Ontario Helmet Law being pushed through

(JFJones) writes:

(Bill Z.) wrote in message ...
Dragan Cvetkovic writes:

Are you saying that people should obey the law only if it is actually and
actively enforced?

He's saying what I have said for years on this topic: that laws that
are not obeyed or enforced have zero impact on human behavior. People
are not going to stop cycling because of a helmet law that is neither
obeyed nor enforced.

Bill

Unlike cynical Bill, some people have ethical values that prevent them
becoming lawbreakers. They quit cycling through self-enforcement or in
the case of kids parental enforcement.

Some of us are ethical enough to report what we see accurately. On
quite a number of occassions around here, I've seen kids riding
without helmets and the police ignoring them, and this is in a state
where we do have a helmet law that applies to anyone 17 (18?) or
under.

That's the reality, moronic self-styled "moralists" who confuse
reporting the facts with a person's own ethical standards
notwithstanding. I might add that many parents probably don't even
know the law exists (it isn't publicized very well), in which case
Jone's "ethical values" / "self-enforcement" claims would be
particularly daft. "Ethical values" do not compel you to obey a
law that you don't know exists.

My guess is that Jones is a Bush supporter---he's sufficiently
out of touch with the real world. Any bets?

Bill

--
My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB

Chris Phillipo wrote:
In article ,
says...
Then your location is a fluke. Virtually everywhere else MHL's are put
in
place, ridership declines.

But my suspicion is that your collection methods are more flawed than the
one who found ridership is down. You do base your statement on a
scientific
survey, not your own impression, right?

Austin
--
I'm pedaling as fast as I durn well please!
There are no X characters in my address



I base my statement on having sold more bikes in the past 2 years than
ever before and there being a club with over 100 members vs. 10 from 2
years ago.

If you sell bicycles, then you really ought to know that ownership does not
equal ridership. Today, probably 95% of all bicycles sold never see 100
miles, ever.

Club ridership is also misleading. There is more club ridership, but not to
many years ago almost nobody rode in clubs.

Austin

Chris Phillipo wrote:
In article ,
says...

Unlike cynical Bill, some people have ethical values that prevent them
becoming lawbreakers. They quit cycling through self-enforcement or in
the case of kids parental enforcement.


Well not counting you, I haven't met that person.

I've met a dozen. I'm even married to a woman who has said "If they make me
wear a helmet, I'm not riding." I know her well enough that it makes no to
her difference if the law is enforced or not.

Austin
--
I'm pedaling as fast as I durn well please!
There are no X characters in my address

On Sat, 06 Nov 2004 23:32:38 GMT, "Ken [NY]" wrote:

On Fri, 05 Nov 2004 21:33:04 -0500, Frank Krygowski
claims:

Ken [NY) wrote:


To the fellow who was thinking about fleeing to Canada from
the horrors of Bush's low tax rates, you might want to think about
this proposed law.


But then, there's the opportunity to get free of Neanderthal right
wingers and their simplistic "thinking." The choice isn't easy!

Those "Neanderthal right wingers" just sent a mandate to Mr.
Bush to continue his policies, so forgive them (us) their gloating and
their "simplistic thinking". People in the heartland don't like to
think in curley-cues, preferring straight thought.


Mandate? 48% of Americans voted against him and many who voted for him
did so inspite of his policies. No mandate there. To me, it is likely
that his victory came from the fact that his team made the voting
machines that left us no paper trail to verify. I think they cheated.

Bill Z. wrote:
(JFJones) writes:

Unlike cynical Bill, some people have ethical values that prevent them
becoming lawbreakers. They quit cycling through self-enforcement or in
the case of kids parental enforcement.


Some of us are ethical enough to report what we see accurately. On
quite a number of occassions around here, I've seen kids riding
without helmets and the police ignoring them, and this is in a state
where we do have a helmet law that applies to anyone 17 (18?) or
under.

Of course this says nothing to refute the statement by Jones which was
about self-enforcement and parental enforcement and specifically not
about police enforcement.

My commute route goes past an elementary school, an intermediate
school, and a high school. I still see a considerable number of
kids cycling, albeit not nearly as many as before the helmet law
was passed. Almost all have helmets, but only about 20% of those
helmets are on their heads - most of the others are dangling from
the handlebars.

