Masters racing - may be a worldwide phenomenon
Anton Berlin
noticed (besides one what appeared to be a pro racer) older (40+ men)
riding road bikes for training/fitness. Any time I saw a younger
rider (training) they were on MTBs.
Today is the Giro Lombardia. Last event of the 2010 UCI. If I see
McQuiad I will punch him in the face and tell him it's from all of us
in RBR. I know you'd do the same for me.
Philip W. Moore, Jr.
"Anton Berlin" <truth...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:54a4b154-05f1-4a41...@t20g2000yqa.googlegroups.com...
What's with the planned protest today?
Fred Flintstein
I'll bet if you stopped into any shop at random and asked about
bike sales to younger riders they would tell you the same thing
Mike would.
Fred Flintstein
Mike Jacoubowsky
news:D9idnRqiYYPcKCTR...@giganews.com...
It is very discouraging how few young guys have taken up road cycling. Back
in the day the junior fields were as large as any. These days, the sweet
spot in the road bike market is 35-45. Women actually trend a bit wider,
picking up the sport/activity in their mid-20s (I think part of the
attraction is that some see it as safer than jogging).
I don't think it's just mountain bikes that have taken away from road
cycling for younger males though. Cycling in general is not the activity for
the younger folk that it used to be, at least not in the US. I think much of
the blame goes to traffic congestion around schools, caused ironically by
people driving their kids because they don't think it's safe to ride with
all the cars out there. Plus mandatory helmet laws don't help either. And
finally there's a general sense of paranoia if John or Jane are out of
sight, despite the fact that John & Jane have cell phones now, while when
many of us were kids, we'd be completely out of touch from our parents for
many hours at a time.
--Mike Jacoubowsky
Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReaction.com
Redwood City & Los Altos, CA USA
Fred Flintstein
I've stopped wearing a helmet for the around town riding I
do. I occasionally get questioned about that, my response
is that riding a bicycle isn't dangerous. And while I've
destroyed a helmet or two, I haven't fallen while toodle
riding since I was a kid.
I'm very aware of the drop off in youth cycling due to
parental paranoia over the danger. I think our ability to
assess risk is way out of whack.
I've got a teenager in the house. The odds of her cracking
her head open are way lopsided that it will happen in a
car as opposed to on a bike.
Fred Flintstein
drmofe
> I've been traveling around Italy for the last two weeks and have only
> noticed (besides one what appeared to be a pro racer) older (40+ men)
> riding road bikes for training/fitness. Any time I saw a younger
> rider (training) they were on MTBs.
Of course.
The older one gets (and can still ride), the better one was.
Kurgan Gringioni
"Fred Flintstein" <bob.sc...@sbcREMOVEglobal.net> wrote in message
Dumbass -
I don't know if I agree with that.
I've got 4 hospital visits due to bike crashes, none from car crashes. Knock
on wood.
thanks,
Kurgan. presented by Gringioni.
Mike Jacoubowsky
news:i9m1ol$14u$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
+1. Hadn't thought about it that way. On the other hand, I put more miles on
a bike than I do driving, and if I were to compare "high performance"
cycling vs "high performance" driving, I'm guessing the car would come out
ahead in terms of severity and number of accidents. All three of my bike
accidents requiring hospitalization were from either racing or hard
training.
Fred Flintstein
> "Kurgan Gringioni" <soulinth...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:i9m1ol$14u$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
>>
>> "Fred Flintstein" <bob.sc...@sbcREMOVEglobal.net> wrote in message
>> : her head open are way lopsided that it will happen in a
>> : car as opposed to on a bike.
>>
>>
>>
>> Dumbass -
>>
>> I don't know if I agree with that.
>>
>> I've got 4 hospital visits due to bike crashes, none from car crashes.
>> Knock
>> on wood.
>>
>> thanks,
>>
>> Kurgan. presented by Gringioni.
>
> +1. Hadn't thought about it that way. On the other hand, I put more
> miles on a bike than I do driving, and if I were to compare "high
> performance" cycling vs "high performance" driving, I'm guessing the car
> would come out ahead in terms of severity and number of accidents. All
> three of my bike accidents requiring hospitalization were from either
> racing or hard training.
>
> --Mike Jacoubowsky
> Chain Reaction Bicycles
> www.ChainReaction.com
> Redwood City & Los Altos, CA USA
Very few bike riders do the stuff you guys do.
I've cracked a number of helmets, but never while doing something
most bike riders do. By the same token, I don't feel that Dale
Earnhardt's death says anything about the risk for me of driving a
car.
If you stick to the activities that are common to most teenage
drivers or cyclists, drivers are at much higher risk. Teens die in
cars with a frequency that we don't even think about it. Cycling
fatalities are very rare in comparison. I'll bet if you expressed
that in terms of the number of head injuries you'd get the same
result.
If I were driving in a race situation, I would wear protective
gear. When I toodle around on my bike, I don't wear a helmet.
Judging by the shit I occasionally get for that it appears most
people associate the risk with the vehicle and not the activity.
Fred Flintstein
RicodJour
wrote:
>
> If I were driving in a race situation, I would wear protective
> gear. When I toodle around on my bike, I don't wear a helmet.
> Judging by the shit I occasionally get for that it appears most
> people associate the risk with the vehicle and not the activity.
Or your head just looks funny without a helmet. :)~
R
Kurgan Gringioni
"Mike Jacoubowsky" <Mi...@ChainReaction.com> wrote in message
news:U6OdnRMdE9VvpiLR...@earthlink.com...
: > :
: > : I've got a teenager in the house. The odds of her cracking
: > : her head open are way lopsided that it will happen in a
: > : car as opposed to on a bike.
: >
: >
: >
: > Dumbass -
: >
: > I don't know if I agree with that.
: >
: > I've got 4 hospital visits due to bike crashes, none from car crashes.
: > Knock
: > on wood.
: >
: > thanks,
: >
: > Kurgan. presented by Gringioni.
:
: +1. Hadn't thought about it that way. On the other hand, I put more miles
on
: a bike than I do driving, and if I were to compare "high performance"
: cycling vs "high performance" driving,
<snip>
Dumbass -
The driving the vast majority of us do in a car isn't "high performance".
We're not competing in a car the way we do/did on a bike.
Riding a bike may not be that dangerous compared to commuting in an
automobile. Racing or participating in fast group rides probably is more
dangerous.
Ryan Cousineau
wrote:
> On 10/20/2010 1:58 PM, Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> >news:i9m1ol$14u$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
>
> >> "Fred Flintstein" <bob.schwa...@sbcREMOVEglobal.net> wrote in message
Oh, you say that, but my high school class of about 100 (all boys)
only lost two members to MVA fatalities before our 10th reunion.
