What's wrong with using the word "helmet"
wheelsgoround
instead of "helmet"?
Is there a problem with the word "helmet"? Why do people feel they cannot
bring themselves to type it? Of course there are strong feelings about
helmets; you only have to look at the number of replies a helmet posting
gets to see that; but why the aversion to the word itself?
Also, I've seen people use "ShimaNO". What's that all about?
Ian
Arthur Clune
: Can anyone explain to me why posters to this newsgroup tend to use "h*lm*t"
: instead of "helmet"?
It's an in-joke. Also an attempt to stop the h*lm*t wars :)
: Also, I've seen people use "ShimaNO". What's that all about?
Used by those who prefer Campagnolo and are under the age of 5 (mental
age). c.f. Micro$oft, Microsucks etc.
Arthur
--
Arthur Clune http://www.clune.org
"Technolibertarians make a philosophy out of a personality defect"
- Paulina Borsook
Peter Clinch
> Can anyone explain to me why posters to this newsgroup tend to use "h*lm*t"
> instead of "helmet"?
The tabloids use constructions like f**k to denote a Rude Word, because
they're too prudish to use the real thing. h*lm*t appears to play off
this substitution of letters to make a rude word, it being rude to bring
up a subject which is routinely hacked to death and bores us all to
tears, especially those of us bothered enough about the matter to feel
it has to be addressed /despite/ being a PITA for just about everyone.
> Also, I've seen people use "ShimaNO". What's that all about?
Shimano are a bit like Microsoft: they're not the only game in town, but
sometimes you might suspect they are. Not so like Microsoft they
actually make some very, very good products which people choose for
reasons other than "because everyone else uses it", so it isn't entirely
fair, but some people like to "Just say No to Shimano" and will sooner
use anything else. Seems to be most prominent amongst Campagophile roadies.
Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net p.j.c...@dundee.ac.uk http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/
wheelsgoround
a sensible explanation.
I had missed the ironic tongue-in-cheek use of the "*". Maybe I need to
lighten up a bit.
As far as "ShimaNO" is concerned, I don't like dominance by a single
manufacturer in any product group, but I think cycle components have come a
long way thanks to Shimano. Not only innovations like freehubs, Hyperglide
and SPD but what is actually a pretty good spread of quality/price
components. But there are others to choose from if you can't afford Campag;
i.e. SRAM, Sunrace and others (although it's a tribute to Shimano's success
that these basically copy Shimano's designs)
Ian
Pete Biggs
> I had missed the ironic tongue-in-cheek use of the "*". Maybe I
> need to lighten up a bit.
>
> As far as "ShimaNO" is concerned, I don't like dominance by a single
> manufacturer in any product group, but I think cycle components have
> come a long way thanks to Shimano. Not only innovations like
> freehubs, Hyperglide and SPD but what is actually a pretty good
> spread of quality/price components. But there are others to choose
> from if you can't afford Campag; i.e. SRAM, Sunrace and others
> (although it's a tribute to Shimano's success that these basically
> copy Shimano's designs)
Please don't take "ShimaNO" too seriously either. As a Campag fan, I like
to take the mick out of Shimano sometimes, but really, I know they make
some good stuff. Those quick releases, for instance ;-)
~PB, age 4 1/2
wheelsgoround
Nice one.
I have a lot of respect for Campag's engineering too. With limited pennies
I've never quite managed to save up enough to get any of it. Sadly. (I
know that's a silly thing to say because I could have quite easily
compromised on many things (Beaujolais for example) to save enough but
haven't quite adjusted my priorities enough)
Ian
(age 37 3/8)
Simon Brooke
('i...@wheelsgoround.co.uk') wrote:
> Can anyone explain to me why posters to this newsgroup tend to use
> "h*lm*t" instead of "helmet"?
Flame wars. You must have noticed that there's usually at least one
animated debate about headgear on this group.
> Also, I've seen people use "ShimaNO". What's that all about?
Mainly extreme Campagnolo fetishists. I'm a bit of a Campagnolo
fetishist myself, but as Campagnolo no longer produce kit for mountain
bikes one is sometimes obliged to buy lesser brands...
It's a snobbery thing. Shimano is what most bikes have, because they
have a very wide range and produce reasonable value for money at many
price points.
--
si...@jasmine.org.uk (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/
Due to financial constraints, the light at the end of the tunnel
has been switched off.
David Hansen
"wheelsgoround" <i...@wheelsgoround.co.uk> wrote this:-
>I could have quite easily
>compromised on many things (Beaujolais for example)
If you cut back on the pleasures of life you don't live any longer.
It just seems like it:-)
--
David Hansen, Edinburgh | PGP email preferred-key number F566DA0E
I will always explain revoked keys, unless the UK government
prevents me using the RIP Act 2000.
Danny Colyer
> instead of "helmet"?
>
> Is there a problem with the word "helmet"? Why do people feel they cannot
> bring themselves to type it? Of course there are strong feelings about
> helmets; you only have to look at the number of replies a helmet posting
> gets to see that; but why the aversion to the word itself?
Historically, a lot of people have set up filters to ignore any message
that includes the word "helmet". The reason was to avoid the helmet war
threads. Typing "h*lm*t" was originally a way to get round those filters.
--
Danny Colyer (the UK company has been laughed out of my reply address)
<URL:http://www.speedy5.freeserve.co.uk/danny/>
"He who dares not offend cannot be honest." - Thomas Paine
Me!
<i...@wheelsgoround.co.uk> wrote:
>Can anyone explain to me why posters to this newsgroup tend to use "h*lm*t"
>instead of "helmet"?
Some here believe that a helmet as a safety device for reducing
injuries and perhaps deaths is a bad idea.
Umm......
Helen Deborah Vecht
Some of us believe there is little credible evidence to support that
assertion.
--
Helen D. Vecht: helen...@zetnet.co.uk
Edgware.
Mark South
news:3130303037363...@zetnet.co.uk...
> Me! <y...@hell.com>typed
>
>
> > On Wed, 25 Aug 2004 16:22:46 +0100, "wheelsgoround"
> > <i...@wheelsgoround.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > >Can anyone explain to me why posters to this newsgroup tend to use "h*lm*t"
> > >instead of "helmet"?
>
>
> > Some here believe that a helmet as a safety device for reducing
> > injuries and perhaps deaths is a bad idea.
>
>
> Some of us believe there is little credible evidence to support that
> assertion.
Oh come now, no-one on any of the many sides of the helmet/h*l*m*t wars cares
about evidence, or credibility for that matter. You all just like a bloody good
punch up and the h-word is an easy way to start one.
If URC were an Asterix cartoon it would mostly consist of fights in front of
Unhygienix's shop....
--
Mark South, Super Genius: World Citizen, Net Denizen
Sue
<mark....@null.invalid> writes
>
>If URC were an Asterix cartoon it would mostly consist of fights in front of
>Unhygienix's shop....
I must be getting old, there wasn't a bike shop in the Village Gaulois
when I last looked. I suppose the TdF passed through?
--
Sue ];(:)
Asterix does wear a h*lmet!
Tony Raven
While some put their faith in their polystyrene HGV deflector.
Tony
Zog The Undeniable
> wheelsgoround <i...@wheelsgoround.co.uk> wrote:
> : Also, I've seen people use "ShimaNO". What's that all about?
>
> Used by those who prefer Campagnolo and are under the age of 5 (mental
> age). c.f. Micro$oft, Microsucks etc.
The satellite tv groups tend to refer to $ky, for obvious reasons.
