and get hit, so would you want to be wearing a helmet or not? I think you'll find your justification for not wearing a helmet when crossing streets is pretty much the same one people use for not wearing one every time they get on a bike. |
#7
|
|||
|
|||
Question for the anti-helmet guys
Your turn...............
Frank Krygowski wrote: Matt Locker wrote: The question was for people who don't wear a helmet, and I think it's a very valid question that has so far been skirted around by just about everyone who's answered. You can't seem to understand your question's absurdity. Therefore, you can't understand why it's not worth answering. Say, I don't see that you've answered Trent's "very valid" and exactly parallel question regarding walking across a street. So let's make a deal: you answer Trent's question, then use that to explain _your_ usual choice on the important issue of pedestrian helmets. ;-) When you do, I'll tell you what I'd wear in _your_ scenario. -- Frank Krygowski |
#8
|
|||
|
|||
Question for the anti-helmet guys
"Matt Locker" wrote in message ... WHATS THE HTML FOR? The question has been asked 1000 different ways over the years and all it does is cause endless waste of bandwidth. I believed that the original question that my "updated" question referred to is valid and my caveats only attempted to make it more so. I was really hoping some anti-helmet types would answer it. As usual noone did - they skirted the issue entirely. ME: You miss a point. There are few "anti-helmet" people and a lot of "anti-(helmet BS)" people. One of the reasons why "helmet BS" is hated is because it over-estimates the danger of ordinary cycling. However, normal "helmet BS" does not get anywhere like saying that you WILL have an accident tommorow. The question is loaded - so no-one answered it. Hows about: "if you were going to have a bike accident tommorow that resulted in a fractured spine, would you wear a helmet". |
#9
|
|||
|
|||
Question for the pro-helmet guys
Matt Locker wrote:
I will answer your question. I don't walk in the street, if I do I face traffic. I look both ways and am very safe. I don't consider my pedestrian acts as dangerous to me. Sure they could be - a tree could fall on me, or someone could shoot me from a car/house. Such is life. The odds are very low. Which, of course, doesn't answer the question at all. Remember the question? "Would you want to be wearing a helmet [if you were going to be hit on your next walk]? The only way to get out is to never cross a street again. No fair dodging the question by saying you'll never get hit crossing a street, or that a helmet would do no good. You make think you're much safer on foot than on a bike, but that doesn't matter here. You're going to be unlucky and get hit, so would you want to be wearing a helmet or not?" Despite your assurance that you will answer the question you then proceed to do anything but. Besides, your statement above is clearly false - unless you only walk around the block you must walk in the street whenever you cross an intersection. And intersections are where most accidents happen to both cyclists and pedestrians. Furthermore the references to trees falling and gunshots are deliberately ignoring the main threat faced by pedestrians which is the same one faced by cyclists - getting hit by a motor vehicle. Put me on my bike. I'm in traffic, being passed by who knows who all the time, cars pulling in front, rocks/sticks/glass/animals on the road. A much more dangerous environment. The sidewalks I've walked on have also had rocks/sticks/glass and I presume any animals on the road got there by going over the sidewalk. I certainly haven't been immune from cars pulling out in front of me while walking - in fact many cars have pulled right out of a driveway and across the sidewalk before stopping at the road, thus posing a greater danger to a pedestrian than to another road user. You can do what you like as you know. But why is that noone will answer the !@#$#%^ question???? Maybe: 1) "noone" is not a word and therefore your question above makes no sense. 2) Your previous question was specifically asked of "anti-helmet guys" and as has been repeatedly pointed out to you there are no such people participating in this discussion. 3) The answers you reject have mainly been along exactly the same lines as your own 'non-answer' above. My own answer to your original question, i.e. would I wear my helmet if I knew that I'd crash on my next bike ride, is as follows. Although I wear a bicycle helmet on most of my bike rides, I do not think it adds significant protection in the case of a serious crash. Therefore I would not wear it if I knew a crash was imminent and for some reason could not avoid riding. Instead I would be wearing a full set of motorcycle leathers, extra knee, elbow, shoulder, and hand padding, and a full-face motorcycle or car-racing helmet. I'd also look into the possibility of a 'personal air-bag', i.e. a bag strapped to my body that would instantly inflate upon my separation from the bike. BTW, when hard-shell bicycle helmets first came out around '75 I thought they did provide substantial protection. After reviewing many of the subsequent studies I've changed my mind and now think the main benefit provided is a legal one - in the event of an accident I or my heirs will probably have an easier time collecting damages if I was wearing a bike helmet. It also provides a convenient mounting surface for my mirror and GPS antenna. MOO, Matt Trent Piepho wrote: In article , Matt Locker wrote: You and others don't seem to understand the question. It's not for those of us who wear helmets - it's for those who DON'T!!! I know why I wear mine, you know why you wear yours. The question was for people who don't wear a helmet, and I think it's a very valid question that has so far been skirted around by just about everyone who's answered. So, if you don't wear a helmet, and you knew you were going to get into an accident the next time you go for a ride {and I'll add my own caveats Matt, why don't you answer this one first? Say next time you cross a street on foot, some driver talking on a cell phone decides to make a right turn on red without looking and hits you at about 15 mph. You slide up the hood and smack you head on the windshield and fall to the ground. Would you want to be wearing a helmet? The only way to get out is to never cross a street again. No fair dodging the question by saying you'll never get hit crossing a street, or that a helmet would do no good. You make think you're much safer on foot than on a bike, but that doesn't matter here. You're going to be unlucky and get hit, so would you want to be wearing a helmet or not? I think you'll find your justification for not wearing a helmet when crossing streets is pretty much the same one people use for not wearing one every time they get on a bike. |
#10
|
|||
|
|||
Question for the anti-helmet guys
WHATS THE HTML FOR?
The question has been asked 1000 different ways over the years and all it does is cause endless waste of bandwidth. I believed that the original question that my "updated" question referred to is valid and my caveats only attempted to make it more so. I was really hoping some anti-helmet types would answer it. As usual noone did - they skirted the issue entirely. ME: You miss a point. There are few "anti-helmet" people and a lot of "anti-(helmet BS)" people. One of the reasons why "helmet BS" is hated is because it over-estimates the danger of ordinary cycling. However, normal "helmet BS" does not get anywhere like saying that you WILL have an accident tommorow. The question is loaded - so no-one answered it. Hows about: "if you were going to have a bike accident tommorow that resulted in a fractured spine, would you wear a helmet". Yes, 'cause you'll probably hit your head at some point in your accident too. A bike and rider careening off a car flies in unexpected ways... I have this allergy to death and a slightly smaller allergy to pavement. Mike |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Helmet Wankers | Tom Kunich | General | 263 | February 13th 04 05:43 AM |
Reports from Sweden | Garry Jones | General | 17 | October 14th 03 05:23 PM |
Reports from Sweden | Garry Jones | Social Issues | 14 | October 14th 03 05:23 PM |
Question for the anti-helmet guys | G Huang | Techniques | 0 | September 26th 03 05:20 AM |