Never been to the hospital for cycling or car reasons, but my
motorcycle put me in the hospital once. Just for a broken-neck check,
though. Also, that's the same number of ER visits dog-ownership has
necessitated.
Bike racing, on road or off, is a pretty crashy activity compared to
non-racing cycling. But as far as I can see, the crazy-pants idea that
bicycle helmets don't measurably improve cycling safety is...backed by
compelling evidence.
My pet theory is that few real-world accidents are moved from fatal to
non-fatal by helmet protection. Most crashes that are fatal would
still be fatal with a helmet, and most "helmet saved my life"
incidents weren't going to kill anyone. I don't know whether the
remainder of the effect is eaten up by risk compensation or because
induced neck-torquing incidents cause fatalities about as often as
foam crush zones prevent them, or by some mysterious third factor
(which I will call, for obvious reasons, "dark helmet.")
Kurgan Gringioni
"Ryan Cousineau" <rcou...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:3f5d8031-33f1-4f82...@g4g2000prj.googlegroups.com...
> Most crashes that are fatal would
> still be fatal with a helmet, and most "helmet saved my life"
> incidents weren't going to kill anyone.
Dumbass -
Fuck you and your helmet debate.
Fredmaster of Brainerd
Dumbass,
I hate these stupid helmet threads, but your pet theory
about helmets not preventing fatalities is probably
correct.
I suspect that what helmets do is prevent concussions.
This is a good reason to wear them during races, and
a reason why Schwartz/Flintstein is unlikely to need one
toodling around town. Still, concussions suck. Avoid
them if possible.
I don't really think that helmet hysteria is why all the
road racers are Masters racers. I think it has more
to do with cager mentality and suburbanization
deterring road cycling. There are places where there
are high school MTB leagues that are doing pretty well
(IIRC, the Norcal one was a big success - I haven't
been up to date on it lately).
Fredmaster Ben
P.S. People lean out of their cars (or bikes, I guess) and
tsk-tsk Flintstein for not wearing his foam hat because
people feel free to either buttinsky or otherwise badger
cyclists all the time, because we aren't surrounded by
a protective metal and glass envelope. None of these
people ever lean over to the next car and tell the driver
to do up their seatbelt.
RicodJour
>
> P.S. People lean out of their cars (or bikes, I guess) and
> tsk-tsk Flintstein for not wearing his foam hat because
> people feel free to either buttinsky or otherwise badger
> cyclists all the time, because we aren't surrounded by
> a protective metal and glass envelope. None of these
> people ever lean over to the next car and tell the driver
> to do up their seatbelt.
I lean over and tell them to get off the fucking phone and drive.
Does that count?
R
RicodJour
>
> Never been to the hospital for cycling or car reasons, but my
> motorcycle put me in the hospital once. Just for a broken-neck check,
> though. Also, that's the same number of ER visits dog-ownership has
> necessitated.
>
> Bike racing, on road or off, is a pretty crashy activity compared to
> non-racing cycling. But as far as I can see, the crazy-pants idea that
> bicycle helmets don't measurably improve cycling safety is...backed by
> compelling evidence.
>
> My pet theory is that few real-world accidents are moved from fatal to
> non-fatal by helmet protection. Most crashes that are fatal would
> still be fatal with a helmet, and most "helmet saved my life"
> incidents weren't going to kill anyone. I don't know whether the
> remainder of the effect is eaten up by risk compensation or because
> induced neck-torquing incidents cause fatalities about as often as
> foam crush zones prevent them, or by some mysterious third factor
> (which I will call, for obvious reasons, "dark helmet.")
Pet theory and dog-related trips to the ER...maybe your dog should
wear a helmet?
R
Frederick the Great
<3f5d8031-33f1-4f82...@g4g2000prj.googlegroups.com>,
Ryan Cousineau <rcou...@gmail.com> wrote:
One more: a helmet strike is more likely than a bare head
strike because the helmet is bigger. Further, we always
move and tuck to prevent a head strike, and do not know
how to compensate for an increased diameter on our head;
not in the time between recognition and impact.
--
Old Fritz
Frederick the Great
Fredmaster of Brainerd
>
> > > Bike racing, on road or off, is a pretty crashy activity compared to
> > > non-racing cycling. But as far as I can see, the crazy-pants idea that
> > > bicycle helmets don't measurably improve cycling safety is...backed by
> > > compelling evidence.
>
> > > My pet theory is that few real-world accidents are moved from fatal to
> > > non-fatal by helmet protection. Most crashes that are fatal would
> > > still be fatal with a helmet, and most "helmet saved my life"
> > > incidents weren't going to kill anyone. I don't know whether the
> > > remainder of the effect is eaten up by risk compensation or because
> > > induced neck-torquing incidents cause fatalities about as often as
> > > foam crush zones prevent them, or by some mysterious third factor
> > > (which I will call, for obvious reasons, "dark helmet.")
>
> > Dumbass,
>
> > I hate these stupid helmet threads, but your pet theory
> > about helmets not preventing fatalities is probably
> > correct.
>
> > I suspect that what helmets do is prevent concussions.
>
> Not proven.
Did I say it was proven?
Fredmaster Ben
Ryan Cousineau
My dog died...under mysterious circumstances.
Ryan Cousineau
wrote:
> "Ryan Cousineau" <rcous...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:3f5d8031-33f1-4f82...@g4g2000prj.googlegroups.com...
>
> > Most crashes that are fatal would
> > still be fatal with a helmet, and most "helmet saved my life"
> > incidents weren't going to kill anyone.
>
> Dumbass -
>
> Fuck you and your helmet debate.
>
> thanks,
Tough but fair. No points for my "Spaceballs" joke, though?
Ryan Cousineau
Oh yeah, one more reply:
As the best resource for evidence-based bicycle thinking and Links You
Shouldn't Click, I'm kinda sorta dumping my helmet debate here to see
if the best and brightest think I'm barking up the wrong tree, or if I
really am expressing the consensus of a fair reading of the research
on helmet effectiveness.
It's not a trivial question, since, well, I want more people to ride
bikes.
Fred Flintstein
This isn't evidence-based, but I'm pretty certain that convincing people
that riding a bicycle is way more dangerous than it really is is a very
effective way to push them into cars for short trips. I'm basing that
on observations of my kid and her friends.
As a kid I rode my bike to school without incident over busy streets and
urban highways. Where I live today we are a short distance from a bike
trail that will take you to the high school, which is close enough that
busing is not offered. It is extremely rare for any neighborhood kid to
commute by bicycle, partly because it is considered too risky to cross
an urban highway at a traffic light to access the bike trail.
It was when I started seeing shit like that that I stopped wearing my
helmet for in town trips. If someone dumps on me for that my standard
response is that riding a bicycle is not dangerous.