Now maybe there's some new fashion that makes it trendy to have
a helmet hanging from your handlebars, but I think the more likely
explanation is that the helmet law is in fact being enforced, but not
while the kids are enroute. Instead it's enforced at one or
both ends of the trip - at the school and/or at the home. Not by
police, but by parents and/or school personnel.

The other thing I conclude is that most of the kids dislike wearing
the helmet so much that they'd rather take it off once out of sight
of school and/or home and put up with the inconvenience of having it
flop around from their bars than continue wearing it. Given that
degree of dislike it's not surprising that some fraction would
choose not to ride at all once a helmet law is passed.

I'm undecided. People who don't wear helmets are stupid plain as day. Maybe
our gene pool need a little weeding, but lemme tell you a small story....

I'm a downhiller the more air the better, I think any drop less than 5 feet
is for sissies. So ya I ride good, Really good. (Lately easing back 'cause
my fiancee worries too much) Usually in the city I don't wear my lid cause
it's a full face. Last spring, normal commute to work, done it 100's of
times. I mean I was a courier dammit. It was particulally cold that day so
I wore my helmet. It keeps my head warm. I got cut off by a cab (What with
those guys?) I fell. I Seperated my AC joint, Sprained my wrist, and my head
bounced off the ground so hard I got whiplash. I was in bed for over a week.


I'm willing to bet I'd either be dead or drooling on myself if I didn't
have that helmet on. since then? I ride to the store 1/2 a block away I'm
wearin it. I don't want my kids to have to change my Diapers When I'm 35.
But hey if your dumb enough to ride with out one Ya kinda deserve it. But I
don't want people hurt. So ya I'm undecided

"Chris B." wrote in message
...
The law would apply to people who skateboard, ride scooters or in-line
skate. Apparently they have decided to leave adult cyclists alone for
now.

http://www.pulse24.com/News/Top_Stor...4-009/page.asp

My favourite part:

"That includes N.D.P. MPP Michael Prue, who lost his brother to a bike
accident in 1998. "There isn't a day goes by that I don't see someone
on the streets of Toronto, an adult, with no helmet on their head, and
I want to get out of my car or off the sidewalk and I want to grab
them and I want to shake them," he reflects. "I want to tell them that
this was an absolutely wrong thing, a bad thing to happen."

--
"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its
victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under
robber-barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber-
baron's cruelty may at some point be satiated; but those who
torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they
do so with the approval of their own conscience."

- C.S. Lewis

On Sat, 06 Nov 2004 15:50:26 +1100, RogerDodger wrote:


Peter Keller Wrote:
In New Zealand the law is savagely and ferociously enforced.
Between 1994 (law begin) and now:
Reduction in numbers of bicyclists 34%
Reduction in numbers of children bicycling 80%
Reduction in numbers of women bicycling 90%
Reduction in head injuries, deaths 19%

Peter



While not disputing what Peter is getting at, the last figure
--Reduction in head injuries, deaths 19%-- has been shown to be
flawed [1], it is procured by means of the ubiquitous "fudge factor
method". It comes from a report published in Accident Analysis &
Prevention by Scuffham P, Alsop J, Cryer C, Langley JD.
(AAP, 2000;32, p565-573) which dispensed with the inclusion of a
downward trend variable from the data analysis because when it was
included (as it should have been) it swamped the "helmet effect" to
such an extent that there was no significant helmet effect! (Omit the
downward trend variable and hey presto we get a helmet effect appearing
in its place - statistical abra cadabra!)

So it is more accurate to say that Scuffhams previous research finding
of no significant helmet effect (AAP 1997) is the safer and more
reliable finding. Incidentally what Scuffham found in the earlier
research (Accid.Anal and Prev.,1997, Vol.29 pp1-9.) was that while
there wasn't a detectable significant association between increased
helmet wearing and head injuries there was a significand downward trend
in head injuries due to other unidentified factors (this downward trend
is not atypical, it seems to be a worldwide phenomenon) and this
downward trend was apparent in the period 1980 - 1986 when helmet
wearing was basically zilch (less than 1% nationwide) futhermore this
this downward trend continued at the same rate from 1987 1990-92
despite the helmet wearing rate rocketing up past 50%.

[1]Note Dorothy Robinson has a piece published in AAP (2001)
demonstrating the flaw in Scuffham et al's research.