Dave Larrington
inserted is statistically proven to increase the likelihood of a visit from
the P+nct+r+ Fairy...
--
Dave Larrington - http://www.legslarry.beerdrinkers.co.uk/
===========================================================
Editor - British Human Power Club Newsletter
http://www.bhpc.org.uk/
===========================================================
Mark South
news:BWy192KL...@mashtub.demon.co.uk...
> In message <412cee6b$1...@news.bluewin.ch>, Mark South
> <mark....@null.invalid> writes
> >
> >If URC were an Asterix cartoon it would mostly consist of fights in front of
> >Unhygienix's shop....
>
> I must be getting old, there wasn't a bike shop in the Village Gaulois
> when I last looked. I suppose the TdF passed through?
If you're only looking for a punch-up, then a fish is as much use as a helmet.
> Asterix does wear a h*lmet!
They all do. But so do the Romans, and it doesn't help their chances one bit.
Oh, now I want to watch Mission Cleopatre again....
JohnB
While some of us believe they have more value as a hanging basket.
John B
Ambrose Nankivell
Peter Amey
No, the wire mesh helmets are to stop the satellites looking into your
brain.
IGMC
Peter
Burning_Ranger
> Also, I've seen people use "ShimaNO". What's that all about?
"Anything that is popular is no good"
Such people live by this.
--
Burning_Ranger
To email: az...@aziz1removethisbit.fsnet.co.uk
RJ Webb
>
>The satellite tv groups tend to refer to $ky, for obvious reasons.
Any map users use Ordnance $urvey for the same obvious reason.
Richard Webb
dirtylitterboxofferingstospammers
>inserted is statistically proven to increase the likelihood of a visit from
>the P+nct+r+ Fairy...
Speaking of which, one of the few high points of the Unfit Family World Tour of
Bordeaux 2004 was that said fairy did not pay us any visits :-)
Cheers, helen s
--This is an invalid email address to avoid spam--
to get correct one remove fame & fortune
h*$el*$$e*nd**$o$ts**i*$*$m*m$o*n*s@$*a$o*l.c**$om$
--Due to financial crisis the light at the end of the tunnel is switched off--
Just zis Guy, you know?
> Some here believe that a helmet as a safety device for reducing
> injuries and perhaps deaths is a bad idea.
Can anyone here smell trollshit?
--
Guy
Just zis Guy, you know?
> one of the few high points of the Unfit Family World Tour of
> Bordeaux 2004 was that said fairy did not pay us any visits :-)
Scared of the PSF, obv. :-)
--
Guy
dirtylitterboxofferingstospammers
Indeed ;-)
Gawnsoft
(more or less):
Reducing injuries and deaths is a good idea.
All you need to do now is demonstrate that bicycle helmets have this
effect.
--
Cheers,
Euan
Gawnsoft: http://www.gawnsoft.co.sr
Symbian/Epoc wiki: http://html.dnsalias.net:1122
Smalltalk links (harvested from comp.lang.smalltalk) http://html.dnsalias.net/gawnsoft/smalltalk
Me!
wrote:
>While some put their faith in their polystyrene HGV deflector.
I must have missed where I claimed it deflected lorries.
Me!
<xlu...@users.sourceforge.remove.this.antispam.net> wrote:
>Reducing injuries and deaths is a good idea.
>All you need to do now is demonstrate that bicycle helmets have this
>effect.
I don't need to - I have the common sense of an adult.
I don't need a peer-reviewed double-blind study to tell me that if my
head hits the ground hard, there will be less chance/severity of
injury if I'm wearing a well-fitted cycling helmet.
A magic shield of steel a helmet is not, but it's still much better
than skin and hair.
Helen Deborah Vecht
If your helmet strap does not strangle you and instantly kill you by
obstructing your airway...
If your helmet does not transfer your impact forces to your neck, making
you paraplegic...
If your helmet does not make your head heavier and more likely to strike
the ground when otherwise you could have kept your head up...
If your helmet does not convert a simple blow to your head into a major
rotational head injury...
...then your helmet *may* protect the 30% of your head that it covers
and you *may* have a chance of a less severe injury. On the other hand,
your helmet might just possibly *increase* your injuries, possibly as
detailed above.
I have the common sense of an adult...
Trouble is, some evidence is counter-intuitive.
Jon Senior
> I don't need to - I have the common sense of an adult.
And you're proud of this?
> I don't need a peer-reviewed double-blind study to tell me that if my
> head hits the ground hard, there will be less chance/severity of
> injury if I'm wearing a well-fitted cycling helmet.
Does anyone recall a similar statement made WRT not needing physics to
know it was possible to stop a motorbike at 5G?
> A magic shield of steel a helmet is not, but it's still much better
> than skin and hair.
Others may rise to the bait, but as your starter for ten... don't be so
sure!
davek
> I don't need to - I have the common sense of an adult.
Ah, well that settles it - you /are/ a troll.
d.
Simon Brooke
('y...@hell.com') wrote:
> On Sun, 29 Aug 2004 22:14:50 GMT, Gawnsoft
> <xlu...@users.sourceforge.remove.this.antispam.net> wrote:
>
>>Reducing injuries and deaths is a good idea.
>>All you need to do now is demonstrate that bicycle helmets have this
>>effect.
>
> I don't need to - I have the common sense of an adult.
Unfortunately this is one of those cases where common sense turns out to
be wrong.
> I don't need a peer-reviewed double-blind study to tell me that if my
> head hits the ground hard, there will be less chance/severity of
> injury if I'm wearing a well-fitted cycling helmet.
Read the Scottish Parliament paper if you believe this. It provides a
very fair and balanced account of the current state of knowledge. Brief
summary, as I've said before, helmets at best make no difference and at
worst slightly increase KSI rates, no-one knows why.
<URL:http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/crossparty/cycle-docs/helmet-legis-commentary.pdf>
--
si...@jasmine.org.uk (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/
;; single speed mountain bikes: for people who cycle on flat mountains.
Tony Raven
>
>
> I don't need to - I have the common sense of an adult.
>
I won't confuse you with the facts then.
Tony
Pete Biggs
> If your helmet does not make your head heavier and more likely to
> strike the ground when otherwise you could have kept your head up...
Cycle helmets weigh about 200 to 400 grams. That is nothing compared to
the weight of the head so the weight is not going to make any significant
difference. Maybe it's a factor for motorcyle helmets which are far
heavier.
~PB
Tony Raven
5-10% but like a bicycle wheel, weight furthest from the point of
rotation - the top of the neck - has a far greater effect.
Tony
D.M. Procida
> > I don't need a peer-reviewed double-blind study to tell me that if my
> > head hits the ground hard, there will be less chance/severity of
> > injury if I'm wearing a well-fitted cycling helmet.
>
> Read the Scottish Parliament paper if you believe this. It provides a
> very fair and balanced account of the current state of knowledge. Brief
> summary, as I've said before, helmets at best make no difference and at
> worst slightly increase KSI rates, no-one knows why.
Looking at rates is probably not going to get us much further, since
they're so inconclusive. They could hide all kinds of things. For
example, it's possible that as helmet-wearing rose, the roads became
more dangerous for cyclists and the total number of accidents increased,
but helmets prevented serious head injuries from rising dramatically.
Or, perhaps the roads became safer but helmets caused proportionally
more injuries. Perhaps at the same time that more helmets were being
worn, more careless people were out and about. And so on - who knows
what else is going alongside the easy-to-gather data about serious
injuries and fatalities?