Fred Flintstein
Fredmaster of Brainerd
Dumbass,
It's a lame and abused topic that won't lead you to
enlightenment. Why? Well, look at climate change -
the vast majority of actual scientists working on the
subject agree on the general details, and yet having an
informed discussion about it on the internets is damn
near impossible due to people's strongly held beliefs.
Then you take helmets, where the data are hard to collect
and frequently contains confounding factors, and
advocates have strong emotions - it's no surprise that
discussions of it quickly degenerate into an impasse.
IMO, it's entirely consistent to think that
- foam hats have no significant effect on safety of
commuters/utility cyclists
- foam hats don't prevent fatalities
- if a non-lethal headbonk occurs, foam hats may
sometimes reduce the severity of the headbonk.
Whether these would, if true, add up to an argument for
hat-wearing is something that should be left up to the
individual rider (again IMO). It's highly unlikely that there
are real-world statistics to confirm or refute the third
premise about non-lethal headbonks.
IMO the things that discourage cycling have a lot to
do with roads that are or are perceived to be unfriendly
or dangerous (Flintstein mentioned one, even though
it's just a crossing and presumably not dangerous
if there is a signal). Foam hat hysteria from overzealous
safety-mongers could contribute, although IMO it's
secondary.
Damnit, now look at all the time I wasted on an
topic that is impervious to reason.
Fredmaster Ben
Ryan Cousineau
1) As with fixing the weather, I'm keen to know the best evidence, if
only to enlighten myself.
2) That's why I brought it up in rbr, not rbt. Since none of us
dumbasses care about helmets or our own safety, it's an ideal venue
for reasoned discourse on the subject.
3) if the case for or against helmets is confounded by a lack of
evidence*, that's news.
4) if helmets substantially prevent fatalities or brain damage, I'm
interested. If helmets don't do anything except stop scars on my head,
I'm done with them (outside of competition, where they amount to a
license to play).
*and note, for example, that the case for seatbelts is not confounded.
In other words, the effect is not small.
Frederick the Great
<ee3a0e65-8ed3-4ea5...@j4g2000prm.googlegroups.com>,
Fredmaster of Brainerd <bjwe...@gmail.com> wrote:
Climate changes. It is in the record, human and geologic.
The record shows that we are on the downward slope of
world temperature, and nearing the precipice into the
next continental glaciation. Warm is good, cold is bad.
--
Old Fritz
Fredmaster of Brainerd
Dumbass,
Okay, I will play along for a while, and write a post
on why I don't think you can know for certain, even
though I know this is just going to get me flamed by
the people who have an ideological position.
There are at least two issues in trying to look for
evidence about magic foam hats: (1) sample is not
large and there are reporting problems; (2) effect
on lethal accidents is probably not large. These
issues make it a harder problem than evaluating
seatbelts, or motorcycle helmets for that matter
(AFAIK, the serious research says motorcycle
helmets are effective.)
On the first issue, remember bicycling is safe, right?
(An ideological position held by Flintstein and rbt's
Krygowski, which I happen to agree with even though
it pains me to agree with Krygowski.) So there aren't
that many serious accidents and the ones that exist
are probably mostly hit-by-a-car, where the foam hat
is less likely to help (IMO). Then, there are reporting
problems. Car accidents and motorcycle accidents
that are more serious than a scrape tend to be reported.
Lethal and non-lethal injuries tend to be tracked.
OTOH, I suspect non-serious bicycle injuries tend not
to be reported.
The second issue is just my opinion, I don't think foam
hats will protect you from being hit at 40 mph or run
over by a bus, but I think they might make a difference
if you go over the bars and whack your head. Press
pointed out that is unproven. I suspect he's right that
it's unproven. But it's a pain in the ass to prove either
right or wrong. Again there's a reporting problem.
With a lot of effort, we could probably gather statistics
on the number of cyclists who go to hospitals with
concussions and see if there are trends with helmet sales,
MHLs, time, blah blah blah. All of which will be confounded
by rider miles, changing ridership patterns, incomplete
reporting, and so on. The problem is you are looking for
"number of riders who didn't go to the hospital with a
concussion" and there's no way to measure that, whether
they are wearing helmets or not.
To make another analogy, typically while backpacking
I carry a water filter or treatment tablets. It's hard to
know if these are either necessary or effective outside the
lab, because getting sick is rare. (In fact, there are arguments
that most high-elevation water is clean and getting sick is
sometimes due to poor hygiene.) If you don't get sick you can't
prove the filter is working, and you can't know if the water
was clean anyway. But people carry the things because
getting sick sucks, and anecdotes about it are powerful.
Then you get to the level of anecdote (anecdotes are
not data, though the effect of personal experience is
usually strong). If you whack your head there's no way
to prove what would have happened with or without
a foam hat. I don't believe most helmet-saved-my-life
stories. However, like most of us I have bonked my
head on things on and off a bike, with and without a
helmet, and I have some vague sense of what will leave
me with a headache.
So for example I have fallen off a couple of times
and bonked my head (and once cracked a helmet),
and I'm quite sure I wouldn't have died in either case,
but I do think I would have got somewhere between
a headache and a concussion. (Other people have
argued that the increased size of the helmet and
weight on your head make it more likely to bonk your
head. I leave this in the anecdotal-argument
category.)
Also, don't underestimate headaches. I did once fall
off in a cyclocross race, hit pretty hard, and have a
sore head for the rest of the day, which in retrospect
was likely a (mild) concussion. (FWIW, a friend of ours
who was a EMT cleaned up some of my scrapes and
talked to me at length while doing it; I realized afterward
that she must have also been doing a concussion
or head-injury evaluation.) Anyway, I think we can all
agree that the balance between hat-wearing and not
is completely different for off-road racing and
commuting on the road. However, concussions suck.
So ultimately, there are several tradeoffs (which is of
course a reason why mandatory helmet laws are stupid) -
I can think of these:
1. effectiveness of foam-hat against either serious
or mild injury
2. likelihood of serious or mild injury in the expected activity
(e.g. commuting vs. racing)
3. how much you care about serious or mild injury
4. Comfort/discomfort/inconvenience of foam hat
5. Politics: whether wearing foam hat contributes to public
perception that cycling is dangerous
6. They look dorky
Don't underestimate #6 as a motivating factor in these
endless arguments.
Anyway, I wear them sometimes and sometimes not, based
on my personal weighting of the above factors. For example,
it's sometimes really hot here. On the other hand, I'm
possibly more concussion-averse than other people.
Hope that helps,
Fredmaster Ben
Anton Berlin
> Hope that helps,
> Fredmaster Ben
Why is that people that advocate 'unsure about helmets' are often able
to cite a previous head injury?
