OH DEER! Good thing the bicyclist was wearing a helmet

On 8/31/2016 9:52 PM, John B. wrote:
On Wed, 31 Aug 2016 11:21:05 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 8/31/2016 8:08 AM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Wednesday, August 31, 2016 at 4:39:04 AM UTC-4, James wrote:
On 31/08/16 14:15, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
Take a look at the images. In one of them you can see the bicyclist
just before his helmeted head strikes the pavement. An experienced
bicyclist and an unexpected deer = CRASH! and an over the bars onto
the head header. Sometimes something totally unexpected happens and
down you go.

https://twitter.com/tri_ireland/stat...rc=twsrc%5Etfw



1. Troll.

2. It was a _race_. Helmets are not optional in races, and people are
more prone to crashing than if they were to ride to the shops or work.

3. He had his hands on the road before the helmet made contact, and did
a forward role. The impact to the helmet (and resulting blow to the
head) was likely *increased* due to the thickness of the helmet.


--
JS

You're someone else who misses the point. The fact that it was a race had nothing to do with the factt hat a bicyclist was knocked off his bicycle by a totally unexpected event in this case a number of deer bounding/jumping across the road. This could happen to ANY bicyclist on many country roads or rail-trails.

But you pretend that these things happen only to cyclists! Or at least,
that's how it seems; because you never troll about helmets for the
non-cycling sources of 98% of serious brain injuries, or the other 99+%
of fatal brain injuries. Yes, cyclists comprise fewer then 1% of TBI
deaths.

I had an interesting conversation recently. Someone asked me about my
views that helmets are deceptively promoted, and that cycling is
actually not dangerous enough to justify the helmet mania. I said yes,
after digging deeply into the data, that's what I've concluded. I
mentioned that in the U.S., cyclists are only 0.6% of TBI fatalities,
and that the most common cause of TBI death was falling in the home.

The guy responded "Yes. That's how my wife died."


I just love how you anti-helmet zealots say that if the helmet had not been worn the head would not have struck the pavement. Sheesh! like an extra inch or two is going to make that much of a difference in a high speed fall.

To address this on the basis of national level data: Nobody is saying
that's true in every case, Sir. But it is certainly true in some cases.
It's one reason that's proposed to explain why bike helmets have
apparently not reduced national cycling deaths, and why cyclist
concussions have actually _increased_ significantly since helmets became
popular.

IOW, you may not believe that helmeted heads are more likely to strike
the ground. But then, you need to give some other explanations for the
lousy helmet results.

As previously described: When I was in my teens and doing my daily paper
route by bike, there was one incident where I hit some ice and fell
backward, hitting the back of my head on the pavement. I remember
thinking "Wow, that hurt," then getting back up and finishing the route.
There were no ill effects. Apparently, my head barely hit the ground.
If I had worn a helmet, do you really think the impact wouldn't have
been harder? And can you envision no incident where a bare head would
barely miss, but a helmet would be strongly hit?

Personally, I'm sure a helmet would have made the impact much harder.
And I'm positive that if that incident were recreated today with a
helmet, you and everyone else would be pointing to the broken helmet and
claiming it "saved" me from either death or permanent disability.

One of the problems with the whole "danger, danger, helmet, helmet"
discussion is that apparently no one actually knows whether bicycling
is. or is not, a dangerous pastime.

For example, the number of bicyclists that died on bicycles, in the
U.S., in 2014, was 726 according to
http://www.pedbikeinfo.org/data/factsheet_crash.cfm

According to
http://www.statista.com/statistics/2...ke-riders-usa/
there were 67 million cyclists in the U.S. in 2014.

According to
http://www.peopleforbikes.org/pages/...marking-report
Thirty-four percent of Americans ages 3+ rode a bicycle at least one
day in the past year.

Note: As of July 2014 the U.S. population was 318,892,183 so 34% would
be 108,423,342.

So al;ready we have an anomaly. Is the number of cyclists 67 million
or 108 million?