I don't care much about the rates or trends. I don't care whether or not
helmet-wearing tends to make the wearers behave in this way or that way.
I want to know whether on balance *I* will be more or less safe on
*this* journey *today* wearing a helmet or not. The best way of finding
that out would be to make me have lots of typical accidents (especially
serious ones), and see how I do with and without the helmet.
Daniele
--
Apple Juice Ltd
Chapter Arts Centre
Market Road www.apple-juice.co.uk
Cardiff CF5 1QE 029 2019 0140
Helen Deborah Vecht
> Helen Deborah Vecht wrote:
> ~PB
I disagree. Neck muscles fatigue and helmets contribute to this fatigue,
making it harder to keep the head up. Because helmets increase the
effective radius of the head, the weight is harder to control...
James Annan
> "Pete Biggs" <pblackcherry{remove_fruit}@biggs.tc>typed
>
>
>>Cycle helmets weigh about 200 to 400 grams. That is nothing compared to
>>the weight of the head so the weight is not going to make any significant
>>difference. Maybe it's a factor for motorcyle helmets which are far
>>heavier.
>
>
>>~PB
>
>
>
> I disagree. Neck muscles fatigue and helmets contribute to this fatigue,
> making it harder to keep the head up. Because helmets increase the
> effective radius of the head, the weight is harder to control...
Since giving up helmet wearing, my chronic neck injury has got markedly
better.
James
--
If I have seen further than others, it is
by treading on the toes of giants.
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/julesandjames/home/
Pete Biggs
> Since giving up helmet wearing, my chronic neck injury has got
> markedly better.
Were you using one with a peak or anything that obscured vision?
~PB
James Annan
Nope.
It became particularly evident that the helmet was having a significant
effect recently, when for various reasons I started using a heavier
helmet (the previous one was particularly light). I originally gave up
wearing it having on the presumption that the heat stress and discomfort
outweighed the small/negligible/negative protective effect. The
reduction in neck pain was an unexpected bonus.
Tony Raven
>
> Looking at rates is probably not going to get us much further, since
> they're so inconclusive. They could hide all kinds of things. For
> example, it's possible that as helmet-wearing rose, the roads became
> more dangerous for cyclists and the total number of accidents increased,
> but helmets prevented serious head injuries from rising dramatically.
> Or, perhaps the roads became safer but helmets caused proportionally
> more injuries. Perhaps at the same time that more helmets were being
> worn, more careless people were out and about. And so on - who knows
> what else is going alongside the easy-to-gather data about serious
> injuries and fatalities?
>
The evidence I find convincing is the graphs I have put up at
http://www.cycling.raven-family.com/Helmet%20Graphs.jpg
These are graphs of cyclist head injuries (total) for two countries over
a number of years. In both cases due to mandatory helmet laws, helmet
wearing doubled in a period of a few months. If helmets had any
benefits you would expect to see an easily identifiable sharp
discontinuity from the year pre-law to the year post-law. The challenge
is to identify from the graphs which year the law came in.
Tony
Gawnsoft
(more or less):
>On Sun, 29 Aug 2004 22:14:50 GMT, Gawnsoft
><xlu...@users.sourceforge.remove.this.antispam.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Reducing injuries and deaths is a good idea.
>>All you need to do now is demonstrate that bicycle helmets have this
>>effect.
>
>
>I don't need to - I have the common sense of an adult.
Unfortunately, common sense is often obvious, but wrong.
>I don't need a peer-reviewed double-blind study to tell me that if my
>head hits the ground hard, there will be less chance/severity of
>injury if I'm wearing a well-fitted cycling helmet.
>
>A magic shield of steel a helmet is not, but it's still much better
>than skin and hair.
Not actually.
It can make having accidents in the first place more likely. Through
altered behaviour due to risk homeostasis, and diminshed reflexes due
to heat stress.
It can make hitting the head in an accident more likely than
otherwise, as the head has become larger and heavier. (It can
increase the angle you need to move your neck through to avoid contact
between head and surface by 300%, for instance.)
It can /increase/ the damaging effect of a blow to the head in serious
contacts - the moment applied to the head can be increased by 50-60%,
and the polycarb of the outer shell can be 'grabbed' by rough
surfaces. This can lead to many blows to the head gaining a major
rotational component - a very damaging form of assault to the jelly of
your brain.
Even the very /best/ helmet is only designed to protect you from a
fall to the ground while stationary, or while trundling at up to 7mph.
Few helmets sold in the UK nowadays meet even this standard.
Helmets end up past their sell-by date after 3-4 years, as the foam
starts to degrade, losing its resistance to compression and becoming
brittle. A helmet that splits instead doing what it is supposed to
(i.e. crushing) is only providing about one fiftieth of the protection
it is designed to provide. (And that's a fall from normal head height
at up to 7mph remember, even if you've got one few helmets designed to
the highest helmet standard).
So an old helmet, not designed to the top standard, might only provide
protection if you fell when your head was only a foot or two off the
ground...
Gawnsoft
real-not-anti...@apple-juice.co.uk (D.M. Procida) wrote
(more or less):
Or by looking at the behaviour of masses of people. Which the
whole-population stats do.
Plus, from the point of view of risk homeostasis - there have been
lots of studies done on large numbers of individuals, which address
the 'will *I* change my behaviour if *I* wore a helmet' issue.
The answer is, it will, if you think that a helmet makes you safer
than otherwise.
Gawnsoft
>On Mon, 30 Aug 2004 17:30:12 +0000 (UTC), Me! <y...@hell.com> wrote
>(more or less):
>
>>On Sun, 29 Aug 2004 22:14:50 GMT, Gawnsoft
>><xlu...@users.sourceforge.remove.this.antispam.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Reducing injuries and deaths is a good idea.
>>>All you need to do now is demonstrate that bicycle helmets have this
>>>effect.
>>
>>
>>I don't need to - I have the common sense of an adult.
>
>Unfortunately, common sense is often obvious, but wrong.
...
And to add further stuff, as someone else mentioned there is a
non-zero risk of strangulation from helmet chin-straps.
And helmet effectiveness (such as it is) is also based on the helmet
being correctly fitted, and being worn in the correct position.
An awful lot of the helmets I see in use are being worn tilted back up
off of the forehead....
RogerDodger
Let's look back at the human history of this strange faculty we call
"common sense" - what do we find - a history of errors - what seems
intuitively sensible has time and time and time and and time and time
and time and time and time and time and time and time and time again
turned out to be mistaken.
Replace "common-sense" with "common cognitive error". Look at the
history of science and see how many times humanity's intuitive common
sense of superfical appearances has had to be corrected when more
cautious and patient systematic analysis reveals that the reality is at
odds with woefully erroneous "common sense".
Oh yeah - everyone professes to be more than well enough equipped with
their share of common sense... groan.
Roger
--
RogerDodger
Gawnsoft
<RogerDodg...@no-mx.forums.cyclingforums.com> wrote (more or
less):
Yep - what the PP really needs is uncommonly good sense...
D.M. Procida
> These are graphs of cyclist head injuries (total) for two countries over
> a number of years. In both cases due to mandatory helmet laws, helmet
> wearing doubled in a period of a few months. If helmets had any
> benefits you would expect to see an easily identifiable sharp
> discontinuity from the year pre-law to the year post-law. The challenge
> is to identify from the graphs which year the law came in.
But again, suppose helmet-wearing - for whatever reason - brought lots
of dangerous people out onto their bikes, or made people cycle less
safely. Now obviously that would be a bad thing, and would count against
making people wear helmets, but it doesn't *necessarily* show that for
an individual to wear a helmet is a bad idea, unless it's because it
gravely interferes with balance, hearing or some other necessary part of
safe riding.