I know of 2 slow (less than 5mph) incidents(in the last 24 months)
(one I was a witness to) where I am certain the helmet prevented a
serious injury.
A riding pal attempting to enter a gate code to his subdivision lost
balance and fell to his right side. His knee, then hip hit the
pavement and by the time his 6'6" frame was finished the angle of his
hip had made his upper body and then head whip into the pavement with
significant force. Without the helmet (which was crushed and
deformed) I am certain I would have been seeing a cracked skull and
some brain damage.
A friend of a friend caught her front wheel in a pavement crack and
flipped over the bars into the pavement in her own parking lot.
Despite her being a gymnast, practicer of martial arts and having
ridden for 8 yrs + nothing in her skill set kept her from stopping her
helmet and face from meeting pavement first.
I wear a helmet and don't ride with those that don't.
Lastly - some good friends of mine work in the medical field, EMTs ER,
RNs docs, etc. If you know such people ask them sometime what they
see on a daily basis. You'd be shocked about the number of injuries
from 'fun' - things like rollerblades, skateboards, bicycles,
trampolines and ATVs that result in serious injuries and especially
when available safety equipment isn't used.
If you want the wind in your hair feeling so badly buy a
convertible.
Fred Flintstein
> I wear a helmet and don't ride with those that don't.
One of my criteria for wearing a helmet is whether I am
riding with other people. So we'd be good.
> Lastly - some good friends of mine work in the medical field, EMTs ER,
> RNs docs, etc. If you know such people ask them sometime what they
> see on a daily basis. You'd be shocked about the number of injuries
> from 'fun' - things like rollerblades, skateboards, bicycles,
> trampolines and ATVs that result in serious injuries and especially
> when available safety equipment isn't used.
A friend is an ER doctor. She has been known to lecture
cyclists about helmets using incidents from her job involving
motorcyclists as evidence to make her case.
That's a problem with anecdotal evidence, isn't it?
Fred Flintstein
PS You want to know what's weird? The only time I wear a helmet
while roller skiing is if I need it to mount a light. I'm at
much higher risk (yet still very low) for a head injury there
than I am when I'm toodling around town on my bike. But no one
ever gives me shit about that.
PPS Where I live people end up in the ER after slipping and
falling on icy sidewalks. Seriously, walking in winter is
higher risk than toodling around on a bike (which for me in
winter has studded tires). Fuckin' crazy, ain't it?
--D-y
<http://road.cc/content/news/14253-bike-helmet-activists-own-study-
concludes-no-significant-benefit-wearing-one>
This "study" was an attempt to find grounds to force a re-introduction
of an all-ages MHL for Austin, Texas.
When the first year's results didn't jibe with the desired outcome,
they ran it another year. "Your tax dollars at work".
Pat Crocker has written op-ed pieces for the local paper; in one of
which he bewailed and bemoaned having to tell little Jimmy or little
Susie's parents that, because of a bicycle accident where they weren't
wearing their helmets, little Jimmy or little Susie had sustained a
head injury and that poor little Jimmy or poor little Susie would
never be the same again. If you'll remember, Carl Fogel blew this one
out of the water with some "numbers" work that showed that by assumed
random distribution of x number of reported head injuries divided by y
number of hospitals in Texas, that (as I strongly suspected, in
front), Crock-of-shit might not have ever seen even one poor little
helmetless, vegetable-ized Jimmy or poor little helmetless, vegetable-
ized Susie in his entire 20-whatever-year career, let alone the
hundreds and thousands implied in his SAVE THE CHILDREN!!! editorial.
I also strongly suspect that Crock-er influenced the conditions of the
study-- i.e., just what is a head injury? A brain injury, or a scrape?
Krygowski, IMS, showed us some such gerrymandering of diagnoses in one
of the interminable helmet threads.
The Authoritarian Personality really really really wants everyone to
follow the rules-- no, not *the* rules, *his* rules, in the first
place, and medical folks, many of whom are AP aplenty, get very, very
tired of seeing people come in with "stupid" written all over the
accident report, so to speak. The "Jackass Factor"-- "You were doing
WHAT?!".
And without carrying health insurance, too, which for the med folks
who pay high taxes, is a real piss-off when they both have to take
care of these idiots *and* pay for it, too. Right or wrong, that's the
way some of them see it.
Sure, lots of people get hurt doing lots of things, many of which
things they shouldn't be doing, and especially shouldn't be doing
after drinking or, apparently to a much smaller degree, "using drugs".
I can understand how that would become tiresome to The Healers, but
cyclists are not stacked up like cordwood waiting to get into the ER.
Which is the point of my little diatribe here-- the few cycling-
related injuries they see, and the fewer cycling-related head injuries
they see, and the fewer fewer bike-related concussions, etc. they see,
especially those not related to racing or fast group activities, are
still lumped in with all the rest of the carnage. And the idiots don't
even wear their helmets... or knee/shoulder/hip pads, or hearing
protectors, or safety glasses, seatbelts, spare parachutes, etc. etc!
Last year, I had a friend fall on one of those "fast rides" and get
KO'd. Sure, a helmeteer might claim "saved his life", which can't be
proved one way or the other. What was proved is that you'd better not
think a helmet is 100% proof against concussion even in a low-speed
bicycle crash. The shell broke, the magic foam was, by close
inspection, not compressed. The compressing of the foam is supposed to
dissipate injury-causing energy. Didn't, at least to any observable
degree.
I still wear my helmet. I figure, "WTH, maybe I'll get lucky" <g>.
--D-y
Michael Press
<113576fc-5146-41bd...@a37g2000yqi.googlegroups.com>,
Anton Berlin <truth...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Hope that helps,
> > Fredmaster Ben
>
> Why is that people that advocate 'unsure about helmets' are often able
> to cite a previous head injury?
>
> I know of 2 slow (less than 5mph) incidents(in the last 24 months)
> (one I was a witness to) where I am certain the helmet prevented a
> serious injury.
>
> A riding pal attempting to enter a gate code to his subdivision lost
> balance and fell to his right side. His knee, then hip hit the
> pavement and by the time his 6'6" frame was finished the angle of his
> hip had made his upper body and then head whip into the pavement with
> significant force. Without the helmet (which was crushed and
> deformed) I am certain I would have been seeing a cracked skull and
> some brain damage.
>
>
> A friend of a friend caught her front wheel in a pavement crack and
> flipped over the bars into the pavement in her own parking lot.
> Despite her being a gymnast, practicer of martial arts and having
> ridden for 8 yrs + nothing in her skill set kept her from stopping her
> helmet and face from meeting pavement first.
You can say you know what would have happened
without the helmet, but you do not know.
--
Michael Press
H. Fred Kveck
Michael Press <rub...@pacbell.net> wrote:
Michael, didn't you see the part where he said he was "certain?" I'm kidding, of
course. You're correct. That statement of certainty is part of the problem that the
forced conformance crowd has: for them, it is a matter of faith (just like religion)
that the foam hat does what they've been told it's supposed to do. Anyway, I find it
interesting that people set about trying to make others conform to their perceptions
of the danger level of cycling with the claim of being "concerned for your safety,
health and well being." But if those others choose not to conform, it's surprising
how fast that "concern" seems to veer off into talk of Darwinism and "if you crash,
you'll get what you deserve." Ah, so if someone decides to make their own decision
that is different than the "correct" one, that person *deserves* to die or become a
vegetable? Okay, got it.
Ryan Cousineau
wrote:
> In article <rubrum-3ABA85.15204825102...@news.albasani.net>,> > <113576fc-5146-41bd-b724-7cbc0bb59...@a37g2000yqi.googlegroups.com>,
Thanks for nothing rbr, you did a terrible job of responding, though
Dustoyevsky at least attempted to cite some actual studies, and Kveck
appears to have limned the psychology of helmet advocacy.
Also, I know and love doctors, and think antibiotics and
antidepressants and ritalin are wonderful, but ER specialists are not
health outcomes researchers, they're specialists in traumatic injury.
And they're fairly good at that. And they're no good whatsoever in
telling you what kills people, except that they see all the possible
sudden, accidental deaths (and ask them how many cyclist head traumas
they've seen versus heart attacks).
Anton Berlin
that the wearer wouldn't have stopped their motion in the final 2"
that the helmet occupies.
I am not trying to convince anyone of anything. Having witnessed the
one incident and hearing the details of the other - helmets certainly
prevented more serious injuries for both of these people.
RicodJour
>
> Thanks for nothing rbr, you did a terrible job of responding, though
> Dustoyevsky at least attempted to cite some actual studies, and Kveck
> appears to have limned the psychology of helmet advocacy.
I think that people that have opinions and use facts to support them
ruin RBR. But I have nothing to back that up.
> Also, I know and love doctors, and think antibiotics and
> antidepressants and ritalin are wonderful, but ER specialists are not
> health outcomes researchers, they're specialists in traumatic injury.
> And they're fairly good at that. And they're no good whatsoever in
> telling you what kills people, except that they see all the possible
> sudden, accidental deaths (and ask them how many cyclist head traumas
> they've seen versus heart attacks).
Can we ask that California ER doctor who's in jail and had the cyclist
go through his rear windshield? That should have been his argument -
"I was carrying out helmet research, your Honor."
R
Fredmaster of Brainerd
Dumbass,
I'm beginning to be on the side of Kurgan with
his "Fuck you and your helmet wars."
Over on rbt, there are only two sides - the "Helmets
are useless" crowd, and the "helmet advocacy" side
that veers into talk of Darwinism and close to
mandatory law advocacy. No middle. Lots of
shouting.
Nobody advocated a law here, yet still the conversation
has rapidly degenerated into refuting bogus studies
propagated by MHL'ers and analysis of the MHL
psychology.
I continue to believe that you're unlikely to empirically
prove that helmets do anything, even if they do. This
is kind of like the old argument where I said that a racer
would benefit from training or equipment that gave
a 5% advantage in mass start races, but he couldn't
prove at the end of the season that it did make a
difference by analyzing results, because the statistics
aren't there. Krygowski claimed that if he couldn't
prove it, then it wasn't a meaningful difference. This is
why I said earlier that it pains me when I agree with him.
Anyway, I also think you can empirically prove that
arguments about helmets on Usenet don't converge to
useful decision-making information.
Fredmaster Ben
Michael Press
<13e13bba-2869-4770...@s4g2000yql.googlegroups.com>,
Ryan Cousineau <rcou...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks for nothing rbr, you did a terrible job of responding, though
> Dustoyevsky at least attempted to cite some actual studies,
Oh, you want studies. Should have said so.
<http://www.cyclehelmets.org/>
--
Michael Press
Michael Press
<c0c67ca7-1211-47ec...@x42g2000yqx.googlegroups.com>,
Anton Berlin <truth...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> If a helmet is destroyed in these incidents then it's safe to think
> that the wearer wouldn't have stopped their motion in the final 2"
> that the helmet occupies.
Safe? Who knows?
We know how to duck our head,
but we do not know how to duck
our head with an extension attached
to it.
You have a helmet. Break it. See what it takes.
--
Michael Press
Beloved Fred No. 1
> Also, I know and love doctors, and think antibiotics and
> antidepressants and ritalin are wonderful, but ER specialists are not
> health outcomes researchers, they're specialists in traumatic injury.
> And they're fairly good at that.
Only when they wash their hands.
Anton Berlin
> We know how to duck our head,
> but we do not know how to duck
> our head with an extension attached
> to it.
> Michael Press
I am not advocating helmet use but 'reason' use - as in intellectual
capacity.
Sure - humans have some instinct developed over the last million years
or so to maneuver their heads to avoid injury but ONLY AS LONG AS
WE'RE DOING THE SAME THINGS AS WE'VE DONE FOR THE LAST MILLION YEARS
OR SO - jackass.
Cycling, roller blading etc create different forces, velocities than
running through the forest chasing monkey ass and because of that we
do NOT KNOW HOW TO FUCKING DUCK OUR HEADS WITH OR WITHOUT AN EXTENSION
ATTACHED TO IT.
It's apparent that you've had a brain injury already Micheal or this
simple concept would have occurred to you before you posted the
stupidest post this year in RBR.
Thankfully it's only October and you still have a chance that Kunich
and his head injury will return and out do you before New Year's
day.
--D-y
wrote:
> Over on rbt, there are only two sides - the "Helmets
> are useless" crowd, and the "helmet advocacy" side
> that veers into talk of Darwinism and close to
> mandatory law advocacy. No middle. Lots of
> shouting.
>
> Nobody advocated a law here, yet still the conversation
> has rapidly degenerated into refuting bogus studies
> propagated by MHL'ers and analysis of the MHL
> psychology.
I'm in the middle. I thought that might be obvious but lemme 'splain:
The study I cited wasn't necessarily bogus, even if Dr. Crock fiddled
with the data in order to attain his goal of imposing a MHL for
Austin.
Why am I so suspicious? He extended the study to a second year, as
some kind of honcho at the new Austin Children's Hospital, when the
numbers didn't come up the way he wanted. And he is a very public
backer of having an MHL for Austin, using his "honcho doctor" status
to the full in order to achieve his goal.
I don't know if the study continued at Brackenridge Hospital, which is
the area's only Level 1 Trauma facility. IOW, the bad stuff goes to
Brack, so the net is wide, and I figure the mesh was made mighty fine,
too. I guess you could say the study was made even better by any
chicanery that went on, in a way <g>.
> I continue to believe that you're unlikely to empirically
> prove that helmets do anything, even if they do.
Helmets themselves? Maybe not. MHL's? Different story.
> Anyway, I also think you can empirically prove that
> arguments about helmets on Usenet don't converge to
> useful decision-making information.
Information contained in the arguments might well inform decision
making, including not only personal use but imposition of MHL's.
Personally, I went full-circle back to my original take that helmet
wearing is a reasonable precaution, after reading quite a lot of input
here and learning from it.
My "I might get lucky" remark is ironic but also, I think, "true" in
that accidents can be pretty complicated events. Maybe the helmet
"works" if you land on it, maybe it doesn't, at least to the point of
"saving your life". My one-so-far one-point landing was made a little
softer by a helmet, which probably saved me a bruise and a scrape on
my forehead/temple area. Fair enough. My buddy got KO'd in the same
flaming multiple-bicycle pileup; his magic foam apparently didn't do
him much good since it didn't seem to compress, by careful inspection.
But sure, the impact force dissipated by the shell cracking and the
foam breaking (at the rear, where landed on the helmet, where the
vents exit) might have made his concussion less severe. We'll never
know.
AB says he thinks the helmets in the incidents he referred to
prevented more serious injury. I for one am not going to argue with
him, if for no other reason than I was not there. "Crushed and
deformed" helmet, especially the "crushed" part, speaks to me. Sounds
like that helmet might have done some good!
I've had some really scary near-misses in similar situations-- what
can I say, the ground comes up pretty fast. You could get hurt real
bad even in what is "only" a little low-speed tip-over. Be careful,
and wear your helmet if you think that's a reasonable precaution...
--D-y
Michael Press
<4e34289d-39c7-4603...@30g2000yql.googlegroups.com>,
Anton Berlin <truth...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > We know how to duck our head,
> > but we do not know how to duck
> > our head with an extension attached
> > to it.
>
> > Michael Press
>
> I am not advocating helmet use but 'reason' use - as in intellectual
> capacity.
>
> Sure - humans have some instinct developed over the last million years
> or so to maneuver their heads to avoid injury but ONLY AS LONG AS
> WE'RE DOING THE SAME THINGS AS WE'VE DONE FOR THE LAST MILLION YEARS
> OR SO - jackass.
>
> Cycling, roller blading etc create different forces, velocities than
> running through the forest chasing monkey ass and because of that we
> do NOT KNOW HOW TO FUCKING DUCK OUR HEADS WITH OR WITHOUT AN EXTENSION
> ATTACHED TO IT.
>
> It's apparent that you've had a brain injury already Micheal or this
> simple concept would have occurred to you before you posted the
> stupidest post this year in RBR.
Wow! This is great. I have not won a competition
since that spelling bee in seventh grade.
> Thankfully it's only October and you still have a chance that Kunich
> and his head injury will return and out do you before New Year's
> day.
Naw, I'm safe; and even if he starts posting again
it will take him a couple months to ride into form.
I'm number one!
I'm number one!
I'm number one!
I'm number one!
I'm number one!
I'm number one!
I'm number one!
I'm number one!
I'm number one!
I'm number one!
I'm number one!
I'm number one!
I'm number one!
I'm number one!
I'm number one!
I'm number one!
I'm number one!
I'm number one!
--
Michael Press
William Fred
news:2a2d845a-8aeb-4e69...@j18g2000yqd.googlegroups.com:
> Anyway, I also think you can empirically prove that
> arguments about helmets on Usenet don't converge to
> useful decision-making information.
Do any arguments on usenet ever converge to useful decision-making
information?
--
Bill Fred
Ryan Cousineau
Ryan Cousineau Likes This A Whole Bunch.
Ryan Cousineau
> Fredmaster of Brainerd <bjwei...@gmail.com> wrote innews:2a2d845a-8aeb-4e69...@j18g2000yqd.googlegroups.com:
>
> > Anyway, I also think you can empirically prove that
> > arguments about helmets on Usenet don't converge to
> > useful decision-making information.
>
> Do any arguments on usenet ever converge to useful decision-making
> information?
>
> --
> Bill Fred
Yes. This group is pretty solid on doping advice.
Ryan Cousineau
wrote:
> On Oct 25, 9:57 pm, Ryan Cousineau <rcous...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Thanks for nothing rbr, you did a terrible job of responding, though
> > Dustoyevsky at least attempted to cite some actual studies, and Kveck
> > appears to have limned the psychology of helmet advocacy.
>
> Dumbass,
>
> I'm beginning to be on the side of Kurgan with
> his "Fuck you and your helmet wars."
> I continue to believe that you're unlikely to empirically
> prove that helmets do anything, even if they do. This
> is kind of like the old argument where I said that a racer
> would benefit from training or equipment that gave
> a 5% advantage in mass start races, but he couldn't
> prove at the end of the season that it did make a
> difference by analyzing results, because the statistics
> aren't there.
This is an interesting gambit, but also stupid.
1) the bike racer example is of n=1. If we built a study where, say,
we started looking at the results of Cat 3s who used high-aero wheels
versus those who used non-aero wheels, and we had a large sample size
(maybe all the racers in California for 5 years), and ideally we did
some variable control (put them all through a W/kg test?), we actually
COULD generate evidence for the net benefit of a 5% advantage
(assuming that's roughly the wind-tunnel wattage advantage of aero-vs-
not wheels) in mass-start races ("In conclusion, we demonstrate that
wheels which reduce power-at--speed requirements by an average of 5%
at 35 km/h lead to an average gain of 2.4 places in road races,
p=...").
2) There are a fairly large number of cyclists, a fairly large number
of cyclists in both the helmety and unhelmety populations, and a
relatively small (but far from zero) population of injured or killed
cyclists. We can run a lot of analyses of these groups.
3) With admittedly even larger and more easily sampled groups, seat
belts aren't the least bit controversial: roughly a halving of
fatality rates is shown to arise from seat belt usage, give or take 10
points. The margin of error isn't small, but the magnitude of effect
is nice and big, and thus easily spotted. There may be some
confounding self-selection errors in that number, but it's a big
number to explain away with self-selection for safety through seat
belting.
4) Stuff like cyclehelmets.org looks compelling, which is why I'm
dragging this stuff in front of the numerous stats and science and
studies nerds here, to see if I'm missing something obvious in their
rubbishing of helmets, or if I am falling victim to believing what I
want to be true (I love counterintuitive stuff that is truthful and
runs against social norms, which is why I so enjoy encouraging
pregnant women to relax and have a drink). I'm not a stats or science
or studies nerd.
I'll admit it. I want to mess with helmet advocates in good conscience.
Carl Sundquist
RobertH
wrote:
snip
> Riding a bike may not be that dangerous compared to commuting in an
> automobile. Racing or participating in fast group rides probably is more
> dangerous.
>
Dumbass,
Looking at the available stats, from any angle, will leave you with
little doubt that riding a bike is much more likely to involve ER-
worthy injury than driving, per hour. Two wheels versus four. (You
don't wipe out on a pothole or rail and fall off your car.)
Competition is obviously a lot more dangerous.
For fatalities and severe injuries the rates for driving and cycling
converge, because driving has the extra speed factor.
Not only do bicyclists have the wipe-out factor, almost every time a
car and bike collide, leaving the cyclist badly injured or killed, the
driver is completely unhurt.
Foam hats are not the answer, though.
RicodJour
>
> Not only do bicyclists have the wipe-out factor, almost every time a
> car and bike collide, leaving the cyclist badly injured or killed, the
> driver is completely unhurt.
>
> Foam hats are not the answer, though.
Well, the guy in the car doesn't get hurt - are metal hats the answer?
R
Ryan Cousineau
I don't get it: the helmet saved his life, or the helmet didn't help?
Fredmaster of Brainerd
I wrote a bunch of stuff, but decided to punt and
simplify it. I looked at cyclehelmets.org and thought:
1 - I believe that lots of those studies are inconclusive or
flawed, and at least sometimes the cyclehelmets.org
critique seems clearly valid
2 - cyclehelmets.org clearly has an agenda and the critiques
are not evenly weighted. This is ok, but without any back and
forth or a background in the field, it becomes impossible
to evaluate where their agenda is tilting the presentation.
It would be like trying to read one of those climate websites (pro or
con AGW) without any base knowledge of the field and if all
the studies were statistically almost insignificant. You can't
tell what's going on.
3 - I didn't see any studies that would confirm or refute my
suggestion that foam hats' main effect might be in lessening
mild injuries - concussions, basically - many of which are
unreported. Most studies were about traumatic brain injury or
fatality. So I can't draw any conclusions either way.
BTW, there was even one critique that said
http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1159.html
"73% of the head injuries were wounds to the head. Nobody
doubts that helmets can prevent minor head wounds, but
these are not injuries of concern."
So wait, when convenient the critiquers abandon the question
of whether results are statistically justifiable, and simply assert
that "Nobody doubts ..." (that foam hats work a little?!) but
dismiss them as not injuries of concern? This seemed like
a cheap rhetorical trick and was not confidence inspiring.
Basically, this is all an issue of balancing risk mitigation with
costs. The risks (of injury) and the effectiveness of mitigation
are not well quantified. Furthermore the risk balance is
different for different people. If I said that for every 1000 miles
you commute, you have a 1 in 100 chance of falling and
taking a headbonk big enough to give you a headache for
the rest of the day, but the foamhat reduced that to 1 in 500,
do you care? 1 in 200? What's your threshold? I have no
idea what mine is, and I brought it up. Risk psychology
is a notoriously difficult subject. Basically I think anyone
who tells you that they have made this decision on a
quantitative basis is lying to themselves.
In conclusion: Don't be such a goddamn Canadian.
If you want to mess with helmet advocates and safety-nannies,
just go ahead and do it, don't ask us to help you with
the statistical justification first. Nobody, including the
safety-nannies has the statistical justification. Making
the decision personal and based on rules of thumb
is probably the most legitimate at this point.
Fredmaster Ben
Carl Sundquist
To be fair, there isn't enough information in the article to know if
the helmet had any bearing on the extent of his injuries. Certainly
the common information on foam hats stresses head/brain injury
prevention, not neck or spinal cord. Yet the last sentence seems to
imply the helmet was a factor. Standing at ready, like a faithful dog,
"I'm here to protect you again.".
There isn't anything in the story saying one way or another whether
the helmet saved his life, only that he suffered a spinal cord injury,
crushing his upper vertebrae.
Ryan Cousineau
Argh! No more inconclusive data points! I want the TRUTH!!
Well, the truth may not be out there. If I'm super-fascinated by this
question, it's because of a few autobiographical factors:
-I live in a helmets-mandatory jurisdiction. Enforcement is sporadic,
but sufficient that, as I sometimes cynically tell people, I wear one
to prevent tickets.
-I get a surprising amount of messaging from friends (some avid
cyclists, others less so) firmly convinced that helmets are a vital
component of cycling safely. (the last time I got this from a non-avid
friend, I posted a video of Dutch cycling traffic as an illustration
of helmet usage there).
-rbr has made me into a jerk. Yes, that's right, it's not my fault,
I'm blaming rbr. But it means I like twitting people about this.
Not particularly autobiographical is that I like it when people ride
bikes, and I see that for some people, helmets are an inhibiting
factor, either because they muss hair or just because they're one more
annoyance. The theory that helmet laws reduce cycling seems better
documented than the theory that helmets improve cycling safety.
And back to autobiography: Wearing a helmet is not a big deal for me
either way, personally. I do a lot of rides (races, club rides) where
it's not even a bit optional to wear, and I don't mind. Even on my
leisure rides, I routinely wear one (though I don't always bother for
short trips, depending on circumstances). I looked at the photo
records to determine this last point: I never worried much about
mussing my hair, but I haven't had enough hair to get mussed since
January 9 of this year. I've kept it close-shaved since then.
Ryan Cousineau
A very good catch, and a good point. I think effectiveness against
minor injuries is a material benefit.
I think, personally, I don't care much about cut-and-bleed injuries on
my head, though. Heck, I get those on my legs almost every cyclocross
race. It's practically a running joke at this point.
> Basically, this is all an issue of balancing risk mitigation with
> costs. The risks (of injury) and the effectiveness of mitigation
> are not well quantified. Furthermore the risk balance is
> different for different people. If I said that for every 1000 miles
> you commute, you have a 1 in 100 chance of falling and
> taking a headbonk big enough to give you a headache for
> the rest of the day, but the foamhat reduced that to 1 in 500,
> do you care? 1 in 200? What's your threshold? I have no
> idea what mine is, and I brought it up. Risk psychology
> is a notoriously difficult subject. Basically I think anyone
> who tells you that they have made this decision on a
> quantitative basis is lying to themselves.
I'd really like some decent numbers on these things. I mean, your
notional numbers would have me taking a headache-grade hit about every
6 months or something, or every 3 years if I wear a helmet. Worth it?
Well, probably not. Of course, the real-world number is that I've had
more like 5 or 6 falls in a decade of commuting. Two of those were
wipeouts while cornering in the wet, cuts and bruises. One was an
insubstantial crash where I ran into the bumper of a car because I was
stupid (no damage to the car, minor cuts to me). One was a substantial
right-hook crash, which worked me in a soft-tissue kind of way, but
didn't require a trip to the hospital. And once or twice I've done
daft low-speed crashes like falling down as I tried to ride up the
grass verge that leads into my yard.
The point is that even for a mildly lunatic (but experienced) rider
like me, crashes of any kind are really rare. head impacts are even
rarer. And fatal-but-mitigatable head injuries? By any measure, really
really rare.
I'm going to go out on a limb: we don't care about injuries that heal
within a week or two: serious concussions, fatalities, and brain
injuries ARE worth protection. I think this reasoning is defensible
and somewhat obvious.
We're probably left with population level studies, and effective
pricing questions. In other words, the minimal practical helmet that
meets modern standards costs about $20 retail ($180 helmets are no
safer, though they have other nice features). So how many helmets, at
$20 each, have to be out in the world in order to save one life? The
formula is based on the frequency of serious, mitigatable injuries,
and the quality of that mitigation.
Let me take some stabs.
pp. 52-55 of this report:
http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/810837.pdf
US estimates are about 44,000 cyclists injured in 2006, and 773
fatalities. The ratio is about 57:1. I'm not sure how they got injury
data, and the reason I ask is because, for example, only one of my
cycling "injuries" in a decade would have led to a reported injury in
any sort of database (the right hook, the only one that got reported
to an insurance company or led to medical attention).
So cycling injuries are so rare I've only ever had one. In my club,
we've had one documented on-road fatality in the 5-odd years I've been
a member (about 100-150 road members in my club). Rider was wearing a
helmet, natch. Plus one member's brother who had an on-bike heart
attack.
But nonetheless, we can use this to grind a median case for helmet
cost.
Simplifying assumptions: if 60% of all Americans bought a helmet,
every American cyclist would be able to ride with a helmet always.
Rough cost: $360 million, and let's assume a helmet lasts 10 years, so
the annual cost is $36M.
If helmets prevented, oh, half of all cycling fatalities (and I
believe this is far above what anyone expects is true), it's about
360 / $36M = $100,000 per life saved.
Hm!
The reason I say that is the cost is lower than I thought. This means
helmets at least pass the crudest of tests: if they are reasonably
effective, the raw cost is not insensibly high. The question is
whether helmets would prevent half of all cycling fatalities. Indeed,
they'd only have to prevent about 5% of all cycling fatalities to save
a life per every million dollars spent, and while that's not as cost
effective as handing out ORT packets during cholera outbreaks, it's
not bad as safety measure costs go.
That is, if helmets could prevent at least 5% of all fatalities.
> In conclusion: Don't be such a goddamn Canadian.
:)
> If you want to mess with helmet advocates and safety-nannies,
> just go ahead and do it, don't ask us to help you with
> the statistical justification first. Nobody, including the
> safety-nannies has the statistical justification. Making
> the decision personal and based on rules of thumb
> is probably the most legitimate at this point.
Wouldn't that be nice? I think helmet LAWS (globally widespread) are a
pretty clear case of legislative overreach. I'd be a lot happier about
ceding extended powers to our technocratic overlords if they were
doing a better job of picking their legislative spots.
Also, I still don't know if I should bother wearing a helmet. Thanks a
lot rbr! Your attempts to clarify my thinking have only forced me to
think more. Not the outcome I wanted.
Fred Flintstein
> The theory that helmet laws reduce cycling seems better
> documented than the theory that helmets improve cycling safety.
I would take that a step further and assert that endless
nagging about helmets also reduces cycling. If you work
really hard and persistently at convincing people that
an activity is dangerous then people will shy away from
that activity. And that this will happen even if the
activity is relatively safe.
The hard part about calculating the cost per life saved
in your other post is the uncertainty in calculating the
number of people that die because they drive everywhere.
There is a cost in lives to letting people think that an
activity that promotes health is dangerous. But it isn't
an easy calculation to do.
Fred Flintstein
Fredmaster of Brainerd
Just a quick note : I think you missed the factor of the
1 in 100 chance that I put into the assumptions, per 1000
miles. So you wouldn't take a headache-grade hit
every six months, you'd have a 1/100 chance of taking
one in six months, if you commuted 1000 miles every
six months (maybe you commute more, but not 100x more).
That is, I deliberately made the chance very small, because
I think it is small. Personally I have only taken two hits
that I think would have given me a headache while
commuting over many years, and both could be attributed
to operator error and semi-aggressive riding (once
riding fast into muddy corner, once moving hands off bars
on bad pavement). So they don't count for arguments
about the safety of the kind of tame commuting that
the average Joe Citizen who is deterred from riding
by MHLs and scare stories would engage in.
I think MHLs are pernicious and lectures by safety-nannies
are annoying, and try to gently resist helmet advocacy
when I hear it in real life. However I suspect unfriendly
roads (or seemingly unfriendly roads) are a bigger deterrent
to Joe Citizen cycling than are helmet issues.
I don't really worry about the cost-to-society of helmets
per life saved or whatever, because I think wearing one
ought to be a personal decision and so it's about
whether it's worth $20 and looking like a dork to you, not
whether it's worth N times $20 to society.
The reason I'm playing devil's advocate on this is because
the rbt zealots on this issue take such a hard line that
they just aren't going to ever convince anyone that helmets
are completely useless, which means they also aren't
making headway on convincing the general public that
playing safety-nanny is bad and cycling is basically safe.
Fredmaster Ben
Phil H
> On Oct 21, 4:42 am, Fredmaster of Brainerd <bjwei...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > P.S. People lean out of their cars (or bikes, I guess) and
> > tsk-tsk Flintstein for not wearing his foam hat because
> > people feel free to either buttinsky or otherwise badger
> > cyclists all the time, because we aren't surrounded by
> > a protective metal and glass envelope. None of these
> > people ever lean over to the next car and tell the driver
> > to do up their seatbelt.
>
> I lean over and tell them to get off the fucking phone and drive.
> Does that count?
>
> R
Probably not because most people are not that agressive in a car
versus car situation. In the bike versus car situation, the driver of
the car, no matter what age or physical condition, trumps anyone on a
bike in the pecking order of physical and psychological advantage.
Phil H
William R. Mattil
> R
>
> Probably not because most people are not that agressive in a car
> versus car situation. In the bike versus car situation, the driver of
> the car, no matter what age or physical condition, trumps anyone on a
> bike in the pecking order of physical and psychological advantage.
>
Which is why *any* car vs bike accident, regardless of fault, will
usually result in the Auto Insurance covering the damages as long as
physical injuries are not an issue.
Juries tend to favor the "little guy" so a new bike is cheaper than a
judgment.
Bill
--
William R. Mattil