I suggest that no one knows how many cyclists there are but using the
data above we find that either 1 cyclist in 92,286.5 or 1 cyclist in
149,343.4 died in 2014. In percentages this amounts to a death rate of
0.0010836% or 0.0006696%

The death rate in the U.S., in 2014 for all causes was 2,596,993 so 1
in 3577 deaths was a bicycle death, or some 0.0279% of the total
deaths in the U.S. was attributed to a bicycle.

It might also be noted that auto deaths in 2014 was 32,675 and
licensed drivers was 214,000,000 so approximately 1 auto death per
6549 drivers occurred.

Looking at the "danger, danger, helmet, helmet" equation from the
other side of the fence http://www.bhsi.org/market.htm tells us that
there are no definitive numbers for the number of bicycle helmets sold
in the U.S. annually however the same site reports that:

Bicycle Retailer and Industry News, BRAIN, reported that
"Based on a year that started in July 2009 and ran through June 2010,
they estimated 1,661,036 helmets sold by bike shops totaling
$88,573,775".

I've come across the discrepancies in the number of U.S. bicyclists
before. Part of the explanation may be the criteria an agency uses to
decide whether a person is a bicyclist. For example, one survey used to
determine sports participation counted a person as a tennis player, a
golfer, a basketball player, etc. etc. if they played once during the
preceding year. But for reasons left unexplained, they required five
bike rides to be counted as a bicyclist. Another agency might count
everyone who was on a bike at least once.

(That leaves aside the entire issue of treating bicycling as a "sport."
Is riding to the grocery store really a sporting event?)

We might say it's a shame that the U.S. doesn't invest in more accurate
counts to better assess injury rates; but I think it's not unreasonable.
The salient fact is that bicycling is so damned safe that it doesn't
make sense to decide exactly how negligible the danger is.

Unfortunately, that does leave a bit of an information vacuum. And even
more unfortunately, that vacuum gives an opportunity to the "Danger!
Danger!" freaks. Like "Sir Ridesalot," for example, who apparently
invests considerable time in scouring the internet for troll-fodder
"helmet saved his life" stories.

After all, how else would one come across a video of a cyclist hit by a
deer on the other side of the ocean? And why else would someone think
we needed to hear about it?

--
- Frank Krygowski

On Wed, 31 Aug 2016 23:43:44 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 8/31/2016 9:52 PM, John B. wrote:
On Wed, 31 Aug 2016 11:21:05 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 8/31/2016 8:08 AM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Wednesday, August 31, 2016 at 4:39:04 AM UTC-4, James wrote:
On 31/08/16 14:15, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
Take a look at the images. In one of them you can see the bicyclist
just before his helmeted head strikes the pavement. An experienced
bicyclist and an unexpected deer = CRASH! and an over the bars onto
the head header. Sometimes something totally unexpected happens and
down you go.

https://twitter.com/tri_ireland/stat...rc=twsrc%5Etfw



1. Troll.

2. It was a _race_. Helmets are not optional in races, and people are
more prone to crashing than if they were to ride to the shops or work.

3. He had his hands on the road before the helmet made contact, and did
a forward role. The impact to the helmet (and resulting blow to the
head) was likely *increased* due to the thickness of the helmet.


--
JS

You're someone else who misses the point. The fact that it was a race had nothing to do with the factt hat a bicyclist was knocked off his bicycle by a totally unexpected event in this case a number of deer bounding/jumping across the road. This could happen to ANY bicyclist on many country roads or rail-trails.

But you pretend that these things happen only to cyclists! Or at least,
that's how it seems; because you never troll about helmets for the
non-cycling sources of 98% of serious brain injuries, or the other 99+%
of fatal brain injuries. Yes, cyclists comprise fewer then 1% of TBI
deaths.