Since helmet wearing became popular (or mandatory, where that applies)
has the nature of serious cycling injuries changed? Has the ratio of
head injury to neck injury remained constant?
Tony Raven
>
> Let's look back at the human history of this strange faculty we call
> "common sense"
"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."
Albert Einstein
Tony
David Martin
"Gawnsoft" <xlu...@users.sourceforge.remove.this.antispam.net> wrote:
>
> An awful lot of the helmets I see in use are being worn tilted back up
> off of the forehead....
Rachel is a case in point. I'm attempting to get the helmet to stay adjusted
but it is a difficult task. I might take the peak off as I think that is the
problem.
..d
Gawnsoft
>Tony Raven <ju...@raven-family.com> wrote:
>
>> These are graphs of cyclist head injuries (total) for two countries over
>> a number of years. In both cases due to mandatory helmet laws, helmet
>> wearing doubled in a period of a few months. If helmets had any
>> benefits you would expect to see an easily identifiable sharp
>> discontinuity from the year pre-law to the year post-law. The challenge
>> is to identify from the graphs which year the law came in.
>
>But again, suppose helmet-wearing - for whatever reason - brought lots
>of dangerous people out onto their bikes, or made people cycle less
>safely. Now obviously that would be a bad thing, and would count against
>making people wear helmets, but it doesn't *necessarily* show that for
>an individual to wear a helmet is a bad idea, unless it's because it
>gravely interferes with balance, hearing or some other necessary part of
>safe riding.
True, except that it need not interfere "gravely". Just, it would
appear, "typically".
>
>Since helmet wearing became popular (or mandatory, where that applies)
>has the nature of serious cycling injuries changed? Has the ratio of
>head injury to neck injury remained constant?
>
>Daniele
--
Tony Raven
> Tony Raven <ju...@raven-family.com> wrote:
>
>
>>These are graphs of cyclist head injuries (total) for two countries over
>>a number of years. In both cases due to mandatory helmet laws, helmet
>>wearing doubled in a period of a few months. If helmets had any
>>benefits you would expect to see an easily identifiable sharp
>>discontinuity from the year pre-law to the year post-law. The challenge
>> is to identify from the graphs which year the law came in.
>
>
> But again, suppose helmet-wearing - for whatever reason - brought lots
> of dangerous people out onto their bikes, or made people cycle less
> safely. Now obviously that would be a bad thing, and would count against
> making people wear helmets, but it doesn't *necessarily* show that for
> an individual to wear a helmet is a bad idea, unless it's because it
> gravely interferes with balance, hearing or some other necessary part of
> safe riding.
On an individual basis in certain circumstances it may save you some
minor scrapes and scratches. But as an individual you are more likely
to have a serious head injury wearing a helmet than not (caveated with
this being on-road, not technical off-road riding). Its because the
helmet increases the size and mass of the head, increases the chances of
your head hitting something and increases the risk and severity of the
main serious brain and neck injuries which are from rotational, not
direct impact, injuries. Pile driver injuries, such as you get diving
into too shallow water, are pretty rare on bikes.
>
> Since helmet wearing became popular (or mandatory, where that applies)
> has the nature of serious cycling injuries changed? Has the ratio of
> head injury to neck injury remained constant?
The mandatory cases are the best evidence because one factor changes
rapidly over a very short time and the consequences should stand out
from long term trends compounded only by the large reduction in people
cycling that occurs at the same time. That shows that per person the
risk of head injury increases with increased helmet use. In other
countries any increase in helmet wearing does not change head injury
rates above those in the non-helmet wearing control groups such as
pedestrians. But that is much more ambiguous as over a long period
there are many other factors coming into play - car design changes,
introduction of traffic calming and speed limits etc etc. There is one
fairly strong correlation though and that is if you look at head injury
rates in first world countries plotted against helmet wearing rates, the
countries with the lowest helmet wearing rates also have the lowest head
injury rates and vice versa.
Tony
>
> Daniele
Simon Brooke
('ju...@raven-family.com') wrote:
A related, equally convincing, graph is the one that shows cyclist
injuries against pedestrian injuries. They correlate very highly indeed
in every country I've seen them collected from, and its never possible
to detect when helmet wearing started to be prevalent. As increases in
traffic danger affect pedestrians as much as cyclists I think this
effectively controls for the 'as helmet-wearing rose, the roads became
more dangerous' possibility.
--
si...@jasmine.org.uk (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/
;; all in all you're just another click in the call
;; -- Minke Bouyed
Peter Clinch
> But again, suppose helmet-wearing - for whatever reason - brought lots
> of dangerous people out onto their bikes
This is unlikely, as cycle use has always /fallen/ in the wake of
compulsory helmet legislation.
> or made people cycle less
> safely. Now obviously that would be a bad thing, and would count against
> making people wear helmets, but it doesn't *necessarily* show that for
> an individual to wear a helmet is a bad idea
The cycling less safely business is actually possible, a case of risk
compensation. We're not completely sure, and another problem is that
the individual would have to be 100% sure it wasn't affecting /them/.
Which I don't think one can reasonably do.
In summary, it doesn't /necessarily/ follow for an individual, but the
same goes that it doesn't /necessarily/ follow you're better off. We
don't know for sure, but assuming they're good for you but not the
general population just doesn't scale as reasoning.
Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net p.j.c...@dundee.ac.uk http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/
Ambrose Nankivell
> On Sun, 29 Aug 2004 22:14:50 GMT, Gawnsoft
> <xlu...@users.sourceforge.remove.this.antispam.net> wrote:
>
>
> >Reducing injuries and deaths is a good idea.
> >All you need to do now is demonstrate that bicycle helmets have this
> >effect.
>
>
> I don't need to - I have the common sense of an adult.
>
> I don't need a peer-reviewed double-blind study to tell me that if my
> head hits the ground hard, there will be less chance/severity of
> injury if I'm wearing a well-fitted cycling helmet.
>
> A magic shield of steel a helmet is not, but it's still much better
> than skin and hair.
Fortunately I've got a skull as well.
Are you in possession of one of these?
A
Gawnsoft
<d.m.a....@dundee.ac.uk> wrote (more or less):
Yes - with kids helmets it's difficult.
Angus' helmet has an appealling feature - the headband gets 'dialled'
in to fit snugly.
The downside of Angus' helmet is that the wonderfully fitted headband
is then only velcro'd to the polystyrene shell... :-(
Mark South
news:uzn4ba...@gmail.com...
The best solution is to have a skull that goes all the way to the centre of the
head.
--
Mark South, Super Genius: World Citizen, Net Denizen
Me!
>Even the very /best/ helmet is only designed to protect you from a
>fall to the ground while stationary, or while trundling at up to 7mph.
>Few helmets sold in the UK nowadays meet even this standard.
Perhaps only helmets adhering to strict safety standards should be
sold. Much like those nasty, heavy, strap-laden motorcycle helmets I
would never go motorbiking without, law or no law.
>Helmets end up past their sell-by date after 3-4 years, as the foam
>starts to degrade, losing its resistance to compression and becoming
>brittle.
Like my motorcycle helmets, I would then replace my helmet on a
regular basis.
>So an old helmet, not designed to the top standard, might only provide
>protection if you fell when your head was only a foot or two off the
>ground...
A person with common sense might counter by saying don't wear an old
helmet not designed to the top standard. Rocket science this is not
my friend.
