Helmet Nazis at It Again!

Bill Baka writes:

Another totally out of control thread on helmets again.
Every year.
Go ride, with or without. You are doing more harm sitting and typing
than you know and need a good ride with or without a brain bucket to
go clear your collective heads.
Bill Baka
Nice weather today

Hey don't blame me! I didn't start it and told people the topic
was already beaten to death when some idiot called me a "helmetnazi"
for a short post that said:

We went over this crap for years, and the "helmets don't work"
claim has been completely discredited. Nobody is claiming
that helmets are a panacea, but they are useful.



--
My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB

Bill Z. wrote:
Bill Baka writes:

Another totally out of control thread on helmets again.
Every year.
Go ride, with or without. You are doing more harm sitting and typing
than you know and need a good ride with or without a brain bucket to
go clear your collective heads.
Bill Baka
Nice weather today

Hey don't blame me! I didn't start it and told people the topic
was already beaten to death when some idiot called me a "helmetnazi"
for a short post that said:

We went over this crap for years, and the "helmets don't work"
claim has been completely discredited. Nobody is claiming
that helmets are a panacea, but they are useful.

No blame intended. It is just that lately someone (Dolan?),
(Brickston?), thinks he has to post to 5 groups and gets a mess started.
If we could just find and killfile these cross posters, life would bet
back to normal, such as it is on this group.
Bill (bicycle stuff, please) Baka
Helmet free on a bicycle for 50+ years. Lucky too.

Bill Z. wrote:
writes:

On Fri, 15 Sep 2006 04:50:24 GMT, (Bill Z.)
wrote:

writes:


Useful for scratches and scrapes perhaps.
But preventing serious injuries - zero (or negative) effect.
A net health cost.

Pure rubbish! Measurements have shown a positive effect and
the things are dirt cheap. Check the archives if you want to
read up on it.



Read up on it he
http://www.officeofroadsafety.wa.gov...gislation.html

Admittedly, this is talking about the costs versus benefits of enforced
mandatory helmet laws, rather than the helmets themselves. But the
largest cost to society was the cost of the helmets themselves. And
it's unlikely that cost was repaid in saved medical costs. Here's the
summary from one of the final paragraphs:

" In monetary terms, it is unlikely that the helmet wearing legislation
would have achieved net savings of any sizeable magnitude. Under the
assumptions used in the study, the most favourable estimate of the Net
Present Value of the bicycle helmet legislation was $2.0 million, and
this calculation excluded any costs associated with reduced cycling
activity."

Regarding that final line: the _least_ favorable estimate was a
monetary loss to society of $10,584,000. In essence, they're saying
the effect of the helmet law, enforced throughout the entire territory,
might have been from +$2 million to -$10 million. It was probably a
net loss to society, and that's without even taking into effect future
medical costs from less exercise, more driving, more air pollution,
more cars to run down pedestrians, etc.

- Frank Krygowski

wrote:
Regarding that final line: the _least_ favorable estimate was a
monetary loss to society of $10,584,000. In essence, they're saying
the effect of the helmet law, enforced throughout the entire territory,
might have been from +$2 million to -$10 million. It was probably a
net loss to society, and that's without even taking into effect future
medical costs from less exercise, more driving, more air pollution,
more cars to run down pedestrians, etc.

Plus, there's the effect that the more cyclists that are on the
road, the safer they all are. So if helmet laws discourage
people from cycling, then there's probably a net loss in safety
because of that.

See also http://komanoff.net/bicycle/safety_in_numbers.php .

--
Steven O'Neill
Brooklyn, NY

writes:

Bill Z. wrote:
writes:



Read up on it he
http://www.officeofroadsafety.wa.gov...gislation.html

Admittedly, this is talking about the costs versus benefits of enforced
mandatory helmet laws, rather than the helmets themselves. But the
largest cost to society was the cost of the helmets themselves. And
it's unlikely that cost was repaid in saved medical costs. Here's the
summary from one of the final paragraphs:

Note the non sequitur since we were actually talking about whether the
helmets did anything useful, not the competence of elected
representatives, who pass ill-conceived, even if well-intentioned,
laws all the time. Hopefully their mistakes get corrected.

What Krygowski posted is not exactly true, however - an Australian
study performed by Paul Scuffham showed that mandatory helmet laws
were cost effective for children but not for adults (many of whom, as
we know, ride very short distances). There is approximately a factor
of 1000 difference in annual mileage for adults riding bicycles. I
know people at both ends of the scale (around 5 miles per year versus
over 5000). You make helmet purchases mandatory for a lot of adults
who put their helmets on once a year to do little more than ride
around the block, and it isn't surprising that the result is not
particularly cost effective.

The sensible conclusion is that adults should make their own decisions
regarding helmet use. What is cost effective for one may not be cost
effective for another.

--
My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB

On 2006-09-15, dgk wrote:
On Fri, 15 Sep 2006 11:34:10 -0400, Gary L. Burnore
wrote:

On 15 Sep 2006 07:16:51 -0700, "NYC XYZ"
wrote:



In some cases, yes. But then there are cyclists who make it bad for
the rest of us by doing stupid things like stopping traffic and not
obeying traffic laws. You one of those? I'm not.