I had an interesting conversation recently. Someone asked me about my
views that helmets are deceptively promoted, and that cycling is
actually not dangerous enough to justify the helmet mania. I said yes,
after digging deeply into the data, that's what I've concluded. I
mentioned that in the U.S., cyclists are only 0.6% of TBI fatalities,
and that the most common cause of TBI death was falling in the home.

The guy responded "Yes. That's how my wife died."


I just love how you anti-helmet zealots say that if the helmet had not been worn the head would not have struck the pavement. Sheesh! like an extra inch or two is going to make that much of a difference in a high speed fall.

To address this on the basis of national level data: Nobody is saying
that's true in every case, Sir. But it is certainly true in some cases.
It's one reason that's proposed to explain why bike helmets have
apparently not reduced national cycling deaths, and why cyclist
concussions have actually _increased_ significantly since helmets became
popular.

IOW, you may not believe that helmeted heads are more likely to strike
the ground. But then, you need to give some other explanations for the
lousy helmet results.

As previously described: When I was in my teens and doing my daily paper
route by bike, there was one incident where I hit some ice and fell
backward, hitting the back of my head on the pavement. I remember
thinking "Wow, that hurt," then getting back up and finishing the route.
There were no ill effects. Apparently, my head barely hit the ground.
If I had worn a helmet, do you really think the impact wouldn't have
been harder? And can you envision no incident where a bare head would
barely miss, but a helmet would be strongly hit?

Personally, I'm sure a helmet would have made the impact much harder.
And I'm positive that if that incident were recreated today with a
helmet, you and everyone else would be pointing to the broken helmet and
claiming it "saved" me from either death or permanent disability.

One of the problems with the whole "danger, danger, helmet, helmet"
discussion is that apparently no one actually knows whether bicycling
is. or is not, a dangerous pastime.

For example, the number of bicyclists that died on bicycles, in the
U.S., in 2014, was 726 according to
http://www.pedbikeinfo.org/data/factsheet_crash.cfm

According to
http://www.statista.com/statistics/2...ke-riders-usa/
there were 67 million cyclists in the U.S. in 2014.

According to
http://www.peopleforbikes.org/pages/...marking-report
Thirty-four percent of Americans ages 3+ rode a bicycle at least one
day in the past year.

Note: As of July 2014 the U.S. population was 318,892,183 so 34% would
be 108,423,342.

So al;ready we have an anomaly. Is the number of cyclists 67 million
or 108 million?

I suggest that no one knows how many cyclists there are but using the
data above we find that either 1 cyclist in 92,286.5 or 1 cyclist in
149,343.4 died in 2014. In percentages this amounts to a death rate of
0.0010836% or 0.0006696%

The death rate in the U.S., in 2014 for all causes was 2,596,993 so 1
in 3577 deaths was a bicycle death, or some 0.0279% of the total
deaths in the U.S. was attributed to a bicycle.

It might also be noted that auto deaths in 2014 was 32,675 and
licensed drivers was 214,000,000 so approximately 1 auto death per
6549 drivers occurred.

Looking at the "danger, danger, helmet, helmet" equation from the
other side of the fence http://www.bhsi.org/market.htm tells us that
there are no definitive numbers for the number of bicycle helmets sold
in the U.S. annually however the same site reports that:

Bicycle Retailer and Industry News, BRAIN, reported that
"Based on a year that started in July 2009 and ran through June 2010,
they estimated 1,661,036 helmets sold by bike shops totaling
$88,573,775".

I've come across the discrepancies in the number of U.S. bicyclists
before. Part of the explanation may be the criteria an agency uses to
decide whether a person is a bicyclist. For example, one survey used to
determine sports participation counted a person as a tennis player, a
golfer, a basketball player, etc. etc. if they played once during the
preceding year. But for reasons left unexplained, they required five
bike rides to be counted as a bicyclist. Another agency might count
everyone who was on a bike at least once.

(That leaves aside the entire issue of treating bicycling as a "sport."
Is riding to the grocery store really a sporting event?)