(Common sense doesn't seem to garner respect round here though.)
Me!
<helen...@zetnet.co.uk> wrote:
>If your helmet strap does not strangle you and instantly kill you by
>obstructing your airway...
>If your helmet does not transfer your impact forces to your neck, making
>you paraplegic...
>If your helmet does not make your head heavier and more likely to strike
>the ground when otherwise you could have kept your head up...
>If your helmet does not convert a simple blow to your head into a major
>rotational head injury...
>
>...then your helmet *may* protect the 30% of your head that it covers
>and you *may* have a chance of a less severe injury. On the other hand,
>your helmet might just possibly *increase* your injuries, possibly as
>detailed above.
Ah, you're the kinda people who are against airbags and seatbelts
because SOME people are injured by those..
I gettit.
Me!
wrote:
>Ah, well that settles it - you /are/ a troll.
Nah - you just /think/ I am.
There's a subtle difference.
Tony Raven
>
>
> Perhaps only helmets adhering to strict safety standards should be
> sold. Much like those nasty, heavy, strap-laden motorcycle helmets I
> would never go motorbiking without, law or no law.
>
Do you wear such a helmet when you go walking? If not why not?
>
>
> A person with common sense might counter by saying don't wear an old
> helmet not designed to the top standard. Rocket science this is not
> my friend.
>
> (Common sense doesn't seem to garner respect round here though.)
>
Its equally common sense though to wear one while walking so why don't you?
Tony
David Martin
"Me!" <y...@hell.com> wrote:
No. We are the kinda people who are against things that harm more than they
help. You see, in about 1700 or so there was a distinct philosophical change
in the way that things were perceived. Instead of relying on anecdote,
fable, myth, legend and so-called common sense, people began to test ideas
in a more rigorous manner. One could lay the blame at the feet of Francis
Bacon, or potentially blame influential people such as Robert Hooke, Isaac
Newton, or one of my favourites, William Hewson.
However, the upshot of this is that in the 21st century, those of us with
anything approaching a scientific education (I'll grudgingly accept certain
members of the medical profession under that term) are convinced by
arguments that demonstrate accurate and careful measurement in order to
support (or in the obvious logical sense, disprove the counter) hypothesis.
This ends up in the realm of experiment where practical, or in observation
and statistics where controlled experiments are not possible.
Applying this to cycle helmets you propose a hypothesis. You state that
helmets provide a net benefit (for want of a better paraphrase) based on
'common sense'.
Based on the modern approach we can suggest that one would expect, if a
population of cyclists were made to wear helmets such that there was a rapid
rise in helemt wearing rates, disconnected from any other legislation, that
the proportion of head injuries to other injuries would go down.
But when we look at population wide data we do not see that effect. In fact,
in many cases we see indications to the opposite effect.
So common sense is wrong. On a population wide scale, helemts do not provide
a net benefit. Maybe we should a) investigate why (hint: modes of head
injury are not dealt with well by helmets) and b) throw out antiquated
methods of analysis that are misleading. The scientific method has only been
around for about 300 years, which should have been plenty of time for you to
learn how to use it. I suggest you do so.
..d
Helen Deborah Vecht
> Ah, you're the kinda people who are against airbags and seatbelts
> because SOME people are injured by those..
> I gettit.
Nah, I'm against seatbelts and airbags because they might encourage
drivers to drive more dangerously, causing increased injury to those
*outside* their vehicle...
Tony W
"Me!" <y...@hell.com> wrote in message
news:7ul9j01rdigqv6n14...@4ax.com...
> On Mon, 30 Aug 2004 19:05:25 +0100, Helen Deborah Vecht
>
> because SOME people are injured by those..
No. In those places where helmets have been made compulsory there has been
little or no effect on the rate of people suffering serious head injuries.
From which I conclude that helmets have little positive effect on my safety.
On that basis I chose not to wear one for utility cycling or gentle leisure
cycling.
T
RogerDodger
D.M. Procida Wrote:
>
> Since helmet wearing became popular (or mandatory, where that applies)
> has the nature of serious cycling injuries changed? Has the ratio of
> head injury to neck injury remained constant?
>
> Daniele
>
Take New Zealand experience Daniele, I live there, in Scuffham and
Langley (Accident Analysis and Prevention, 1997) the percentage of
head injuries/non head, hospital admissions, was graphed (and analysed)
for each of the age groups adult, secondary and primary school children.
The period studied was from 1980 through to 1992 and in the first six
years the country-wide helmet wearing rate barely registered (less than
2%). In this "no-helmets" period, in all three age groups was a
(discernable by eye) decrease in the hi/non-hi percentages. Now this
downward trend of decreasing head to non-head (or limb) ratios is not
peculiar to cycling and it has been researched and reported - this
downward trend is consistent with downward crash trends in all
developed countries since about 1970 (Beenstock & Gafni, AAP, 2000;).
It has been noted by others that there was a dramatic increase in
helmet wearing in NZ whenthe MHL was introduced and there was no
noticable change to the percentage of hi/limb hospitalisations - which
one would expect would happen in a dose-response manner. There is
another part to this research that hasn't had the attention drawn to it
that it deserves - I have just described the appearance of a
stastistically significant downward trend in hi percentages for the
period 1980-1986 while helmet wearing was near enough to zilch (and
remember that this was the case for the dis-aggregated groups of adult,
primary and secondary school children) but the helmet wearing rate
rocketed from a shade over 10% in late 1988 to around 50% three years
later. A somple regression on each of the three age groups reveals no
significant change to the downward trend that was present before 1986 -
in all three age groups - and again if helmets were able to do what they
were claimed to be able to do there should have been a dramatic decrease
in the percentages hi/non-hi hospital admissions.
Just to add to this - I still have in my possession a "Fact Sheet"
published by the N.Z. Land Transport Safety Authority (1993) claiming
-and I quote vebatim:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fact Sheet 1
February 1993
Cycle helmets - why wear them?
Helmet wearing will be compulsory for cyclists on New Zealand roads
from I January. 1994. This fact sheet summarises evidence supporting
the decision.
• Over each of the last five years about 22 cyclists have been killed
and 950 seriously injured in reported crashes with motor vehicles.
• Figures from the ACC and Health Department suggest the total number
of cyclist injuries is many times higher than those reported to police.
• Serious head injuries arc four times more likely when a helmet
isn't worn.
• Cycle helmets are vital to improving the safety of cyclists because
most serious cycle injuries involve the head. When a person falls from a
cycle, their head falls further and harder than any other part of the
body.
• Cyclists with head injuries may suffer brain damage, impaired sight
or hearing, and/or a loss of co-ordination or weakness in the arms and
legs.
• Unlike most other injuries, damage to a person's brain is often
permanent.
How helmets help
Cycle helmets improve the safety of their wearers in the same way
motorcycle helmets protect motorcyclists.
Helmets:
• Improve cyclist visibility when the helmets are brightly coloured.
Night-time cyclist visibility is vastly improved if the rider wears a
brightly coloured helmet with a red reflective strip.
• Dramatically reduce the risk of skull fracture when the head hits
an object or the road, by spreading the impact force.
• Minimise the chances of concussion.
• Protect the head from cuts and scrapes.
If a large majority of cyclists wore helmets...
• It would save about six lives, 360 serious head injuries and
hundreds of less serious hospitalisations each year.
• In monetary terms this means a saving for the country of $30
Million each year.
Research
• Overseas studies show most serious cyclist injuries occur to the
head.
• Since the mid-1980s, NZ cycle helmet wearing rates on weekdays in
school hours have increased from one percent to 67 percent. The average
wearing rate for all days and hours is 30 percent.
• Over the same period, head injuries in NZ have fallen from 70
percent to about 55 percent of cyclist hospital admissions.
Standards
From 1 January, 1997 all cycle helmets worn in New Zealand will have to
conform to a single New Zealand standard. Until then, cycle helmets worn
here may meet either NZ, Australian or United States standards, or other
standards allowed by the Secretary for Transport.
Offences under the Regulations
Amendments to the Traffic Regulations 1976 will prescribe four cycle
helmet offences. These are:
• Failing to wear a helmet;
• Failing to wear a securely fastened helmet;
• Failing to wear a helmet of an approved standard; and
• Failing to produce a helmet for inspection by an enforcement
officer.
Penalties
A $35 infringement fine will be payable for a cycle helmet offence (see
"enforcement methods").
If necessary, infringements could be referred to the district court,
with a maximum fine of $500.
For further information contact
Publicity Section, Land Transport
Division,
PO Box 2 7-459, Wellington
Phone 04-382-8300, Fax 04-385-5698
ISSN 1172-1650
--
RogerDodger
RogerDodger
Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting
convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day.
Bertrand Russell
Roger
--
RogerDodger
Me!
<tonyr...@chapmore.co.uk> wrote:
>On that basis I chose not to wear one for utility cycling or gentle leisure
>cycling.
And while you're cycling gently, the motoroists around you are driving
gently....?
Can I use the same argument on my motorbike? "Yes officer, but I was
keeping it well under the limit and I'm only out biking for fun...
What's that? Other traffic? I'm from the internet, I don't
understand you when you speak commonsense."
Me!
wrote:
>Do you wear such a helmet when you go walking? If not why not?
Ah, the completely irrelevant, extreme end of scale argument. Took a
while.
I'll bite - I generally don't have to share the pavements where I am
with other 1 tonne traffic.
Hey, perhaps we could all avoid leaving the house, as it's too
dangerous?
Car drivers and helmets though, that has some merit...
Jon Senior
> Ah, the completely irrelevant, extreme end of scale argument. Took a
> while.
We've been through this argument innumerable times. You are basing your
argument on "common sense". This is your pride warning. "Imminent fall
soon".
> I'll bite - I generally don't have to share the pavements where I am
> with other 1 tonne traffic.
Go. Try an experiment. Put your helmet in the path of the 1 tonne
traffic (I don't recommend wearing it at the time) and see what happens
to it. Do you really believe that it'll save you from a collision with a
motor vehicle? The manufacturers of your helmet don't. Neither do the
authors of the standards to which it may comply.
Then go away and do some research into accident trends, paying close
attention to where people were when they were injured. Once you have
educated yourself, come back and have another go.
> Hey, perhaps we could all avoid leaving the house, as it's too
> dangerous?
More effective than wearing a helmet.
> Car drivers and helmets though, that has some merit...
Except that that wont help those of us outside the cars, and the nature
of the helmets required to do any good would probably restrict their
view and thus increase the likelyhood of them hitting one of those soft
squdigy things outside the car.
Jon
Tony Raven
> On Tue, 31 Aug 2004 21:15:30 +0100, Tony Raven <ju...@raven-family.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
>>Do you wear such a helmet when you go walking? If not why not?
>
>
>
> Ah, the completely irrelevant, extreme end of scale argument. Took a
> while.
>
> I'll bite - I generally don't have to share the pavements where I am
> with other 1 tonne traffic.
>
You are more likely to be killed or seriously injured while walking than
you are when cycling so hardly the extreme end of the scale. Just
another equally risky activity that you happily undertake without
wearing a helmet so why single out cycling as in need of special
protective equipment. I suggest you read Wardlaw in the British Medical
Journal -
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0999/is_7276_321/ai_69057209.
It might open your eyes to the facts rather than your so called common
sense.
Tony
Tony Raven
> On Tue, 31 Aug 2004 23:22:27 +0100, "Tony W"
> <tonyr...@chapmore.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
>>On that basis I chose not to wear one for utility cycling or gentle leisure
>>cycling.
>
>
>
> And while you're cycling gently, the motoroists around you are driving
> gently....?
>
Ah,the magic polystyrene HGV deflector makes its appearance.
Tony
Tony W
>
> And while you're cycling gently, the motoroists around you are driving
> gently....?
>
> Can I use the same argument on my motorbike? "Yes officer, but I was
> keeping it well under the limit and I'm only out biking for fun...
> What's that? Other traffic? I'm from the internet, I don't
> understand you when you speak commonsense."
A bicycle helmet is designed to provide protection if your head hits a hard,
flat surface at 20 km/hr or less. Obviously, above that speed it can
ameliorate the damage. If I hit a sharp object (such as a kerb stone corner
on) the protection will be very limited indeed. If I hit with a glancing
blow the helmet may significantly reduce abrasions but may also cause
increased twisting moments on the neck leading to additional injury.
So it can (and notice I say can, not will) provide some protection if I fall
from my bike. It might, therefore, provide protection if I fall unassisted,
fall because I hit a discontinuity (e.g. a pot hole, oil etc) or if I
receive a glancing blow from a car or other vehicle that knocks me from my
bike. As with all 'safety equipment' there will be occasions where it makes
things worse.
If I am hit with such force by a vehicle that I am turned to strawberry jam
the helmet will have little effect other, perhaps, to keep the mush that was
my brain together for easier post mortem.
As I pointed out in the part of my post you snipped, accident and injury
figures where helmets have been made compulsory have not shown any
significant reduction in head injuries. RodgerDoger's post at 5:12 this
morning in this thread puts the same argument much more eloquently and more
completely than I.
As for motorcycle helmets -- as I understand it (and I believe bicycles with
engines are the work of Stan and should be avoided at all costs) helmets and
leathers work principally by enabling a downed motorcyclist to slide over
the ground without being chewed up on the tarmac. If said motorcyclist hits
a tree or other solid object the helmet provides some cushioning effect. If
the motorcyclist takes a 100 km/hr head plant it will have the same effect
of retaining the mush for post mortem.
Wearing of a motorcycle helmet is compulsory in Britain. So far a cycle
helmet is not -- so I suggest you do not try your argument with Plod.
Those of us who have been visiting this NG for some time know that some of
these arguments are counter intuitive (don't get us started on road side
cycle tracks and shared use pavements). However, research shows clearly
that the benefits of a cycle helmet for utility and leisure cycling are at
best limited.
T
Tony Raven
>
> If I am hit with such force by a vehicle that I am turned to strawberry jam
> the helmet will have little effect other, perhaps, to keep the mush that was
> my brain together for easier post mortem.
>
In one of the studies of 19 cyclists listed as killed by head injuries
in motor accidents, 16 had fatal injuries to other parts of their bodies
(i.e. they would have died irrespective of the head injury). Of the
three that died from head injuries alone, one was the only one of the
nineteen who was wearing a helmet. Probably more coincidence than
anything but on the face of it in that group helmet wearers made up 6%
of the group but 33% of those killed by head injuries alone.
Tony
Peter Clinch
> A person with common sense might counter by saying don't wear an old
> helmet not designed to the top standard. Rocket science this is not
> my friend.
>
> (Common sense doesn't seem to garner respect round here though.)
That is because it is not common, and often not sensible. For example,
the way you think that your particular CS is better than a great wodge
of statistical data saying you're wrong.
In the paragraph above you'll be wearing a new helmet of the top
standard, thanks to your CS. But unfortunately for you it'll be a
downhill mountain biker's helmet (because they're built to much higher
standards and include face protection), and you'll have your vision
restricted in traffic, making an accident slightly more likely, and your
head will be overheating from the relatively unvented full face design,
again leading to a situation where the "safety" device is distracting
your attention from what's going on.
So that's a pretty good example of why what /you/ see as common sense
doesn't get much respect. In short, 'cause it's daft!
D.M. Procida
> It has been noted by others that there was a dramatic increase inhelmet
wearing in NZ whenthe MHL was introduced and there was nonoticable
change to the percentage of hi/limb hospitalisations - whichone would
expect would happen in a dose-response manner. There isanother part to
this research that hasn't had the attention drawn to itthat it deserves
- I have just described the appearance of astastistically significant
downward trend in hi percentages for theperiod 1980-1986 while helmet
wearing was near enough to zilch (andremember that this was the case for
the dis-aggregated groups of adult,primary and secondary school
children) but the helmet wearing raterocketed from a shade over 10% in
late 1988 to around 50% three yearslater. A somple regression on each of
the three age groups reveals nosignificant change to the downward trend
that was present before 1986 -in all three age groups - and again if
helmets were able to do what theywere claimed to be able to do there
should have been a dramatic decreasein the percentages hi/non-hi
hospital admissions.
and (a claim by the N.Z. Land Transport Safety Authority):
> * Over the same period, head injuries in NZ have fallen from 70percent
to about 55 percent of cyclist hospital admissions.
So is this claim simply false then?
Daniele
--
Apple Juice Ltd
Chapter Arts Centre
Market Road www.apple-juice.co.uk
Cardiff CF5 1QE 029 2019 0140
D.M. Procida
> > Let's look back at the human history of this strange faculty we call
> > "common sense"
>
> "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."
> Albert Einstein
"Common sense [...] a convenient way of being defiant without any
insight." - Immanuel Kant
David Martin
"Me!" <y...@hell.com> wrote:
> And while you're cycling gently, the motoroists around you are driving
> gently....?
Show me a cycle helmet rated for impacts with motor vehicles.
..d
David Hansen
<y...@hell.com> wrote this:-
>Ah, you're the kinda people who are against airbags and seatbelts
>because SOME people are injured by those..
Seatbelts caused a 40% increase in cyclist fatalities over two
years, compared to the trend before seatbelts.
--
David Hansen, Edinburgh | PGP email preferred-key number F566DA0E
I will always explain revoked keys, unless the UK government
prevents me using the RIP Act 2000.
David Hansen
<y...@hell.com> wrote this:-
>On Tue, 31 Aug 2004 21:15:30 +0100, Tony Raven <ju...@raven-family.com>
>wrote:
>
>>Do you wear such a helmet when you go walking? If not why not?
>
>Ah, the completely irrelevant, extreme end of scale argument.
Nice try.
In absolute and relative terms more pedestrians are injured and die
where head injuries are given as the "cause of death". Assuming that
helmets protect from such injuries then it makes sense to
concentrate on pedestrian helmets first, before moving on to cycle
helmets.
The argument is neither irrelevant or extreme. It is the argument
used by the road "safety" lobby turned back on them.
Gawnsoft
(more or less):
>On Tue, 31 Aug 2004 23:22:27 +0100, "Tony W"
><tonyr...@chapmore.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>On that basis I chose not to wear one for utility cycling or gentle leisure
>>cycling.
>
>
>And while you're cycling gently, the motoroists around you are driving
>gently....?
Bicycle helmets are designed only to protect you from a fall from your
bike, if you cycle at only up about 7mph (i.e. a speed a jogger will
overtake you at).
If someone hits you with a one and a half tonne to 44 tonne
sledgehammer weilded at twenty to 30mph, the helmet is not going to
help much. (and the evidence suggests it may harm as often as it
helps)
>Can I use the same argument on my motorbike? "Yes officer, but I was
>keeping it well under the limit and I'm only out biking for fun...
>What's that? Other traffic? I'm from the internet, I don't
>understand you when you speak commonsense."
Motorbike helmets are different from bicycle helmets. Have a look at
the two side-by-side sometime.
Feel free to wear a motorbike helmet while you are out cycling. After
all, you seem to think that would only be commonsense.
Gawnsoft
(more or less):
...
>Perhaps only helmets adhering to strict safety standards should be
>sold. Much like those nasty, heavy, strap-laden motorcycle helmets I
>would never go motorbiking without, law or no law.
If you are looking for a helmet that meets the strict safety standards
that motorbike helmets can meet, then I suggest you use a motorbike
helmet. They already meet motorbike-style safety standards.
There are, of course, disadvantages to doing so, but I'm sure that,
given your strong feelings on this matter, it's only commonsense to
wear the sort of helmet that meets strict safety standards.
If you demonstrate the courage of your convictions, and do start
wearing your full-face, strong safety standard helmet for cycling
(i.e. your motorbike helmet), could you post a ride report please?
...
Gawnsoft
....
>A person with common sense might counter by saying don't wear an old
>helmet not designed to the top standard. Rocket science this is not
>my friend.
>
>(Common sense doesn't seem to garner respect round here though.)
While I agree that if you feel a bicycle helmet is indicated, then
yes, do replace your perforated polystyrene hat every three years.
Finding hats made to the highest available bicycle safety standard for
sale is not easy.
The more recent standard (EN1078) seems to have pushed out the older,
stricter one.
(Just yesterday, I asked a bibcycle shop owner if he had any Snell -
standard helmets in stock. He said he didn't, but that it was an old
standard. The new helmets met the new, european standard. He
disagreed that 'newer' could ever be 'less strict'.)
Mike K Smith
> Ah,the magic polystyrene HGV deflector makes its appearance.
Saw a teenager cycling along yesterday with one dangling from his left
wrist!
"Yes Mum, I have got my helmet".
Ambrose Nankivell
> On Tue, 31 Aug 2004 21:15:30 +0100, Tony Raven <ju...@raven-family.com>
> wrote:
>
> >Do you wear such a helmet when you go walking? If not why not?
>
> Ah, the completely irrelevant, extreme end of scale argument. Took a
> while.
>
> I'll bite - I generally don't have to share the pavements where I am
> with other 1 tonne traffic.
Ha! Do you know what percentage of motor traffic nowadays weighs
(somewhere in the ballpark of) a ton? Less than weighs 2 tons, I'd
say.
A
Gawnsoft
(more or less):
>On Tue, 31 Aug 2004 21:15:30 +0100, Tony Raven <ju...@raven-family.com>
>wrote:
>
>
>>Do you wear such a helmet when you go walking? If not why not?
>
>
>Ah, the completely irrelevant, extreme end of scale argument. Took a
>while.
>
>I'll bite - I generally don't have to share the pavements where I am
>with other 1 tonne traffic.
Check out the likelihood of sharing the pavement with motor vehicles.
The risk posed is much higher than you think. (Given that you're
relying on common sense)
And that's before you count the times you cross a road to get to the
next pavement.
And, in any event, bicycle helmets are to protect you from a fall from
head height at up to 7mph.
When walking, youyr head is, by definition, at head height. Maximum
human walking speed is over 6mph.
>Hey, perhaps we could all avoid leaving the house, as it's too
>dangerous?
>
>Car drivers and helmets though, that has some merit...
Car passengers and helmets has more merit.
If car drivers wore them, they'd just feel safer and more isolated
from their surroundings than ever...