Roger

Thanks Roger. I think your comments bolster my position.
Isn't it funny the way people who don't like a position (that mandatory
helmet laws are harmful and counterproductive) but can't find any facts
to back up their position, attack the person (messenger) instead?
Truth is absolute, and does not depend on the personal characteristics of
the person telling the truth. So if a person attacks me personally I
merely take that as evidence that he (no, it usually isn't a she) can't
find anything wrong with my statements.
What little we hear about the MHL here in NZ is usually against the law.
The pro-law people seem to have gone mute.

Peter

--
If you are careful enough in life, nothing bad -- or
good -- will ever happen to you.

Maggie wrote:
My kids are grown, but they _certainly_ did a lot of riding without bike
helmets. In fact, I assume _all_ of us did. A parent is allowed to

let his kid climb a tree without a helmet. He's allowed to let his
kid play pickup baseball without a helmet. He's allowed to let his
kid ride his pony without a helmet. In each of these, and many other
situations, the choice is reasonably left up to the parent. What in
the world is so dangerous about cycling that justifies overpowering
parental judgement?


This makes sense to me. There were certainly no helmet laws when I was
a child and there were none for my children. I sometimes wonder how I
survived childhood and also how my children survived. I rode in the
back of my fathers pickup truck with my brother all through my
childhood. If you put your kid in the back of a pick up in the NY/NJ
area today, you would be arrested for child abuse or neglect. We
didn't have car seats, seat belts, helmets, and our cribs had slats we
could stick our heads through,and wooden high chairs we could climb
out of very easily. HOW DID WE SURVIVE??? ...stuff deleted

There is an overwhelming sense of fear in our society, to the point that
it is laughable. They check your shoes before going into public
buildings because one idiot tried (unsuccessfully, mind you) to do
something bad with shoes on a plane. What's next? Wingtips of mass
destruction?

My brothers and I used to throw knives and screwdrivers in a game
called, "eat the knife" (it was a more innocent time - grin). We
intentionally knocked each other off bikes jousting or dogfighting. The
modern era is so marked by fear that parents won't let their children
play sandlot ball because their future careers could be ruined. It is
insane. Sure, we got hurt and the doctors put us back together so that
we could do it again.

The reality is that children will do dangerous things, learn from their
mistakes, and dust themselves off. Seldom were the injuries serious
enough to warrant medical attention, and even rarer did we go on to do
the really dangerous things that rebelious teens attempt today (such as
kayaking Niagra Falls). Kids learn not to make certain mistakes twice. I
am uncertain whether we are doing them any great favor by trying to
protect them from a natural element of growth.

Rick

(Maggie) wrote:

My kids are grown, but they _certainly_ did a lot of riding without bike
helmets. In fact, I assume _all_ of us did. A parent is allowed to
let his kid climb a tree without a helmet. He's allowed to let his
kid play pickup baseball without a helmet. He's allowed to let his
kid ride his pony without a helmet.

Doctors used to think bleeding a patient to let out the bad humors was
a good idea. People used to take mercury for pain relief. People
used to eat and drink from lead untesils. People used to think
Wal-Mart bikes were a value decision. People used to think the worl
was a flat disk resting on a turtle's back.

Times change and people (most of them) learn things.

Peter writes:

Bill Z. wrote:
(JFJones) writes:

Unlike cynical Bill, some people have ethical values that prevent them
becoming lawbreakers. They quit cycling through self-enforcement or in
the case of kids parental enforcement.
Some of us are ethical enough to report what we see accurately. On
quite a number of occassions around here, I've seen kids riding
without helmets and the police ignoring them, and this is in a state
where we do have a helmet law that applies to anyone 17 (18?) or
under.

Of course this says nothing to refute the statement by Jones which was
about self-enforcement and parental enforcement and specifically not
about police enforcement.

It refutes what he said, which was a baseless personal attack about
my ethics, when I merely reported the behavior I've observed. And
his comments about "self-enforcement and parental enforcement" are
pure BS - he hasn't shown that most people have a clue that a helmet
law exists. It was sort of publicized when the California one was
passed, but that was some 10 years ago and there hasn't been a word
since. If you moved to the state more recently, or weren't interested
in cycling when the law was passed, you wouldn't have a clue that
there was such a law.

My commute route goes past an elementary school, an intermediate
school, and a high school. I still see a considerable number of
kids cycling, albeit not nearly as many as before the helmet law
was passed. Almost all have helmets, but only about 20% of those
helmets are on their heads - most of the others are dangling from
the handlebars.

Which is illegal. Did the police notify their parents?

--
My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB