Latest on Australian Mandatory Helmet Law propaganda

On Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 8:03:37 PM UTC-5, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Sat, 16 Feb 2019 17:46:10 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 2/16/2019 3:16 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 10:20:44 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:

When I testified before a committee against a kids' MHL for Ohio, the
bulk of the testifiers were from Safe Kids.

Safe Kids mounted a major, major effort to get MHLs in the 1990s. They
distributed videos, pamphlets, PSAs, their officers spoke about it
whenever they could.

At the same time, Bell Sports was listed as being a major donor to Safe
Kids Inc.

I don't think the connection was accidental.

We still don't have a kids MHL. But there is a pediatrician's group that
constantly whines that we need one. Now, such organizations are subject
to domination by a couple individuals with bees in their bonnet. But
that doesn't mean that Bell Sports isn't sending them money.

The question is whether Bell is using Safe Kids as a sock-puppet or simply giving to an organization with the same agenda. Here are the corporate Safe Kid sponsors: https://www.safekids.org/supporters-sponsors: Bell, putting kids in helmets. Ford Motors, putting kids in trucks. Johnson & Johnson, putting kids in BandAids. Union Pacific, putting kids on freight trains. FedEx (hmmm) -- not seeing how FedEx fits into the giant conspiracy to co-opt Safe Kids to increase profits. I'd really be more concerned about the Graco connection -- makers of killer baby swings and other death-traps.

Go back to the 1990s, when this was a hot issue. That's when Safe Kids
was all about bike helmets. Now they've toned that down a lot (but not
entirely). Now they're onto child car seats - which could be the subject
of another thread.

I'm not seeing any pro-helmet Super PACs or industry groups. If there were real industry involvement, I'd expect to see a proposed uniform state law getting shopped to all the legislatures. That's the MO with industry groups...

And that is precisely what was happening beck in the 1990s. Even the
phrasing of some of the lobbying information was identical between
states. From memory, there was a phrase that popped up in several
different states, something like "The success of the law will be
demonstrated by the increase in the percentage of children wearing
helmets while bicycling."

That sticks in my mind because it showed the real priority. The success
was not to be judged by any reduction in brain injury per rider. It was
to be judged by, essentially, the sales of helmets. If the effect of the
law was to cause two thirds of the kids to stop riding and the other
third to buy helmets, it would be counted as a success. If the number of
kids biking concussions went up, it wouldn't matter. But the fact that
the phrasing was boilerplate, so to speak, indicates it wasn't a
spontaneous local effort.

The Oregon push was from concerned mothers and health care professionals, with whom you disagree -- and who disagree with you. That's the beauty of a democracy.

And the downside is that any commercial organization can shovel out
propaganda to make mothers and health care professionals oh, so
concerned. That's what happened with bicycling and helmets. The
"concerned mothers" never checked to quantify the actual level of risk
of serious brain injury. Instead, as planned, they bought into the scary
numbers out of context, the conflation of "head injury" and "brain
injury" and other propaganda tricks.

But it's the medical professionals who are the mystery. How do they
develop the cognitive dissonance to portray bicycling as a major source
of serious brain trauma? They see at least 50 such cases from
non-cycling incidents for every bicycle case, but I don't recall any of
them ever campaigning for helmets for the other cases. Well, except
perhaps motorcyclists - whose risk is something like 30 times worse than
bicyclists.

BTW, I've discussed this with various medical professionals, including
the extended family member who recently retired as an ER doctor. Oddly,
all the ones I've talked to were skeptical about the helmet promotion,
or at least agreed that bicycling seemed to be low on the scale of
relative risk of serious brain trauma. But I suspect that this is an
issue that, in the medical community as in the bicycling community, you
state your skepticism at your own peril.

I suspect that it is a matter of the Medical Profession not wanting to
appear to be against anything. If you ask a doctor here whether
drinking a tea made from rhino horn extract will help your virility he
will say something like, "well... it might" and given the placebo
effect it might. When Fabio Casartelli crashed during the TdeF he was
descending and hit a cement post head first, at probably speeds
approaching 60 MPH, it was said that an attending doctor commented
that wearing a helmet might have saved him...

Subsequently, Michel Disteldorf, the French doctor who examined
Casartelli's body on behalf of the coroner, that had Casartelli been
wearing a hard helmet "some injuries might have been avoided".

Note the term "might have" just as rhino horn tea "might" help your
erectile dysfunction.

As Dave Moulton pointed out in his Blog, more professional cyclists
have died since the helmet law went into effect then had died prior to
the law's enactment.

--
Cheers,
John B.

What I found interesting in reading a lot of accident reports involving bicyclists is when they mention that a bicyclist was NOT wearing a helmet but fail to mention that it was all the other injuries that killed the bicyclist.
I also remember a bicycles/vehicle collision in Toronto Canada in the 1980s wherein the bicyclist wearing a helmet was killed and the bicyclist not wearing a helmet was not.

I also remember an accident where in my head bounced off the pavement a couple of times and i had no injuries to my head and was able to continue my ride. Had I not been wearing a helmet I would have needed medical attention if only to stop bleeding. Sometimes a helmet works and sometimes it doesn't.. People should let others wear or not wear what they want. I wear a helmet most times I ride but am against mandatory helmet laws as I believe it's the individuals' choice to wear or not wear a helmet.