David Martin
<tonyr...@chapmore.co.uk> wrote:
> A bicycle helmet is designed to provide protection if your head hits a hard,
> flat surface at 20 km/hr or less. Obviously, above that speed it can
> ameliorate the damage.
But this is not linear. The protection provided is to just prevent brain
injury in a linear blow.
As you scale up the speed, you get an excess of ((x*x) -(400))/400 of the
proportion of the energy *above* a damaging limit.
So at 25 km/h you have an excess of more than half the energy at 20 km/h
over the ability of a helmet to protect from HI. At 30 km/h the energy is
more than twice a helmet can absorb.
Amelioration at these higher speeds is probably insignificant, and given the
increased likelihood of rotational injuries at higher speeds, more than
offset by the increase in rotational injury.
..d
David Martin
1gjff2p.1aat6rv18va983N%real-not-anti...@apple-juice.co.uk, "D.M.
Procida" <real-not-anti...@apple-juice.co.uk> wrote:
> RogerDodger <RogerDodg...@no-mx.forums.cyclingforums.com> wrote:
>
>> It has been noted by others that there was a dramatic increase inhelmet
> wearing in NZ whenthe MHL was introduced and there was nonoticable
> change to the percentage of hi/limb hospitalisations - whichone would
> expect would happen in a dose-response manner.
>> * Over the same period, head injuries in NZ have fallen from 70percent
> to about 55 percent of cyclist hospital admissions.
>
> So is this claim simply false then?
No, it is misleading. It isn't normalised by the number of cyclists (which
dropped quite dramatically. The proportion of HI remained constant whilst
the number of HI dropped becasue the number of cyclists and the total number
of injuries dropped as well.
..d
bugbear
> Can anyone explain to me why posters to this newsgroup tend to use "h*lm*t"
> instead of "helmet"?
>
> Is there a problem with the word "helmet"? Why do people feel they cannot
> bring themselves to type it? Of course there are strong feelings about
> helmets; you only have to look at the number of replies a helmet posting
> gets to see that; but why the aversion to the word itself?
I take it the length and venomous nature
of this thread is an adequate answer to your question...
BugBear
Helen Deborah Vecht
> I take it the length and venomous nature
> of this thread is an adequate answer to your question...
Yebbut playing with newbie-trolls is *fun*!
--
A Norty Gril
--
Helen D. Vecht: helen...@zetnet.co.uk
Edgware.
Peter Clinch
> Yebbut playing with newbie-trolls is *fun*!
Common sense suggests otherwise... ;-/
Pete Biggs
> You are more likely to be killed or seriously injured while walking
> than you are when cycling so hardly the extreme end of the scale.
More likely per mile, that is.
~PB
Patrick Herring
| On Sun, 29 Aug 2004 22:14:50 GMT, Gawnsoft
| <xlu...@users.sourceforge.remove.this.antispam.net> wrote:
|
|
| >Reducing injuries and deaths is a good idea.
| >All you need to do now is demonstrate that bicycle helmets have this
| >effect.
|
|
| I don't need to - I have the common sense of an adult.
|
| I don't need a peer-reviewed double-blind study to tell me that if my
| head hits the ground hard, there will be less chance/severity of
| injury if I'm wearing a well-fitted cycling helmet.
|
| A magic shield of steel a helmet is not, but it's still much better
| than skin and hair.
They're designed to work up to 12.5mph, around the mild-to-medium
concussion mark, and not to save your life. Vehicle driver mistakes
are your main source, let us assume, of death and serious injury. Can
you quantify how many of those mistakes will be made due to drivers
thinking you're more protected than you in fact are? I know I can't.
So I prefer to err on the side of caution by purposely not wearing a
helmet in order to maximise my influence over drivers' behaviour.
--
Patrick Herring, Sheffield, UK
http://www.anweald.co.uk
Tony Raven
More likely per mile and much more likely per individual given the
average distance cycled per person in the UK is about one seventh of the
distance walked.
Tony
Pete Biggs
>>> You are more likely to be killed or seriously injured while walking
>>> than you are when cycling so hardly the extreme end of the scale.
>>
>> More likely per mile, that is.
>
> More likely per mile and much more likely per individual given the
> average distance cycled per person in the UK is about one seventh of
> the distance walked.
That stat is not much use to the individual who cycles far more miles than
he/she walks.
So what about per hour?
~PB
David Hansen
<xlu...@users.sourceforge.remove.this.antispam.net> wrote this:-
>Check out the likelihood of sharing the pavement with motor vehicles.
>The risk posed is much higher than you think.
Agreed. Although a small sample, I have never been hit by a cyclist
while walking on the pavement. I have been hit by motorists, twice.
Me!
wrote:
>Ah,the magic polystyrene HGV deflector makes its appearance.
I do believe I said something along the lines of "a magic shield it is
not" earlier.
Do keep up.
Me!
<xlu...@users.sourceforge.remove.this.antispam.net> wrote:
>If someone hits you with a one and a half tonne to 44 tonne
>sledgehammer weilded at twenty to 30mph, the helmet is not going to
>help much. (and the evidence suggests it may harm as often as it
>helps)
I was thinking more like having a small knock from a car, in passing
perhaps, and being knocked off the bike, hitting ground. A helmet
could indeed have some use here.
No helmet is going to survive the likes of a head-on from a car. Even
motorbike helmets don't provide much protection there.
Me!
real-not-anti...@apple-juice.co.uk (D.M. Procida) wrote:
>"Common sense [...] a convenient way of being defiant without any
>insight." - Immanuel Kant
"When all else fails, revert to quotes from smarter people than you."
- Me!
Gawnsoft
(more or less):
>On Wed, 01 Sep 2004 09:16:26 GMT, Gawnsoft
><xlu...@users.sourceforge.remove.this.antispam.net> wrote:
>
>
>>If someone hits you with a one and a half tonne to 44 tonne
>>sledgehammer weilded at twenty to 30mph, the helmet is not going to
>>help much. (and the evidence suggests it may harm as often as it
>>helps)
>
>
>I was thinking more like having a small knock from a car, in passing
>perhaps, and being knocked off the bike, hitting ground.
A 'small knock' from a car?
>A helmet could indeed have some use here.
As discussed ad nauseam already, bike helmets protect against your
head falling to the (flat) ground at speeds of up to 7mph. (in the
situations where it does not have any adverse effects).
If you feel this applies to collisions with cars (and I'm happy to
accept that three may be some situations where a car doing 7mph or
less hits a stationary pedestrian or cyclist, in such a way that the
ped/cyclist gets hit in such a way as to have his/her head sent to hit
a nice flat patch of ground),
>No helmet is going to survive the likes of a head-on from a car. Even
>motorbike helmets don't provide much protection there.
Unfortunately, this is the sort of thing helmets are being promoted
for.
Pete Biggs
>> perhaps, and being knocked off the bike, hitting ground.
>
> A 'small knock' from a car?
>
>> A helmet could indeed have some use here.
>
> As discussed ad nauseam already, bike helmets protect against your
> head falling to the (flat) ground at speeds of up to 7mph. (in the
> situations where it does not have any adverse effects).
>
> If you feel this applies to collisions with cars (and I'm happy to
> accept that three may be some situations where a car doing 7mph or
> less hits a stationary pedestrian or cyclist, in such a way that the
> ped/cyclist gets hit in such a way as to have his/her head sent to hit
> a nice flat patch of ground),
The car doesn't have to be doing 7 mph or less. There are plenty of
situations where the cyclist will slow to <=7 mph after contacting a car
before hitting head against anything.
~PB