Trikki Beltran's bad concussion and his helmet

I submit that on or about Sun, 17 Jul 2005 11:28:34 -0500, the person
known to the court as "Bob the Cow" made a statement
in Your Honour's bundle) to
the following effect:

Anyone who is genuinely serious about preventing head injury while
riding will be on a recumbent trike, where the risk is negligible, or
a recumbent bike, where it is small.

I note that in the US, at least, almost all recumbent riders wear
helmets. Yes, even the few on recumbent trikes! To me, this is proof
that the hat choice is based on some variant of fashion, not logic.

Are you pretending that it's hard to crash a recumbent trike?

No, just that it's a heck of a lot harder to achieve that 1.5m drop
with the body disconnected, as per the standards :-)

Ever changed direction in one unexpectedly due to "brake steering" at speed?

Yep. And I've done handbrake turns on one as well :-)

A LWB recumbent
bicycle also has some weight-distribution issues as to front and back wheel
which also predispose to occasional lack of control. Granted, it's not as
far to fall as from a diamond-frame, but some of these things do get up to a
respectable speed.

All recumbent bikes, in my experience, go really quickly when they go.
But they tend to dump you on your arse, not your head. Actually you
can sometimes put your feet down and just drop the bike, remaining
standing - I'd forgotten, that happened to me once, approaching a
traffic light, the road turned out to be greasy due to an oil slick,
the bike went down and I stood up and skated to a halt :-)

If a person chooses not to wear a helmet, it's none of my business.
Apparently you make it your business to question the judgment of anyone who
DOES choose to wear a helmet by attacking their choice as illogical or
susceptible to fashion. Strange bias, that.

Please be assured that the limit of my caring whether anyone wears a
helmet or not is as follows:

* ill-informed advocacy (look for phrases like "organ donor" or the
figure 85%)

* in countries where governments are committed to legislation when
wearing rates rise to the point that enforcement would not be
problematic, helmet wearing may impact on the freedom of choice of
others.

I have read much of the evidence, so has Frank. I'm happy to discuss
it in detail. I used to e an enthusiastic helmet advocate, I was
challenged to read the evidence, and I recognise I was duped.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

85% of helmet statistics are made up, 69% of them at CHS, Puget Sound

I submit that on or about Sun, 17 Jul 2005 11:22:55 -0500, the person
known to the court as "Bob the Cow" made a statement
in Your Honour's bundle) to
the following effect:

Mind you, what would I know? I suffered a serious bicycle crash many
years ago and wasn't wearing a helmet, so obviously I'm dead!

No, dear boy -- not dead, but seriously addled.

Apparently I must be. I put it down to the next crash, where I was
wearing a helmet but was more seriously injured.

Well, you must be athletic and know how to fall. It's good you're OK. You
can take a joke too -- good on ya.

Heh! I'm British, we are supposed to be able to take a joke :-)

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

85% of helmet statistics are made up, 69% of them at CHS, Puget Sound

Bob the Cow wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...

I note that in the US, at least, almost all recumbent riders wear
helmets. Yes, even the few on recumbent trikes! To me, this is proof
that the hat choice is based on some variant of fashion, not logic.

Are you pretending that it's hard to crash a recumbent trike? Ever changed
direction in one unexpectedly due to "brake steering" at speed? They aren't
as stable as they look, and it's easy to become complacent. A LWB recumbent
bicycle also has some weight-distribution issues as to front and back wheel
which also predispose to occasional lack of control. Granted, it's not as
far to fall as from a diamond-frame, but some of these things do get up to a
respectable speed.

Oh, I know they get very respectable speed! But ISTM that worrying
about hitting your head in a recumbent crash is strange indeed.

Despite the hype and handwringing, head impacts are vanishingly rare
riding uprights. My bet is that they're much more rare on a recumbent.

On a LWB recumbent, it's essentially impossible to go over the front.
Even on a SWB, going over the front is slower than falling forward
while walking. Sliding sideways typically puts you onto your hip, with
an arm out for protection, and your head is starting out at a much
lower height. How _does_ someone hit their head?

Let me revise that question. Why not give us five or six examples of
recumbent riders falling and hitting their heads badly, and tell us how
it happened? Maybe we can learn something. If the danger is
significant, examples should be easy to find.

Apparently you make it your business to question the judgment of anyone who
DOES choose to wear a helmet by attacking their choice as illogical or
susceptible to fashion. Strange bias, that.

My bias is this: I think ordinary cycling is safe enough that unusual
protective gear isn't necessary. From 1890 until 1990, until Bell
started pushing a commercial product, that was the almost universal
opinion. In most of the world, it still is.

From what I see, most pro-helmet decisions are not based on logic or
data. I say this as a person that used to be pro-helmet, until I was
convinced to examine the data and the "logic."

Every once in a while a new example comes up, and I comment on it.
Care for another? How about the ads showing four-year-old kids on
plastic recumbent sidewalk trikes, riding three miles per hour with
their heads about two feet above the ground, "safely" ensconced in
helmets? How is that logical?

IMO, this _is_ a fashion issue, in that most people who are wearing
helmets are doing so because they see other people wearing helmets.
It's given exactly as much analysis as wearing aerodynamic sunglasses.
"Oooh, that's part of the proper look, too. And they might protect
your eyes!!!"

The difference is, Bolle' hasn't been smart enough to fund a "mandatory
sunglasses" movement by Safe Kids and The Harborview Institute. But if
they do, we'll see "scientific" papers claiming wearing sunglasses
reduce blindness and other eye injuries by "up to 85%." And we'll have
handwringing mommies in front of legislators saying "But if only _one_
child's eyesight can be saved..."

- Frank Krygowski

John Forrest Tomlinson wrote in
:

On Sat, 16 Jul 2005 10:08:38 -0400, wvantwiller
wrote:



And, as usual, I suppose your experience in your person medical
practice, including all that trauma room experience during your
internship and residence, give you better insights?

I'm not the one making claims so I have no need to back anything up.

JT

PS -- unless the medical people you're talking about are comparing
people who fell and were uninjured, I don't see how they could come to
conclusions about helmets. Think about it.

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http://www.bhsi.org/negativs.htm

wrote:

Despite the hype and handwringing, head impacts are vanishingly rare
riding uprights. My bet is that they're much more rare on a
recumbent.

Depending on what "vanishingly rare" means, something doesn't add up in
those two sentences.

Vanishingly = "to pass out of existence"; so how can something be MUCH more
rare than that?

I think you're right about the second part (head injuries good deal less
likely on 'bents); wrong about the first (unfortuately).

Bill S.

wrote in news:1121524744.872767.5110
@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

wvantwiller wrote:
John Forrest Tomlinson wrote in
:

On Fri, 15 Jul 2005 23:07:35 -0400, wvantwiller
wrote:

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;

How do you know that?



Mostly the newspaper articles quoting the doctors that the internal
trauma would probably been prevented if the riders had been wearing
helmets. Both accidents were recent enough to have involved newer
helmets, also.

To put that in perspective: We had one poster here who told of his
doctor's evaluation. He was in a bike crash, went to the emergency
room and was being treated by the ER doctor. He was not wearing a
helmet when he crashed.

The doctor asked him if he had been wearing a helmet. Not wanting to
hear a lecture, he lied and said "Yes."

The doctor told him "It's a good thing. It probably saved your life."

Unfortunately, I don't recall the name of that poster. If he's still
hanging around, perhaps he'll chime in.


Oh, and there's little reason to think a newer generation helmet is
more protective than an older one. If anything, the older ones
probably had more impact protection. Helmet manufacturers are
constantly working to give you more holes and less styrofoam, while
still (just _barely_) passing the ridiculously weak certification
tests.

- Frank Krygowski



And your point is?

The doctor OBVIOUSLY figured that if the crash cause this type of injury
with a helmet, he would have been in much more serious shape without it,
probably more than just serious.

So just how does this support the contention that a helmet is
unimportant?

wvantwiller wrote:

The doctor OBVIOUSLY figured that if the crash cause this type of
injury with a helmet, he would have been in much more serious shape
without it, probably more than just serious.

So just how does this support the contention that a helmet is
unimportant?

Because that's what anti-helmet zealots /want/ to believe.

HTH,

Bill "letting a little line out" S.

On Sun, 17 Jul 2005 14:54:56 -0400, wvantwiller
wrote:


The doctor OBVIOUSLY figured that if the crash cause this type of injury
with a helmet, he would have been in much more serious shape without it,
probably more than just serious.

So just how does this support the contention that a helmet is
unimportant?


The doctors are only seeing people who are injured. It's an odd
sampling of people, and not one to draw any general conclusions from.

JT

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wrote:

How about the ads showing four-year-old kids on
plastic recumbent sidewalk trikes, riding three miles per hour with
their heads about two feet above the ground, "safely" ensconced in
helmets? How is that logical?

It's getting them in the habit of wearing a helmet, so when they're
older and riding bigger and faster bikes they're accustomed to riding
with a helmet.

Rich

On 16 Jul 2005 07:39:04 -0700, wrote:

.. Helmet manufacturers are
constantly working to give you more holes and less styrofoam, while
still (just _barely_) passing the ridiculously weak certification
tests.

Not that I care if the anti-helmer zealots ride without one or not,
but...

I fail to see how a helmet that barely passes a weak test could afford
less protection in the event of an impact than none at all, yet this
is the (to me, absurd) position that I have often seen espoused.

To each his own. But let the decisions be based on rational
examination, not hyperbole.

I wear a helmet precisely because I don't know what's going to happen;
I ride with caution to try to avoid the situations where the helmet
would be needed...but I know better than to think I can obviate all
risks and still function. Wearing the helmet has no cost that I can't
bear. Not wearing one *might*. The chance is just enough to make the
difference for me. If it isn't enough for somebody else, that's fine.
It's quite literally not my problem.
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