Helmet ******s

"DRS" wrote in
:

If you're over 18, you can do anything you want to yourself as
far as I'm concerned.

If you lived alone on an island you could get away with that sort of
naivette but you don't. What you do impacts on the rest of us in a
variety of ways and there's no getting around that fact. You live in
a community and you should think communally.


Personally, I'd change that to "You can do anything you want to yourself
provided that no material harm comes to anyone else without their
consent."

"Material harm" so the kind of people who get offended easily, e.g. when I
wear my hideously bright cycling gear into a shop, can lump it. The
"without consent" is to cater for the masochists out there, e.g. people who
ride fixies :-)

Graeme

"Tom Kunich" wrote in message hlink.net...

Let's be sure to note that I for one have been at the scene of several of
what looked to be rather minor car racing accidents in which the
occupant/driver died despite seat belts, helmets and whatever else.


Just as well they weren't serious accidents.

Marty

In article ,
JohnB writes:

Extreme it may seem, but this *is* one reason why i do not drive.
I do not wish to be part of that culture that kills and injures so many.

If you drive you contribute towards the problems that motoring inflicts
on society.

You've summed up my feelings on the matter, to a tee.

You are not alone.


cheers,
Tom

--
-- Powered by FreeBSD
Above address is just a spam midden.
I'm really at: tkeats [curlicue] vcn [point] bc [point] ca

"S. Anderson" wrote in message
.. .

Amazingly, when the UK
introduced sealt belt legislation - driver fatalities stayed the same!
But
there was a substantial rise in pedestrian, cyclist and rear-seat
passenger fatalities.

Can you cite the data for this declaration? I'd be interested to see
this.


The data came from RAGB, but if you want the full picture I recomend chapter
4 of Death on the Streets by Bob Davis, which goes into some detail. It
also includes the interesting story of the Isles Report, prepared by the
DoT, which showed that mandatory belt laws had no significant effect in any
European country. It was buried in the run-up to legislation.

--
Guy
===

WARNING: may contain traces of irony. Contents may settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

"DRS" wrote in message
...

The laws of physics are the same in the UK as they are here and I simply
don't believe a word of it.


Yes, always better to go with blind faith than facts.

Try Googling for "risk compensation" some time. Read the study of German
taxi drivers and ABS brakes, it's very revealing. There's also a rising
rate of front passenger deaths in the UK at present, linked with the
increased use of cars fitted with drivers' airbags by young male drivers.

Of course, nobody believes in risk compensation. That's why it happens.

--
Guy
===

WARNING: may contain traces of irony. Contents may settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

"Q." LostVideos-AT-hotmail.com wrote in message
...

Given the fact that people have been bashing their heads for tens of
thousands of years, in evolutionary terms, wouldn't that be more like
"Skull
Version 26.9" ?


Heh! You may have a point. But doesn't evolution count as a field
revision?

--
Guy
===

WARNING: may contain traces of irony. Contents may settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

"Graeme" wrote in message
4.51...

"without consent" is to cater for the masochists out there, e.g. people
who
ride fixies :-)


Surely nobody would do that? They'd blow their knees...

--
Guy
===

WARNING: may contain traces of irony. Contents may settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

"Nick Maclaren" wrote in message
...

Helmets almost certainly reduce trivial head injuries in all
classes of cyclist - i.e. mere bruises, cuts and so on. Yes,
some of the cuts may have needed hospital treatment, but they
are STILL trivial.

Helmets almost certainly make a negligible difference to the
incidence of brain damage following an accident for normal
cyclists, and the data are not good enough to tell whether the
difference is positive or negative.

Helmets probably help with extreme cycling - crashes at speeds
above 30 MPH, people who ride over broken rock and so on - the
evidence is very scanty and hence inconclusive, but is at least
fairly consistent.

Mandatory and even semi-mandatory helmet wearing reduces the
number of normal cyclists significantly, especially those that
are using cycling as a form of transport rather than recreation.
And 'significantly' is of the order of tens of percent.

The rest is politics, dogma and so on.



On the face of it it's hard to add anything to that, other than that I
believe the evidence indicates that cyclists wearing helmets have a greater
propensity to risk-taking (risk compensation).

The helmet issue also affects the perception of the risk of cycling by
drivers, such that they are likely to attribute the death of a cyclist
wrongly as the consequence of cycling being a dangerous activity, when the
reality is that it's driving that's dangerous. What a horrible sentence. I
think you know what I mean, though.

--
Guy
===

WARNING: may contain traces of irony. Contents may settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

In article ,
"Just zis Guy, you know?" writes:
|
| On the face of it it's hard to add anything to that, other than that I
| believe the evidence indicates that cyclists wearing helmets have a greater
| propensity to risk-taking (risk compensation).

Yes, you are right I should have mentioned that. The evidence isn't
good enough to either be certain that it occurs (though it seems
likely) or whether helmet wearing increases the risks people take.
It could equally well just be a selection effect. In any case, any
significant effect almost certainly applies to the 'extreme' cyclists
only, and the effect is negligible for normal cyclists.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

On Wed, 4 Feb 2004 20:06:46 -0500 someone who may be "S. Anderson"
wrote this:-

Amazingly, when the UK
introduced sealt belt legislation - driver fatalities stayed the same!
But there was a substantial rise in pedestrian, cyclist and rear-seat
passenger fatalities.

Can you cite the data for this declaration? I'd be interested to see this.

It was in the Durbin/Harvey Report. As they were professor's of
statistics then one may assume that their methods are not open to
too much criticism.

If you want to see the raw data get hold of the report and follow
the references.


--
David Hansen, Edinburgh | PGP email preferred-key number F566DA0E
I will always explain revoked keys, unless the UK government
prevents me using the RIP Act 2000.