We might say it's a shame that the U.S. doesn't invest in more accurate
counts to better assess injury rates; but I think it's not unreasonable.
The salient fact is that bicycling is so damned safe that it doesn't
make sense to decide exactly how negligible the danger is.

Unfortunately, that does leave a bit of an information vacuum. And even
more unfortunately, that vacuum gives an opportunity to the "Danger!
Danger!" freaks. Like "Sir Ridesalot," for example, who apparently
invests considerable time in scouring the internet for troll-fodder
"helmet saved his life" stories.

After all, how else would one come across a video of a cyclist hit by a
deer on the other side of the ocean? And why else would someone think
we needed to hear about it?

And income from helmet sales is $88,573,775 annually :-)
--
cheers,

John B.

On 8/31/2016 8:52 PM, John B. wrote:
On Wed, 31 Aug 2016 11:21:05 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 8/31/2016 8:08 AM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Wednesday, August 31, 2016 at 4:39:04 AM UTC-4, James wrote:
On 31/08/16 14:15, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
Take a look at the images. In one of them you can see the bicyclist
just before his helmeted head strikes the pavement. An experienced
bicyclist and an unexpected deer = CRASH! and an over the bars onto
the head header. Sometimes something totally unexpected happens and
down you go.

https://twitter.com/tri_ireland/stat...rc=twsrc%5Etfw



1. Troll.

2. It was a _race_. Helmets are not optional in races, and people are
more prone to crashing than if they were to ride to the shops or work.

3. He had his hands on the road before the helmet made contact, and did
a forward role. The impact to the helmet (and resulting blow to the
head) was likely *increased* due to the thickness of the helmet.


--
JS

You're someone else who misses the point. The fact that it was a race had nothing to do with the factt hat a bicyclist was knocked off his bicycle by a totally unexpected event in this case a number of deer bounding/jumping across the road. This could happen to ANY bicyclist on many country roads or rail-trails.

But you pretend that these things happen only to cyclists! Or at least,
that's how it seems; because you never troll about helmets for the
non-cycling sources of 98% of serious brain injuries, or the other 99+%
of fatal brain injuries. Yes, cyclists comprise fewer then 1% of TBI
deaths.

I had an interesting conversation recently. Someone asked me about my
views that helmets are deceptively promoted, and that cycling is
actually not dangerous enough to justify the helmet mania. I said yes,
after digging deeply into the data, that's what I've concluded. I
mentioned that in the U.S., cyclists are only 0.6% of TBI fatalities,
and that the most common cause of TBI death was falling in the home.

The guy responded "Yes. That's how my wife died."


I just love how you anti-helmet zealots say that if the helmet had not been worn the head would not have struck the pavement. Sheesh! like an extra inch or two is going to make that much of a difference in a high speed fall.

To address this on the basis of national level data: Nobody is saying
that's true in every case, Sir. But it is certainly true in some cases.
It's one reason that's proposed to explain why bike helmets have
apparently not reduced national cycling deaths, and why cyclist
concussions have actually _increased_ significantly since helmets became
popular.

IOW, you may not believe that helmeted heads are more likely to strike
the ground. But then, you need to give some other explanations for the
lousy helmet results.

As previously described: When I was in my teens and doing my daily paper
route by bike, there was one incident where I hit some ice and fell
backward, hitting the back of my head on the pavement. I remember
thinking "Wow, that hurt," then getting back up and finishing the route.
There were no ill effects. Apparently, my head barely hit the ground.
If I had worn a helmet, do you really think the impact wouldn't have
been harder? And can you envision no incident where a bare head would
barely miss, but a helmet would be strongly hit?

Personally, I'm sure a helmet would have made the impact much harder.
And I'm positive that if that incident were recreated today with a
helmet, you and everyone else would be pointing to the broken helmet and
claiming it "saved" me from either death or permanent disability.

One of the problems with the whole "danger, danger, helmet, helmet"
discussion is that apparently no one actually knows whether bicycling
is. or is not, a dangerous pastime.