Cheers

On Sat, 16 Feb 2019 18:46:38 -0800 (PST), Sir Ridesalot
wrote:

On Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 8:03:37 PM UTC-5, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Sat, 16 Feb 2019 17:46:10 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 2/16/2019 3:16 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 10:20:44 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:

When I testified before a committee against a kids' MHL for Ohio, the
bulk of the testifiers were from Safe Kids.

Safe Kids mounted a major, major effort to get MHLs in the 1990s. They
distributed videos, pamphlets, PSAs, their officers spoke about it
whenever they could.

At the same time, Bell Sports was listed as being a major donor to Safe
Kids Inc.

I don't think the connection was accidental.

We still don't have a kids MHL. But there is a pediatrician's group that
constantly whines that we need one. Now, such organizations are subject
to domination by a couple individuals with bees in their bonnet. But
that doesn't mean that Bell Sports isn't sending them money.

The question is whether Bell is using Safe Kids as a sock-puppet or simply giving to an organization with the same agenda. Here are the corporate Safe Kid sponsors: https://www.safekids.org/supporters-sponsors: Bell, putting kids in helmets. Ford Motors, putting kids in trucks. Johnson & Johnson, putting kids in BandAids. Union Pacific, putting kids on freight trains. FedEx (hmmm) -- not seeing how FedEx fits into the giant conspiracy to co-opt Safe Kids to increase profits. I'd really be more concerned about the Graco connection -- makers of killer baby swings and other death-traps.

Go back to the 1990s, when this was a hot issue. That's when Safe Kids
was all about bike helmets. Now they've toned that down a lot (but not
entirely). Now they're onto child car seats - which could be the subject
of another thread.

I'm not seeing any pro-helmet Super PACs or industry groups. If there were real industry involvement, I'd expect to see a proposed uniform state law getting shopped to all the legislatures. That's the MO with industry groups...

And that is precisely what was happening beck in the 1990s. Even the
phrasing of some of the lobbying information was identical between
states. From memory, there was a phrase that popped up in several
different states, something like "The success of the law will be
demonstrated by the increase in the percentage of children wearing
helmets while bicycling."

That sticks in my mind because it showed the real priority. The success
was not to be judged by any reduction in brain injury per rider. It was
to be judged by, essentially, the sales of helmets. If the effect of the
law was to cause two thirds of the kids to stop riding and the other
third to buy helmets, it would be counted as a success. If the number of
kids biking concussions went up, it wouldn't matter. But the fact that
the phrasing was boilerplate, so to speak, indicates it wasn't a
spontaneous local effort.

The Oregon push was from concerned mothers and health care professionals, with whom you disagree -- and who disagree with you. That's the beauty of a democracy.

And the downside is that any commercial organization can shovel out
propaganda to make mothers and health care professionals oh, so
concerned. That's what happened with bicycling and helmets. The
"concerned mothers" never checked to quantify the actual level of risk
of serious brain injury. Instead, as planned, they bought into the scary
numbers out of context, the conflation of "head injury" and "brain
injury" and other propaganda tricks.

But it's the medical professionals who are the mystery. How do they
develop the cognitive dissonance to portray bicycling as a major source
of serious brain trauma? They see at least 50 such cases from
non-cycling incidents for every bicycle case, but I don't recall any of
them ever campaigning for helmets for the other cases. Well, except
perhaps motorcyclists - whose risk is something like 30 times worse than
bicyclists.

BTW, I've discussed this with various medical professionals, including
the extended family member who recently retired as an ER doctor. Oddly,
all the ones I've talked to were skeptical about the helmet promotion,
or at least agreed that bicycling seemed to be low on the scale of
relative risk of serious brain trauma. But I suspect that this is an
issue that, in the medical community as in the bicycling community, you
state your skepticism at your own peril.

I suspect that it is a matter of the Medical Profession not wanting to
appear to be against anything. If you ask a doctor here whether
drinking a tea made from rhino horn extract will help your virility he
will say something like, "well... it might" and given the placebo
effect it might. When Fabio Casartelli crashed during the TdeF he was
descending and hit a cement post head first, at probably speeds
approaching 60 MPH, it was said that an attending doctor commented
that wearing a helmet might have saved him...

Subsequently, Michel Disteldorf, the French doctor who examined
Casartelli's body on behalf of the coroner, that had Casartelli been
wearing a hard helmet "some injuries might have been avoided".

Note the term "might have" just as rhino horn tea "might" help your
erectile dysfunction.

As Dave Moulton pointed out in his Blog, more professional cyclists
have died since the helmet law went into effect then had died prior to
the law's enactment.

--
Cheers,
John B.

What I found interesting in reading a lot of accident reports involving bicyclists is when they mention that a bicyclist was NOT wearing a helmet but fail to mention that it was all the other injuries that killed the bicyclist.
I also remember a bicycles/vehicle collision in Toronto Canada in the 1980s wherein the bicyclist wearing a helmet was killed and the bicyclist not wearing a helmet was not.

I also remember an accident where in my head bounced off the pavement a couple of times and i had no injuries to my head and was able to continue my ride. Had I not been wearing a helmet I would have needed medical attention if only to stop bleeding. Sometimes a helmet works and sometimes it doesn't. People should let others wear or not wear what they want. I wear a helmet most times I ride but am against mandatory helmet laws as I believe it's the individuals' choice to wear or not wear a helmet.

Cheers

I don't want to get into a big political discussion but it seems that
in "modern times" the government is inclined to dictate matters, such
as bicycle helmet wear, in the same sense as one tells small children,
"Hot! Hot! Don't touch that!"

Which is, I wonder, an indicator of how the ruling elite regard the
huddles masses.

--
Cheers,
John B.

On Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 10:20:35 PM UTC-5, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Sat, 16 Feb 2019 18:46:38 -0800 (PST), Sir Ridesalot
wrote:

On Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 8:03:37 PM UTC-5, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Sat, 16 Feb 2019 17:46:10 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 2/16/2019 3:16 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 10:20:44 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:

When I testified before a committee against a kids' MHL for Ohio, the
bulk of the testifiers were from Safe Kids.

Safe Kids mounted a major, major effort to get MHLs in the 1990s. They
distributed videos, pamphlets, PSAs, their officers spoke about it
whenever they could.

At the same time, Bell Sports was listed as being a major donor to Safe
Kids Inc.

I don't think the connection was accidental.

We still don't have a kids MHL. But there is a pediatrician's group that
constantly whines that we need one. Now, such organizations are subject
to domination by a couple individuals with bees in their bonnet. But
that doesn't mean that Bell Sports isn't sending them money.

The question is whether Bell is using Safe Kids as a sock-puppet or simply giving to an organization with the same agenda. Here are the corporate Safe Kid sponsors: https://www.safekids.org/supporters-sponsors: Bell, putting kids in helmets. Ford Motors, putting kids in trucks. Johnson & Johnson, putting kids in BandAids. Union Pacific, putting kids on freight trains. FedEx (hmmm) -- not seeing how FedEx fits into the giant conspiracy to co-opt Safe Kids to increase profits. I'd really be more concerned about the Graco connection -- makers of killer baby swings and other death-traps.

Go back to the 1990s, when this was a hot issue. That's when Safe Kids
was all about bike helmets. Now they've toned that down a lot (but not
entirely). Now they're onto child car seats - which could be the subject
of another thread.

I'm not seeing any pro-helmet Super PACs or industry groups. If there were real industry involvement, I'd expect to see a proposed uniform state law getting shopped to all the legislatures. That's the MO with industry groups...

And that is precisely what was happening beck in the 1990s. Even the
phrasing of some of the lobbying information was identical between
states. From memory, there was a phrase that popped up in several
different states, something like "The success of the law will be
demonstrated by the increase in the percentage of children wearing
helmets while bicycling."

That sticks in my mind because it showed the real priority. The success
was not to be judged by any reduction in brain injury per rider. It was
to be judged by, essentially, the sales of helmets. If the effect of the
law was to cause two thirds of the kids to stop riding and the other
third to buy helmets, it would be counted as a success. If the number of
kids biking concussions went up, it wouldn't matter. But the fact that
the phrasing was boilerplate, so to speak, indicates it wasn't a
spontaneous local effort.

The Oregon push was from concerned mothers and health care professionals, with whom you disagree -- and who disagree with you. That's the beauty of a democracy.

And the downside is that any commercial organization can shovel out
propaganda to make mothers and health care professionals oh, so
concerned. That's what happened with bicycling and helmets. The
"concerned mothers" never checked to quantify the actual level of risk
of serious brain injury. Instead, as planned, they bought into the scary
numbers out of context, the conflation of "head injury" and "brain
injury" and other propaganda tricks.

But it's the medical professionals who are the mystery. How do they
develop the cognitive dissonance to portray bicycling as a major source
of serious brain trauma? They see at least 50 such cases from
non-cycling incidents for every bicycle case, but I don't recall any of
them ever campaigning for helmets for the other cases. Well, except
perhaps motorcyclists - whose risk is something like 30 times worse than
bicyclists.

BTW, I've discussed this with various medical professionals, including
the extended family member who recently retired as an ER doctor. Oddly,
all the ones I've talked to were skeptical about the helmet promotion,
or at least agreed that bicycling seemed to be low on the scale of
relative risk of serious brain trauma. But I suspect that this is an
issue that, in the medical community as in the bicycling community, you
state your skepticism at your own peril.

I suspect that it is a matter of the Medical Profession not wanting to
appear to be against anything. If you ask a doctor here whether
drinking a tea made from rhino horn extract will help your virility he
will say something like, "well... it might" and given the placebo
effect it might. When Fabio Casartelli crashed during the TdeF he was
descending and hit a cement post head first, at probably speeds
approaching 60 MPH, it was said that an attending doctor commented
that wearing a helmet might have saved him...

Subsequently, Michel Disteldorf, the French doctor who examined
Casartelli's body on behalf of the coroner, that had Casartelli been
wearing a hard helmet "some injuries might have been avoided".

Note the term "might have" just as rhino horn tea "might" help your
erectile dysfunction.

As Dave Moulton pointed out in his Blog, more professional cyclists
have died since the helmet law went into effect then had died prior to
the law's enactment.

--
Cheers,
John B.

What I found interesting in reading a lot of accident reports involving bicyclists is when they mention that a bicyclist was NOT wearing a helmet but fail to mention that it was all the other injuries that killed the bicyclist.
I also remember a bicycles/vehicle collision in Toronto Canada in the 1980s wherein the bicyclist wearing a helmet was killed and the bicyclist not wearing a helmet was not.

I also remember an accident where in my head bounced off the pavement a couple of times and i had no injuries to my head and was able to continue my ride. Had I not been wearing a helmet I would have needed medical attention if only to stop bleeding. Sometimes a helmet works and sometimes it doesn't. People should let others wear or not wear what they want. I wear a helmet most times I ride but am against mandatory helmet laws as I believe it's the individuals' choice to wear or not wear a helmet.

Cheers

I don't want to get into a big political discussion but it seems that
in "modern times" the government is inclined to dictate matters, such
as bicycle helmet wear, in the same sense as one tells small children,
"Hot! Hot! Don't touch that!"

Which is, I wonder, an indicator of how the ruling elite regard the
huddles masses.

--
Cheers,
John B.

In the 1800s Wellington referred to his troops as cannon fodder. The elite even today think nothing of the masses.

Cheers

On Sat, 16 Feb 2019 19:59:01 -0800 (PST), Sir Ridesalot
wrote:

On Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 10:20:35 PM UTC-5, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Sat, 16 Feb 2019 18:46:38 -0800 (PST), Sir Ridesalot
wrote:

On Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 8:03:37 PM UTC-5, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Sat, 16 Feb 2019 17:46:10 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 2/16/2019 3:16 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 10:20:44 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:

When I testified before a committee against a kids' MHL for Ohio, the
bulk of the testifiers were from Safe Kids.

Safe Kids mounted a major, major effort to get MHLs in the 1990s. They
distributed videos, pamphlets, PSAs, their officers spoke about it
whenever they could.

At the same time, Bell Sports was listed as being a major donor to Safe
Kids Inc.

I don't think the connection was accidental.

We still don't have a kids MHL. But there is a pediatrician's group that
constantly whines that we need one. Now, such organizations are subject
to domination by a couple individuals with bees in their bonnet. But
that doesn't mean that Bell Sports isn't sending them money.

The question is whether Bell is using Safe Kids as a sock-puppet or simply giving to an organization with the same agenda. Here are the corporate Safe Kid sponsors: https://www.safekids.org/supporters-sponsors: Bell, putting kids in helmets. Ford Motors, putting kids in trucks. Johnson & Johnson, putting kids in BandAids. Union Pacific, putting kids on freight trains. FedEx (hmmm) -- not seeing how FedEx fits into the giant conspiracy to co-opt Safe Kids to increase profits. I'd really be more concerned about the Graco connection -- makers of killer baby swings and other death-traps.

Go back to the 1990s, when this was a hot issue. That's when Safe Kids
was all about bike helmets. Now they've toned that down a lot (but not
entirely). Now they're onto child car seats - which could be the subject
of another thread.

I'm not seeing any pro-helmet Super PACs or industry groups. If there were real industry involvement, I'd expect to see a proposed uniform state law getting shopped to all the legislatures. That's the MO with industry groups...

And that is precisely what was happening beck in the 1990s. Even the
phrasing of some of the lobbying information was identical between
states. From memory, there was a phrase that popped up in several
different states, something like "The success of the law will be
demonstrated by the increase in the percentage of children wearing
helmets while bicycling."

That sticks in my mind because it showed the real priority. The success
was not to be judged by any reduction in brain injury per rider. It was
to be judged by, essentially, the sales of helmets. If the effect of the
law was to cause two thirds of the kids to stop riding and the other
third to buy helmets, it would be counted as a success. If the number of
kids biking concussions went up, it wouldn't matter. But the fact that
the phrasing was boilerplate, so to speak, indicates it wasn't a
spontaneous local effort.

The Oregon push was from concerned mothers and health care professionals, with whom you disagree -- and who disagree with you. That's the beauty of a democracy.

And the downside is that any commercial organization can shovel out
propaganda to make mothers and health care professionals oh, so
concerned. That's what happened with bicycling and helmets. The
"concerned mothers" never checked to quantify the actual level of risk
of serious brain injury. Instead, as planned, they bought into the scary
numbers out of context, the conflation of "head injury" and "brain
injury" and other propaganda tricks.

But it's the medical professionals who are the mystery. How do they
develop the cognitive dissonance to portray bicycling as a major source
of serious brain trauma? They see at least 50 such cases from
non-cycling incidents for every bicycle case, but I don't recall any of
them ever campaigning for helmets for the other cases. Well, except
perhaps motorcyclists - whose risk is something like 30 times worse than
bicyclists.

BTW, I've discussed this with various medical professionals, including
the extended family member who recently retired as an ER doctor. Oddly,
all the ones I've talked to were skeptical about the helmet promotion,
or at least agreed that bicycling seemed to be low on the scale of
relative risk of serious brain trauma. But I suspect that this is an
issue that, in the medical community as in the bicycling community, you
state your skepticism at your own peril.

I suspect that it is a matter of the Medical Profession not wanting to
appear to be against anything. If you ask a doctor here whether
drinking a tea made from rhino horn extract will help your virility he
will say something like, "well... it might" and given the placebo
effect it might. When Fabio Casartelli crashed during the TdeF he was
descending and hit a cement post head first, at probably speeds
approaching 60 MPH, it was said that an attending doctor commented
that wearing a helmet might have saved him...

Subsequently, Michel Disteldorf, the French doctor who examined
Casartelli's body on behalf of the coroner, that had Casartelli been
wearing a hard helmet "some injuries might have been avoided".

Note the term "might have" just as rhino horn tea "might" help your
erectile dysfunction.

As Dave Moulton pointed out in his Blog, more professional cyclists
have died since the helmet law went into effect then had died prior to
the law's enactment.

--
Cheers,
John B.

What I found interesting in reading a lot of accident reports involving bicyclists is when they mention that a bicyclist was NOT wearing a helmet but fail to mention that it was all the other injuries that killed the bicyclist.
I also remember a bicycles/vehicle collision in Toronto Canada in the 1980s wherein the bicyclist wearing a helmet was killed and the bicyclist not wearing a helmet was not.

I also remember an accident where in my head bounced off the pavement a couple of times and i had no injuries to my head and was able to continue my ride. Had I not been wearing a helmet I would have needed medical attention if only to stop bleeding. Sometimes a helmet works and sometimes it doesn't. People should let others wear or not wear what they want. I wear a helmet most times I ride but am against mandatory helmet laws as I believe it's the individuals' choice to wear or not wear a helmet.

Cheers

I don't want to get into a big political discussion but it seems that
in "modern times" the government is inclined to dictate matters, such
as bicycle helmet wear, in the same sense as one tells small children,
"Hot! Hot! Don't touch that!"

Which is, I wonder, an indicator of how the ruling elite regard the
huddles masses.

--
Cheers,
John B.

In the 1800s Wellington referred to his troops as cannon fodder. The elite even today think nothing of the masses.

Cheers

He was also credited with saying " don't know what effect these men
will have upon the enemy, but, by God, they frighten me.", in
reference to his troops.
and he also is quoted as saying, "I mistrust the judgment of every man
in a case in which his own wishes are concerned", which seems very
applicable in today's world.

--
Cheers,
John B.

On Sat, 16 Feb 2019 08:47:44 -0800, jbeattie wrote:


My cohort has been studied.
https://www.scribd.com/doc/42246724/...e-injury-Study I wonder
what the increased density of cyclists in some of the new facilities is
doing to the numbers -- along with sharply increased auto traffic. I
feel more imperiled in the bicycle facilities than on the roads -- with
parallel and crossing pedestrian facilities, side-by-side opposite
direction bike lanes, hardscape, bollards, slippery dimpled hard-rubber
transitions. There is so much in the way of lines and green paint, I
feel compelled to stop and take a free-throw or a penalty kick. Apropos
of the helmet discussion, it is a similar class of do-gooders promoting
bicycle facilities, although there is more of a profit motive for
designers and builders.

Call me cynical but I predicted that about some of the vocal planner and
designers in the 70's. "If they lstened to them, then they didn't have to
listen to the real riders". Govco just loved them.

On Sat, 16 Feb 2019 13:20:39 -0500, Frank Krygowski wrote:


We still don't have a kids MHL. But there is a pediatrician's group that
constantly whines that we need one. Now, such organizations are subject
to domination by a couple individuals with bees in their bonnet. But
that doesn't mean that Bell Sports isn't sending them money.

Hey, my second helmet was a freebie from the local Bell agent. It might
have been the fact that SWMBO'd and I ran a lot of club rides in those
years being the reason we were given them.

On Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 5:03:37 PM UTC-8, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Sat, 16 Feb 2019 17:46:10 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 2/16/2019 3:16 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 10:20:44 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:

When I testified before a committee against a kids' MHL for Ohio, the
bulk of the testifiers were from Safe Kids.

Safe Kids mounted a major, major effort to get MHLs in the 1990s. They
distributed videos, pamphlets, PSAs, their officers spoke about it
whenever they could.

At the same time, Bell Sports was listed as being a major donor to Safe
Kids Inc.

I don't think the connection was accidental.

We still don't have a kids MHL. But there is a pediatrician's group that
constantly whines that we need one. Now, such organizations are subject
to domination by a couple individuals with bees in their bonnet. But
that doesn't mean that Bell Sports isn't sending them money.

The question is whether Bell is using Safe Kids as a sock-puppet or simply giving to an organization with the same agenda. Here are the corporate Safe Kid sponsors: https://www.safekids.org/supporters-sponsors: Bell, putting kids in helmets. Ford Motors, putting kids in trucks. Johnson & Johnson, putting kids in BandAids. Union Pacific, putting kids on freight trains. FedEx (hmmm) -- not seeing how FedEx fits into the giant conspiracy to co-opt Safe Kids to increase profits. I'd really be more concerned about the Graco connection -- makers of killer baby swings and other death-traps.

Go back to the 1990s, when this was a hot issue. That's when Safe Kids
was all about bike helmets. Now they've toned that down a lot (but not
entirely). Now they're onto child car seats - which could be the subject
of another thread.

I'm not seeing any pro-helmet Super PACs or industry groups. If there were real industry involvement, I'd expect to see a proposed uniform state law getting shopped to all the legislatures. That's the MO with industry groups...

And that is precisely what was happening beck in the 1990s. Even the
phrasing of some of the lobbying information was identical between
states. From memory, there was a phrase that popped up in several
different states, something like "The success of the law will be
demonstrated by the increase in the percentage of children wearing
helmets while bicycling."

That sticks in my mind because it showed the real priority. The success
was not to be judged by any reduction in brain injury per rider. It was
to be judged by, essentially, the sales of helmets. If the effect of the
law was to cause two thirds of the kids to stop riding and the other
third to buy helmets, it would be counted as a success. If the number of
kids biking concussions went up, it wouldn't matter. But the fact that
the phrasing was boilerplate, so to speak, indicates it wasn't a
spontaneous local effort.

The Oregon push was from concerned mothers and health care professionals, with whom you disagree -- and who disagree with you. That's the beauty of a democracy.

And the downside is that any commercial organization can shovel out
propaganda to make mothers and health care professionals oh, so
concerned. That's what happened with bicycling and helmets. The
"concerned mothers" never checked to quantify the actual level of risk
of serious brain injury. Instead, as planned, they bought into the scary
numbers out of context, the conflation of "head injury" and "brain
injury" and other propaganda tricks.

But it's the medical professionals who are the mystery. How do they
develop the cognitive dissonance to portray bicycling as a major source
of serious brain trauma? They see at least 50 such cases from
non-cycling incidents for every bicycle case, but I don't recall any of
them ever campaigning for helmets for the other cases. Well, except
perhaps motorcyclists - whose risk is something like 30 times worse than
bicyclists.

BTW, I've discussed this with various medical professionals, including
the extended family member who recently retired as an ER doctor. Oddly,
all the ones I've talked to were skeptical about the helmet promotion,
or at least agreed that bicycling seemed to be low on the scale of
relative risk of serious brain trauma. But I suspect that this is an
issue that, in the medical community as in the bicycling community, you
state your skepticism at your own peril.

I suspect that it is a matter of the Medical Profession not wanting to
appear to be against anything. If you ask a doctor here whether
drinking a tea made from rhino horn extract will help your virility he
will say something like, "well... it might" and given the placebo
effect it might. When Fabio Casartelli crashed during the TdeF he was
descending and hit a cement post head first, at probably speeds
approaching 60 MPH, it was said that an attending doctor commented
that wearing a helmet might have saved him...

Subsequently, Michel Disteldorf, the French doctor who examined
Casartelli's body on behalf of the coroner, that had Casartelli been
wearing a hard helmet "some injuries might have been avoided".

Note the term "might have" just as rhino horn tea "might" help your
erectile dysfunction.

As Dave Moulton pointed out in his Blog, more professional cyclists
have died since the helmet law went into effect then had died prior to
the law's enactment.

--
Cheers,
John B.

This probably has nothing whatsoever to do with helmets. Professional cycling speeds have gone up significantly from lighter and more efficient components and team tactics plus more competition. As the average speeds in the Grand Tours go up you have to expect that more team leaders are using tactics that end up being more dangerous.

On Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 5:36:03 PM UTC-8, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 2:46:16 PM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 2/16/2019 3:16 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 10:20:44 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:

When I testified before a committee against a kids' MHL for Ohio, the
bulk of the testifiers were from Safe Kids.

Safe Kids mounted a major, major effort to get MHLs in the 1990s. They
distributed videos, pamphlets, PSAs, their officers spoke about it
whenever they could.

At the same time, Bell Sports was listed as being a major donor to Safe
Kids Inc.

I don't think the connection was accidental.

We still don't have a kids MHL. But there is a pediatrician's group that
constantly whines that we need one. Now, such organizations are subject
to domination by a couple individuals with bees in their bonnet. But
that doesn't mean that Bell Sports isn't sending them money.

The question is whether Bell is using Safe Kids as a sock-puppet or simply giving to an organization with the same agenda. Here are the corporate Safe Kid sponsors: https://www.safekids.org/supporters-sponsors: Bell, putting kids in helmets. Ford Motors, putting kids in trucks. Johnson & Johnson, putting kids in BandAids. Union Pacific, putting kids on freight trains. FedEx (hmmm) -- not seeing how FedEx fits into the giant conspiracy to co-opt Safe Kids to increase profits. I'd really be more concerned about the Graco connection -- makers of killer baby swings and other death-traps.

Go back to the 1990s, when this was a hot issue. That's when Safe Kids
was all about bike helmets. Now they've toned that down a lot (but not
entirely). Now they're onto child car seats - which could be the subject
of another thread.

I'm not seeing any pro-helmet Super PACs or industry groups. If there were real industry involvement, I'd expect to see a proposed uniform state law getting shopped to all the legislatures. That's the MO with industry groups...

And that is precisely what was happening beck in the 1990s. Even the
phrasing of some of the lobbying information was identical between
states. From memory, there was a phrase that popped up in several
different states, something like "The success of the law will be
demonstrated by the increase in the percentage of children wearing
helmets while bicycling."

That sticks in my mind because it showed the real priority. The success
was not to be judged by any reduction in brain injury per rider. It was
to be judged by, essentially, the sales of helmets. If the effect of the
law was to cause two thirds of the kids to stop riding and the other
third to buy helmets, it would be counted as a success. If the number of
kids biking concussions went up, it wouldn't matter. But the fact that
the phrasing was boilerplate, so to speak, indicates it wasn't a
spontaneous local effort.

The Oregon push was from concerned mothers and health care professionals, with whom you disagree -- and who disagree with you. That's the beauty of a democracy.

And the downside is that any commercial organization can shovel out
propaganda to make mothers and health care professionals oh, so
concerned. That's what happened with bicycling and helmets. The
"concerned mothers" never checked to quantify the actual level of risk
of serious brain injury. Instead, as planned, they bought into the scary
numbers out of context, the conflation of "head injury" and "brain
injury" and other propaganda tricks.

But it's the medical professionals who are the mystery. How do they
develop the cognitive dissonance to portray bicycling as a major source
of serious brain trauma? They see at least 50 such cases from
non-cycling incidents for every bicycle case, but I don't recall any of
them ever campaigning for helmets for the other cases. Well, except
perhaps motorcyclists - whose risk is something like 30 times worse than
bicyclists.

BTW, I've discussed this with various medical professionals, including
the extended family member who recently retired as an ER doctor. Oddly,
all the ones I've talked to were skeptical about the helmet promotion,
or at least agreed that bicycling seemed to be low on the scale of
relative risk of serious brain trauma. But I suspect that this is an
issue that, in the medical community as in the bicycling community, you
state your skepticism at your own peril.

Well, there's more to the issue than "serious brain injury." Head and scalp injury, including depressed skull fracture can be reduced or avoided with a helmet. As an ED doctor, I would like to see that.

I didn't see a ton of bicycle accidents as an ambulance driver, but I did see a ton of motorcycle accidents. Yes, different issues, but I saw lots of heads that look like they went through cheese graters. And to be fair, lots of bodies, too. A helmet would have at least allowed for an open casket funeral.

-- Jay Beattie.

I believe I pointed out that most important cause of traumatic head injuries - serious concussions - are not alleviated at all by helmets. If an accident will kill you without a helmet, there is over a 99% chance it will kill you with a helmet.

As I have said in the past - it is now almost a decade since my concussion which occurred under almost perfect conditions for a helmet according to the helmet standards. I fell less than half of the helmet required distance and hence the strike probably had about a quarter of the energy behind it. I will deal with the consequences for the rest of my life.

I do not blame the helmet manufacturer but rather a component failure. Without that failure I would not have been injured. What do you do if your brakes go out or if you get a flat tire cornering perhaps faster than you should in your car? Do you blame it on the tire manufacturer?

On 2/16/2019 8:30 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 5:03:37 PM UTC-8, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Sat, 16 Feb 2019 17:46:10 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 2/16/2019 3:16 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 10:20:44 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:

When I testified before a committee against a kids' MHL for Ohio, the
bulk of the testifiers were from Safe Kids.

Safe Kids mounted a major, major effort to get MHLs in the 1990s. They
distributed videos, pamphlets, PSAs, their officers spoke about it
whenever they could.

At the same time, Bell Sports was listed as being a major donor to Safe
Kids Inc.

I don't think the connection was accidental.

We still don't have a kids MHL. But there is a pediatrician's group that
constantly whines that we need one. Now, such organizations are subject
to domination by a couple individuals with bees in their bonnet. But
that doesn't mean that Bell Sports isn't sending them money.

The question is whether Bell is using Safe Kids as a sock-puppet or simply giving to an organization with the same agenda. Here are the corporate Safe Kid sponsors: https://www.safekids.org/supporters-sponsors: Bell, putting kids in helmets. Ford Motors, putting kids in trucks. Johnson & Johnson, putting kids in BandAids. Union Pacific, putting kids on freight trains. FedEx (hmmm) -- not seeing how FedEx fits into the giant conspiracy to co-opt Safe Kids to increase profits. I'd really be more concerned about the Graco connection -- makers of killer baby swings and other death-traps.

Go back to the 1990s, when this was a hot issue. That's when Safe Kids
was all about bike helmets. Now they've toned that down a lot (but not
entirely). Now they're onto child car seats - which could be the subject
of another thread.

I'm not seeing any pro-helmet Super PACs or industry groups. If there were real industry involvement, I'd expect to see a proposed uniform state law getting shopped to all the legislatures. That's the MO with industry groups...

And that is precisely what was happening beck in the 1990s. Even the
phrasing of some of the lobbying information was identical between
states. From memory, there was a phrase that popped up in several
different states, something like "The success of the law will be
demonstrated by the increase in the percentage of children wearing
helmets while bicycling."

That sticks in my mind because it showed the real priority. The success
was not to be judged by any reduction in brain injury per rider. It was
to be judged by, essentially, the sales of helmets. If the effect of the
law was to cause two thirds of the kids to stop riding and the other
third to buy helmets, it would be counted as a success. If the number of
kids biking concussions went up, it wouldn't matter. But the fact that
the phrasing was boilerplate, so to speak, indicates it wasn't a
spontaneous local effort.

The Oregon push was from concerned mothers and health care professionals, with whom you disagree -- and who disagree with you. That's the beauty of a democracy.

And the downside is that any commercial organization can shovel out
propaganda to make mothers and health care professionals oh, so
concerned. That's what happened with bicycling and helmets. The
"concerned mothers" never checked to quantify the actual level of risk
of serious brain injury. Instead, as planned, they bought into the scary
numbers out of context, the conflation of "head injury" and "brain
injury" and other propaganda tricks.

But it's the medical professionals who are the mystery. How do they
develop the cognitive dissonance to portray bicycling as a major source
of serious brain trauma? They see at least 50 such cases from
non-cycling incidents for every bicycle case, but I don't recall any of
them ever campaigning for helmets for the other cases. Well, except
perhaps motorcyclists - whose risk is something like 30 times worse than
bicyclists.

BTW, I've discussed this with various medical professionals, including
the extended family member who recently retired as an ER doctor. Oddly,
all the ones I've talked to were skeptical about the helmet promotion,
or at least agreed that bicycling seemed to be low on the scale of
relative risk of serious brain trauma. But I suspect that this is an
issue that, in the medical community as in the bicycling community, you
state your skepticism at your own peril.

I suspect that it is a matter of the Medical Profession not wanting to
appear to be against anything. If you ask a doctor here whether
drinking a tea made from rhino horn extract will help your virility he
will say something like, "well... it might" and given the placebo
effect it might. When Fabio Casartelli crashed during the TdeF he was
descending and hit a cement post head first, at probably speeds
approaching 60 MPH, it was said that an attending doctor commented
that wearing a helmet might have saved him...

Subsequently, Michel Disteldorf, the French doctor who examined
Casartelli's body on behalf of the coroner, that had Casartelli been
wearing a hard helmet "some injuries might have been avoided".

Note the term "might have" just as rhino horn tea "might" help your
erectile dysfunction.

As Dave Moulton pointed out in his Blog, more professional cyclists
have died since the helmet law went into effect then had died prior to
the law's enactment.

Helmets do prevent certain injuries that I've had -- and that my wife has had. She was knocked out and got a broken arm in a big regional race and got crashed in an Oregon race and cut her face. Always ask for the plastic surgeon. She avoided scalp injury. I've avoided scalp injury and have the scars stopping at my helmet line to prove it. I rode the OSU criterium a million years ago, and a guy launched into a stay cable holding up a telephone pole. It split his helmet in half, and he walked around the course for the rest of the race with the two halves hanging around his shoulder. People whack their heads with regularity in slippery early season races. I've ruined probably four helmets and a ski helmet, which represented my worst head injury. I still don't remember what happened. My face looked like I was in a prize fight, and I can only guess what shape my head would have been in without a helmet. Helmets are a reasonable choice for many.

Note how many of your anecdotes involve races. But helmet promoters have
targeted very ordinary, calm and slow bicycling. Some promotional
material has said "You can fall over in your driveway and die."

NASCAR racers wear helmets. But almost nobody says people should wear
helmets when they drive to the grocery, despite the TBI fatality count
for motoring being so much higher than for bicycling.

(Those who promote bike helmets to reduce "cost to society" somehow
ignore the motoring problem. More cognitive dissonance.)

--
- Frank Krygowski

On Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 7:20:35 PM UTC-8, John B. Slocomb wrote:

I don't want to get into a big political discussion but it seems that
in "modern times" the government is inclined to dictate matters, such
as bicycle helmet wear, in the same sense as one tells small children,
"Hot! Hot! Don't touch that!"

Which is, I wonder, an indicator of how the ruling elite regard the
huddles masses.

--
Cheers,
John B.

While watching something on FOX one of the people being interviewed said something interesting: That the Democrats know who their voters are and will pander to them. They don't actually do anything but they can promise them anything and it has almost the same effect as doing things for them.

But the Republican elite whose base now is the middle class actually dislikes their voters - the people who empower them - and they dislike Trump for the same reason - Trump, despite his riches was taught by the world around him to respect everyone - he is a middle class person himself and hence is also somewhat despised by the Republican elite.

I believe this makes a lot of sense because the Republican Congress sat on their hands when they had total control of both houses and did absolutely nothing for their base. The Republican National Committee had to burn it into their member's minds that the response of the Republican supporters were very negative because the Party wasn't supporting Trump and that no money was coming into their coffers from the base. Trump could actually start a new party and the Republicans would be in the same position that the Democrats now are. And only a few Red members of congress have grasped that and have turned completely around and now support Trump unconditionally.