I run red lights, or more exactly, proceed carefully through them. It
takes me 1:15 to get to work as it is. The lights are not timed for
me, they're timed for cars. If I had to stop and wait at every red
light I hit, I would not be able to commute by bike.

It is legal to proceed through a red light on a bicycle in the state of
Idaho so long as you come to a stop first and yield to traffic. I have
encountered various lights in my city that appear to be sensor-based and
will not turn green for a bicyclist (if they can, I haven't figured out
how). Because of things like this, proceeding through red lights with
caution while on a bicycle seems reasonable to me.
--
Travis Poppe | ASCII Ribbon /"\
IRC: tlp @ irc.freenode.net | Campaign against \ /
"All great truths begin as blasphemies." | HTML e-mail and x
-- George Bernard Shaw | proprietary attachments / \

"dgk" wrote in message
...
On 15 Sep 2006 07:26:39 -0700, "NYC XYZ"
wrote:


Are you kidding; the only liberals in this town are the chattering
classes when they're at work. At home and at play they're less liberal
than you might think.

What's a chattering class?

Sort of pig-latin for Hattering Ass?

In article .com,
"Pat" writes:

As an aside, many helmets are not used correctly and therefore have
their safety compromized. They are really "one use" items. If you
bonk your head or even drop the helmet, its time for a new one.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I'm curious -- what happens to the styrofoam if a helmet is dropped on
the floor from, say, handlebar height? How /exactly/ does it fracture
or fail? And if currently available helmets are so fragile, what good
are they?

And why do mfg'rs use styrofoam instead of puffy foam rubber such as is
used in anti-decubitus pads, or some other lightweight shock-absorbing
material that's better able to withstand the rigours of being handled
by butter-fingered humans in the course of daily use?


cheers,
Tom

--
-- Nothing is safe from me.
Above address is just a spam midden.
I'm really at: tkeats [curlicue] vcn [point] bc [point] ca

In article ,
(Bill Z.) writes:

No positive effect isn't the same thing as not working, helmetnazi.

Really? Something not working has a positive effect???

"Helmetnazi"????

Yeah, what a stoopid thing to make enemies over. I don't expect
cyclists to all be on the same page, but it would be nice if we
could all at least be in the same chapter. Or book. Or encyclopoedia.

Look, retard, saying helmets do something useful
does not make one a "helmetnazi" - it's not like I give a damn whether
you use one or not. If someone is going around insisting that you use
one when you don't want to (maybe it will mess up your hairstyle or
something), then tell that person to f___ off. That's all you have to
do. You don't have to whine on usenet.

That doesn't work very well when you live, as I do, in a
MHL zone and the person you tell to f____ off is the cop
writing you a no-helmet ticket.

Nobody is claiming that helmets are a panacea, but they are useful.

Lots of people are.

Not so - I presume you mean people on this newsgroup, not some
reporter filling space in some newspaper article.


Acme Bicycle Safety Course
--------------------------

1) Always wear a helmet while riding, so drivers won't feel
so badly when they hit you

2) Try not to forget to do up the strap

3) If you drop your helmet, you must buy a new one. Buy two
or more at a time so you always have a spare


cheers,
Tom

--
-- Nothing is safe from me.
Above address is just a spam midden.
I'm really at: tkeats [curlicue] vcn [point] bc [point] ca

Tom Keats wrote:
In article .com,
"Pat" writes:

As an aside, many helmets are not used correctly and therefore have
their safety compromized. They are really "one use" items. If you
bonk your head or even drop the helmet, its time for a new one.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I'm curious -- what happens to the styrofoam if a helmet is dropped on
the floor from, say, handlebar height? How /exactly/ does it fracture
or fail? And if currently available helmets are so fragile, what good
are they?

And why do mfg'rs use styrofoam instead of puffy foam rubber such as is
used in anti-decubitus pads, or some other lightweight shock-absorbing
material that's better able to withstand the rigours of being handled
by butter-fingered humans in the course of daily use?


cheers,
Tom

--
-- Nothing is safe from me.
Above address is just a spam midden.
I'm really at: tkeats [curlicue] vcn [point] bc [point] ca

If you drop one once or even maybe a few times, it'll look okay. But
the question is: what will happen if you take a hard impact and need
the helmet. Is it still okay? The foam can compress, break apart,
fracture, etc. under the plastic shell and you'd never know it. It is
just like a car bumper that takes a 5 mph impact, bounce back, looks
okay but inside all of the foam is wiped out.

You might want to check out http://www.hjchelmets.com/helmet_usage.htm
It says to replace helmet after 1 accident (or fall from 4') because
that's all they are designed for -- or every few years.

Granted, these are for motorcycles, where speeds, impacts and risks are
higher, but I would imaging the same things apply to bicycle helmets.
Esp. when you consider that these are for much heavier duty than
bicycle helmets.