For example, the number of bicyclists that died on bicycles, in the
U.S., in 2014, was 726 according to
http://www.pedbikeinfo.org/data/factsheet_crash.cfm

According to
http://www.statista.com/statistics/2...ke-riders-usa/
there were 67 million cyclists in the U.S. in 2014.

According to
http://www.peopleforbikes.org/pages/...marking-report
Thirty-four percent of Americans ages 3+ rode a bicycle at least one
day in the past year.

Note: As of July 2014 the U.S. population was 318,892,183 so 34% would
be 108,423,342.

So al;ready we have an anomaly. Is the number of cyclists 67 million
or 108 million?

I suggest that no one knows how many cyclists there are but using the
data above we find that either 1 cyclist in 92,286.5 or 1 cyclist in
149,343.4 died in 2014. In percentages this amounts to a death rate of
0.0010836% or 0.0006696%

The death rate in the U.S., in 2014 for all causes was 2,596,993 so 1
in 3577 deaths was a bicycle death, or some 0.0279% of the total
deaths in the U.S. was attributed to a bicycle.

It might also be noted that auto deaths in 2014 was 32,675 and
licensed drivers was 214,000,000 so approximately 1 auto death per
6549 drivers occurred.

Looking at the "danger, danger, helmet, helmet" equation from the
other side of the fence http://www.bhsi.org/market.htm tells us that
there are no definitive numbers for the number of bicycle helmets sold
in the U.S. annually however the same site reports that:

Bicycle Retailer and Industry News, BRAIN, reported that
"Based on a year that started in July 2009 and ran through June 2010,
they estimated 1,661,036 helmets sold by bike shops totaling
$88,573,775".


I have no position on any of it but there are no comparisons
to rider per day or rider per hour cycling versus automobile
pilot/cargo days or hours.

One thing I do know is that parking one's lardass in front
of a television instead or riding is deadly.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

On 01/09/2016 8:46 AM, AMuzi wrote:
On 8/31/2016 8:52 PM, John B. wrote:
On Wed, 31 Aug 2016 11:21:05 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 8/31/2016 8:08 AM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Wednesday, August 31, 2016 at 4:39:04 AM UTC-4, James wrote:
On 31/08/16 14:15, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
Take a look at the images. In one of them you can see the bicyclist
just before his helmeted head strikes the pavement. An experienced
bicyclist and an unexpected deer = CRASH! and an over the bars onto
the head header. Sometimes something totally unexpected happens and
down you go.

https://twitter.com/tri_ireland/stat...rc=twsrc%5Etfw




1. Troll.

2. It was a _race_. Helmets are not optional in races, and people are
more prone to crashing than if they were to ride to the shops or work.

3. He had his hands on the road before the helmet made contact, and
did
a forward role. The impact to the helmet (and resulting blow to the
head) was likely *increased* due to the thickness of the helmet.


--
JS

You're someone else who misses the point. The fact that it was a
race had nothing to do with the factt hat a bicyclist was knocked
off his bicycle by a totally unexpected event in this case a number
of deer bounding/jumping across the road. This could happen to ANY
bicyclist on many country roads or rail-trails.

But you pretend that these things happen only to cyclists! Or at least,
that's how it seems; because you never troll about helmets for the
non-cycling sources of 98% of serious brain injuries, or the other 99+%
of fatal brain injuries. Yes, cyclists comprise fewer then 1% of TBI
deaths.

I had an interesting conversation recently. Someone asked me about my
views that helmets are deceptively promoted, and that cycling is
actually not dangerous enough to justify the helmet mania. I said yes,
after digging deeply into the data, that's what I've concluded. I
mentioned that in the U.S., cyclists are only 0.6% of TBI fatalities,
and that the most common cause of TBI death was falling in the home.

The guy responded "Yes. That's how my wife died."


I just love how you anti-helmet zealots say that if the helmet had
not been worn the head would not have struck the pavement. Sheesh!
like an extra inch or two is going to make that much of a difference
in a high speed fall.

To address this on the basis of national level data: Nobody is saying
that's true in every case, Sir. But it is certainly true in some cases.
It's one reason that's proposed to explain why bike helmets have
apparently not reduced national cycling deaths, and why cyclist
concussions have actually _increased_ significantly since helmets became
popular.

IOW, you may not believe that helmeted heads are more likely to strike
the ground. But then, you need to give some other explanations for the
lousy helmet results.

As previously described: When I was in my teens and doing my daily paper
route by bike, there was one incident where I hit some ice and fell
backward, hitting the back of my head on the pavement. I remember
thinking "Wow, that hurt," then getting back up and finishing the route.
There were no ill effects. Apparently, my head barely hit the ground.
If I had worn a helmet, do you really think the impact wouldn't have
been harder? And can you envision no incident where a bare head would
barely miss, but a helmet would be strongly hit?

Personally, I'm sure a helmet would have made the impact much harder.
And I'm positive that if that incident were recreated today with a
helmet, you and everyone else would be pointing to the broken helmet and
claiming it "saved" me from either death or permanent disability.

One of the problems with the whole "danger, danger, helmet, helmet"
discussion is that apparently no one actually knows whether bicycling
is. or is not, a dangerous pastime.

For example, the number of bicyclists that died on bicycles, in the
U.S., in 2014, was 726 according to
http://www.pedbikeinfo.org/data/factsheet_crash.cfm

According to
http://www.statista.com/statistics/2...ke-riders-usa/

there were 67 million cyclists in the U.S. in 2014.

According to
http://www.peopleforbikes.org/pages/...marking-report

Thirty-four percent of Americans ages 3+ rode a bicycle at least one
day in the past year.

Note: As of July 2014 the U.S. population was 318,892,183 so 34% would
be 108,423,342.

So al;ready we have an anomaly. Is the number of cyclists 67 million
or 108 million?

I suggest that no one knows how many cyclists there are but using the
data above we find that either 1 cyclist in 92,286.5 or 1 cyclist in
149,343.4 died in 2014. In percentages this amounts to a death rate of
0.0010836% or 0.0006696%

The death rate in the U.S., in 2014 for all causes was 2,596,993 so 1
in 3577 deaths was a bicycle death, or some 0.0279% of the total
deaths in the U.S. was attributed to a bicycle.

It might also be noted that auto deaths in 2014 was 32,675 and
licensed drivers was 214,000,000 so approximately 1 auto death per
6549 drivers occurred.

Looking at the "danger, danger, helmet, helmet" equation from the
other side of the fence http://www.bhsi.org/market.htm tells us that
there are no definitive numbers for the number of bicycle helmets sold
in the U.S. annually however the same site reports that:

Bicycle Retailer and Industry News, BRAIN, reported that
"Based on a year that started in July 2009 and ran through June 2010,
they estimated 1,661,036 helmets sold by bike shops totaling
$88,573,775".


I have no position on any of it but there are no comparisons to rider
per day or rider per hour cycling versus automobile pilot/cargo days or
hours.


No, it's funny that exposure rates don't seem to be used.

It seems that "experts" on both sides when confronted with the fact that
there are no hard statistics to prove or disprove any of this, will fall
back on the "well we have to work with what we have available" and then
go from pseudo science to conjecture and the scientific method goes out
the door.

One thing I do know is that parking one's lardass in front of a
television instead or riding is deadly.


Exactly.

Of course you can not ride and jog, hike, ski, participate in sports
etc. etc. etc. But none of these things are as cool.

On 9/1/2016 9:27 AM, Duane wrote:
On 01/09/2016 8:46 AM, AMuzi wrote:


I have no position on any of it but there are no comparisons to rider
per day or rider per hour cycling versus automobile pilot/cargo days or
hours.


No, it's funny that exposure rates don't seem to be used.

It seems that "experts" on both sides when confronted with the fact that
there are no hard statistics to prove or disprove any of this, will fall
back on the "well we have to work with what we have available" and then
go from pseudo science to conjecture and the scientific method goes out
the door.

Sorry, guys, but attempts to quantify bicycling's level of safety or
danger have taken place many, many times in many countries. I've seen
comparisons based on fatalities per hour exposure for the U.S. and for
several other countries. I've seen data on fatalities and on serious
injuries per mile traveled and per trip. I've seen data estimating
benefits vs. risks. None of them justify the common meme, that riding a
bike is so dangerous that we should wear a helmet for most riding, or
that we really need to be segregated from motor vehicle traffic for safety.

Yes, it's true that U.S. data on the amount of cycling done is "soft."
But so is U.S. data on many, many other activities. Duane, I can't
imagine what you'd expect researchers to do about that - maybe lobby
Congress to mount a major effort to count every bicycling mile? Would
you expect that to succeed? How would you justify the cost?

What's done instead is, depending on the study and/or the jurisdiction,
to use data available from existing sources (census, transportation
surveys, etc.) and/or from observation (manual counts, automatic
counters) plus proxy data to arrive at the best possible estimate. This
is normal in many areas of science.

I think the main complaints about possible data errors come almost
entirely from those whose favorite views have been disproved.

--
- Frank Krygowski

On Wednesday, August 31, 2016 at 8:13:21 PM UTC-7, James wrote:
On 31/08/16 22:08, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Wednesday, August 31, 2016 at 4:39:04 AM UTC-4, James wrote:
On 31/08/16 14:15, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
Take a look at the images. In one of them you can see the
bicyclist just before his helmeted head strikes the pavement. An
experienced bicyclist and an unexpected deer = CRASH! and an over
the bars onto the head header. Sometimes something totally
unexpected happens and down you go.

https://twitter.com/tri_ireland/stat...rc=twsrc%5Etfw





1. Troll.

2. It was a _race_. Helmets are not optional in races, and people
are more prone to crashing than if they were to ride to the shops
or work.

3. He had his hands on the road before the helmet made contact, and
did a forward role. The impact to the helmet (and resulting blow
to the head) was likely *increased* due to the thickness of the
helmet.


-- JS

You're someone else who misses the point. The fact that it was a race
had nothing to do with the factt hat a bicyclist was knocked off his
bicycle by a totally unexpected event in this case a number of deer
bounding/jumping across the road. This could happen to ANY bicyclist
on many country roads or rail-trails.

*Could* happen, but less likely because the "ANY bicyclist" is unlikely
to be travelling as fast or as focused on the wheel just ahead.


I just love how you anti-helmet zealots say that if the helmet had
not been worn the head would not have struck the pavement. Sheesh!
like an extra inch or two is going to make that much of a difference
in a high speed fall.


"Anti-helmet LAW zealot", thank you. I have nothing against helmets or
people who wish to wear one.

You really seem to struggle with that distinction. Sheeesh indeed!

The horizontal speed has little to do with it, unless you smack a tree
or wall or some other vertical solid object. I've never done that.
I've gone over the bars and tumbled, or slid out sideways and just slid
to a halt. Never bashed my head or even dented a helmet!

I must be coming up for 10,000 hours of riding, and that includes
racing, training, touring, shopping, commuting and MTBing.

Don't you think I can decide for myself if and when a helmet might be
useful?

Or are you the type of helmet always zealot that preaches to others but
doesn't wear a helmet while driving or walking, or in the bathroom?


Head injuries occur bicycling. I have head-strikes serious enough to break a helmet and to require a CT. I'm not a fan of MHLs, and we don't have one in Oregon for riders over 16. No US state does, AFAIK.

-- Jay Beattie.

On Thursday, September 1, 2016 at 10:00:07 AM UTC-4, jbeattie wrote:
On Wednesday, August 31, 2016 at 8:13:21 PM UTC-7, James wrote:
On 31/08/16 22:08, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Wednesday, August 31, 2016 at 4:39:04 AM UTC-4, James wrote:
On 31/08/16 14:15, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
Take a look at the images. In one of them you can see the
bicyclist just before his helmeted head strikes the pavement. An
experienced bicyclist and an unexpected deer = CRASH! and an over
the bars onto the head header. Sometimes something totally
unexpected happens and down you go.

https://twitter.com/tri_ireland/stat...rc=twsrc%5Etfw





1. Troll.

2. It was a _race_. Helmets are not optional in races, and people
are more prone to crashing than if they were to ride to the shops
or work.

3. He had his hands on the road before the helmet made contact, and
did a forward role. The impact to the helmet (and resulting blow
to the head) was likely *increased* due to the thickness of the
helmet.


-- JS

You're someone else who misses the point. The fact that it was a race
had nothing to do with the factt hat a bicyclist was knocked off his
bicycle by a totally unexpected event in this case a number of deer
bounding/jumping across the road. This could happen to ANY bicyclist
on many country roads or rail-trails.

*Could* happen, but less likely because the "ANY bicyclist" is unlikely
to be travelling as fast or as focused on the wheel just ahead.


I just love how you anti-helmet zealots say that if the helmet had
not been worn the head would not have struck the pavement. Sheesh!
like an extra inch or two is going to make that much of a difference
in a high speed fall.


"Anti-helmet LAW zealot", thank you. I have nothing against helmets or
people who wish to wear one.

You really seem to struggle with that distinction. Sheeesh indeed!

The horizontal speed has little to do with it, unless you smack a tree
or wall or some other vertical solid object. I've never done that.
I've gone over the bars and tumbled, or slid out sideways and just slid
to a halt. Never bashed my head or even dented a helmet!

I must be coming up for 10,000 hours of riding, and that includes
racing, training, touring, shopping, commuting and MTBing.

Don't you think I can decide for myself if and when a helmet might be
useful?

Or are you the type of helmet always zealot that preaches to others but
doesn't wear a helmet while driving or walking, or in the bathroom?


Head injuries occur bicycling. I have head-strikes serious enough to break a helmet and to require a CT. I'm not a fan of MHLs, and we don't have one in Oregon for riders over 16. No US state does, AFAIK.

-- Jay Beattie.

I too am NOT a fan of MHL. However the posts I made do sdhow whare a helmet helped mitigate what could have been a very serious head injury. I don't bother posting crap about drivers or pedestrian head injuries because this is supposedly a bicycling newsgroup.

What really gets me are those who state that had a helmet not been worn thatt he head would not have hit the pavement.

Cheers

On 8/31/2016 8:13 PM, James wrote:

snip

Don't you think I can decide for myself if and when a helmet might be
useful?

You can decide for yourself whether the extra risk you incur by not
wearing a helmet is worth taking. You can't decide if and when a helmet
might be useful. That's already been decided.


---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

On 02/09/16 00:00, jbeattie wrote:


Head injuries occur bicycling.

Wow! Really? (Note sarcasm).

I heard from a carpenter the other day, about a lady who fell backward
from the first step of a ladder and died from the head injury. Head
injuries occur around the home, on the street and very frequently on the
football field.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdyLK0ZqFks

I have head-strikes serious enough to
break a helmet and to require a CT.

If the helmet broke, it didn't do its job well. The foam is supposed to
compress to absorb energy, not break and fall away.

I got hit by a falling tree branch once. It knocked me to the ground
and left a deep cut in my head. A bush walking helmet would have saved me.

I'm not a fan of MHLs, and we
don't have one in Oregon for riders over 16. No US state does, AFAIK.

Good for you. I can say from experience here they are like a nasty
disease, once you get them, they are hard to get rid of.

--
JS

On 02/09/16 00:34, Sir Ridesalot wrote:


What really gets me are those who state that had a helmet not been
worn thatt he head would not have hit the pavement.


Ammunition.

--
JS