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I don't have particularly strong feelings about helmet use, and have
no inclination to discuss the subject of helmets in an online forum;
but his blog offends me, and I'm happy to explain why. He objectifies
women! He is, in essence, a professional pornographer, exploiting
people for his own self-promotion.
James Black
Los Angeles, CA
but his blog offends me, and I'm happy to explain why. He objectifies
women! He is, in essence, a professional pornographer, exploiting
people for his own self-promotion.
I have nothing against professional photographers or exploiting people, but I am greatly offended by the shameless portrayal of internal gear hubs and chain guards as sensible for transportation bikes! Both of these cause me lots of trouble on a daily basis!
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It is one of my least favorite topics to read about in any forum.
Please don't include it. It just stirs up trouble and gets no one anywhere good.
If writing about that takes away from testing a new or old bike or
being able to research another piece of history then I think BQ will
be poorer for it.
thank you,
-sv
At Bicycle Quarterly, we are considering looking at the statistics and figuring out whether helmets make riding safer, whether risk compensation really is a factor, etc. I believe there is a need for real data, rather than opinion, on the subject. It's not that hard to figure this out, especially when you compare different countries and populations. But of course, like most quasi-religious topics, it would be a hotly debated issue. What do you guys think?
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I think there is no such thing as 'service to the debate'.
I do not think the undecided are reading BQ and the decided aren't
going to be swayed one way or the other.
I think the great majority of everyone would be benefited by just
walking away from it.
-sv
Sent from my iPhone
On Mar 16, 2011, at 11:10 AM, Jan Heine <hei...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>> to get people on bicycles, you don't want to force them to wear a helmet
>> and imply that they are doing something more dangerous than driving.
>
> The same arguments were made when Preston Tucker wanted to include seatbelts in his cars. His board thought it implied that Tucker cars were unsafe. (Instead, it was Volvo who introduced seatbelts. I guess they weren't afraid that their cars might be considered unsafe.)
>
> Today, most of us use seatbelts, because we are aware of the risks of driving. Seatbelts don't keep people from driving. It seems to make little sense to pretend that riding bikes is risk-free. Do we really want to foster a teenage-like feeling of invincibility in cyclists? (Like my neighbor 20 years ago, who took up cycling in middle age. She loved it, riding against the flow of traffic, helmet-free on an old bike with no real brakes.)
>
> The bigger issue that nobody addresses is simple: A seatbelt or a helmet is your last line of defense. Accident avoidance through competent driving/riding is a much more important component of your safety. With cars, our focus on technology over driver education has had the U.S. slip from the safest country for drivers to one of the least safe. (However, that statistic in the NY Times was per driver, not per miles, and Americans drive more... so one might want to correct for that.)
>
> At Bicycle Quarterly, we are considering looking at the statistics and figuring out whether helmets make riding safer, whether risk compensation really is a factor, etc. I believe there is a need for real data, rather than opinion, on the subject. It's not that hard to figure this out, especially when you compare different countries and populations. But of course, like most quasi-religious topics, it would be a hotly debated issue. What do you guys think?
>
> Jan Heine
> Editor
> Bicycle Quarterly
> http://www.bikequarterly.com
>
> Follow our blog at http://janheine.wordpress.com/
Personally, I am absolutely sick of Helmet Wars. I think the entire
issue is ridiculous, stupid even, and I can't stand to hear the
arguments endlessly repeated. And I usually don't take part in such
discussions. However...
Statistical arguments are absolutely meaningless when something freakish
happens -- for example, when the Kamikaze Squirrel decided to run
through my front wheel yesterday. There I was, riding down the road at
around 13 mph, perfect pavement, no traffic within a mile of me in
either direction, a friend riding about a car length behind me, when I
see a blur of motion in my peripheral vision down and to the right, and
simultaneously hear a shout behind me and a loud PING from my front
wheel.
Good job I had a 36 spoke wheel!
The woman behind me said the squirrel bounced off my wheel, got up and
ran across the road behind me and in front of her.
In this case, nothing happened. If I'd have had a low spoke count
wheel, though, there's a possibility the squirrel could have gotten
half-way through the wheel, and gotten sucked up and locked the front
wheel, causing a header.
My wearing a helmet did not cause that squirrel to decide to run through
my front wheel. Had I not had a helmet on, it wouldn't have kept the
squirrel from running into my wheel. I didn't ride less safely because
I was wearing a helmet; had I not been wearing one, I would have done
nothing different.
The only question is this: had there been a crash, would I have been
better off with a helmet or without one? To me, the answer is obvious,
and unless someone can show me how my head would be better protected
without an energy absorbing device on top of the balaclava and cycling
cap than with one, I think these arguments are plainly idiotic.
As to the question of whether cycling is more, or less, dangerous than
driving a car -- I've been driving for over 50 years. I've been cycling
for that long as well. In that time, I've had a few car accidents;
the exact number depends on whether you count scrapes against a
concrete pillar in the parking garage or the spin-out in the snow that
left me and the car unhurt in a snow bank, but for sure one car was
definitely wrecked -- 50 mph spinout on ice into a bridge girder -- and
three others required bodywork. For all of that, I got one injury: a
torn hangnail, when I crashed into the bridge girder.
In that same time, I've had a few bicycle accidents:
- Rode into some sand at the bottom of a 3 mile long hill at around 20
mph, no helmet, got knocked senseless for a couple of minutes.
- Hit a paved over, invisible pothole and got a broken collar bone.
- Hit a root on a canal towpath, went off the towpath into the canal and
broke my shoulder.
- Had a front tire blow causing the bike to roll and auger into the
ground, got some road rash.
- Got my wheel caught in a crack between two lanes of concrete paving
that trapped the front wheel; torn clothing, road rash and a severely
scraped up helmet. Otherwise, it would have been a severely scraped up
scalp at best.
- Came over a rise and found a tree top in the road, couldn't stop, ran
over a branch and crashed. Torn clothing, dented foam in the helmet.
Better a dented helmet than a dented head, I think.
- Crashed on black ice commuting twice, no blood but pretty sore for a
few weeks.
- Jogger cut right in front of me (I yelled, he went left, I rode to the
right and as I was passing he decided to cut to the right shoulder) and
I ran him over. Bent fork and a rib that was sore for 2 months.
It seems pretty clear to me, base on my experience I've been physically
injured a lot more riding bicycles than driving a car. In most of the
crashes, the helmet wasn't a factor one way or the other; but in several
of them, it clearly made a difference between some sort of head or
facial trauma and none at all. Was it worth the money paid for helmets
over the years? Obviously, and only an idiot would say otherwise in my
humble opinion, no disrespect meant to present company, but really!
I've also seen studies that compare injury rates of helmet-wearing
cyclists versus non helmet wearers without taking into account that
helmet wearers are different in other ways than non-helmet-wearers. My
guess is that helmet wearers are the kind of cyclists who have fewer
accidents in general than non-helmet wearers. (Not you, Patrick, but
at least around here, cyclists without helmets tend to be
disproportionally drunks and deadbeats.)
I would really like to know the chance that a helmet will protect me
from an injury that I otherwise would have gotten. Maybe the range of
accidents in which a helmet makes a difference is vanishingly small--
maybe in most accidents either the helmet is unnecessary and useless,
or the helmet is too little and the cyclist dies anyway. Maybe my
helmet would protect me in a large range of accidents that I might
have. But right now, the available data isn't telling me.
Anecdotal arguments are useless. I want the numbers.
--
-- Anne Paulson
My hovercraft is full of eels
RGZ
On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 8:50 AM, MichaelH <mhec...@gmail.com> wrote:
> My experience confirms that safety concerns are the biggest impediment
> to getting people on bicycles. No doubt, the ubiquitous helmet
> contributes to that fear, but I am convinced that fear has two other
> deeper causes. First, far too many roads where most commuters ride
> are unnecessarily dangerous and new riders lack the skill and moxie to
> take their share of the lane. Second, Americans watch way too much
> TV, which is an entire industry composed of fearful, angry, unhappy
> people intent on making everyone else fearful, resentful, and
> unhappy. There are many things that people ought to be concerned
> about, like climate change and spreading poverty, but instead, as this
> video clip pointed out, we are all encouraged to be stressed out about
> minimal or non existent dangers. Too many people simply approach
> life, including cycling, from that place of fear.
>
> I just retired from a physically and emotionally demanding job at a
> major medical center. Whenever I mentioned the slightest ache or pain
> I would invariably be asked or simply assumed that I had hurt myself
> commuting to work. Yet, with a daily census of around 450 inpatients
> we probably averaged two admissions a year for cycling injuries.
>
> Promoting reason over fear is a good thing to do, but I doubt that the
> bicycle helmet is the best place to start.
>
> michael,
> not enjoying mud season in VT!
...and Patrick... Please help me to appreciate "the impending,
ineluctible, overawing and highly terrible roar of a mons parturatinga mus"... :)
--
On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 12:55 PM, Travis <travisbr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I've searched extensively as well and cannot find anything
> scientifically convincing. However, here are a couple of very simple
> questions which may be helpful:
>
> 1) Do helmets reduce the extent of head or neck injuries incurred by
> impact to the head?
> 2) Does cycling increase the likelihood of impact to the head, whether
> or not a helmet is in use?
>
> If you have a suspicion that the answer to each of these questions is
> "Yes," you should probably wear a helmet.
>
> Travis Breitenbach
>
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Ann, to indulge your semantic reply I will change #2:
2) Does cycling dramatically increase your risk of suffering brain
damage, death, or paralysis due to impact to the head versus
showering?
Yes, almost definitely.
Here's what I want to know, and what I haven't seen compelling data
on: Will a helmet materially change my risk of damage, death or
paralysis while cycling?
Sadly, we've had some recent cyclist deaths in my area. The cyclist
fatalities I hear about are seemingly cyclists like me, cycling on
roads that I ride on. They were wearing helmets, like I do, and their
helmets failed to protect them from death.
And then I hear about other local cyclists crashing and recovering
from broken wrists, broken collar bones, broken legs-- these people
seemingly didn't hit their heads at all.
And then, I suppose, there are cyclists who crash and hit their heads,
but their helmets prevented or mitigated their injuries.
But what I want to know is, in what proportion of accidents would a
helmet make a difference? In some accidents, helmet or no helmet the
cyclist would die. In some accidents, helmet or no helmet, the cyclist
wouldn't have a head injury, or wouldn't have a head injury that made
any difference, or would have struck something with, say, their chin,
so a helmet wouldn't have helped. In some accidents, the helmet saves
the victim-- but how many accidents are like that? Don't say, one is
enough-- the danger has to be significant enough so wearing a helmet
is worth it; I don't wear a helmet when taking a shower.
Why is BHSI "biased," in your opinion? Because they test helmets?
"Who is Sonny Bono?"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonny_Bono#Death
I am the complete opposite-- I believe statistics-crazed sports nerd
is the term of art here. My gut would like to be informed by accurate
statistics on the increased risk posed by my cycling without a helmet,
before it supplies me with intuition on whether to wear one. My gut
already knew that some cyclists have had head injuries, and other
cyclists have not. My gut is therefore markedly unimpressed by
anecdata from neurologists who only see people with head injuries and
do not treat the many perfectlly healthy cyclists who return from
rides without having injured their heads, and equally unpersuaded by
cyclists who announce that they ride without a helmet and haven't had
a head injury.
One thing wearing a helmet will protect you from, is having to listen to folks to tell you should have a helmet on.
>> Bottom line, I don't care what statistics show, either in favor or
>> against, nor will I EVER. I will ignore them over my own gut intuition
That stance is always at some risk of becoming "I know what I know, don't confuse me with the facts." Which sort of thing has had all sorts of consequences in American political and economic life.
> I am the complete opposite-- I believe statistics-crazed sports nerd
> is the term of art here. My gut would like to be informed by accurate
> statistics on the increased risk posed by my cycling without a helmet,
> before it supplies me with intuition on whether to wear one. My gut
> already knew that some cyclists have had head injuries, and other
> cyclists have not. My gut is therefore markedly unimpressed by
> anecdata from neurologists who only see people with head injuries and
> do not treat the many perfectlly healthy cyclists who return from
> rides without having injured their heads, and equally unpersuaded by
> cyclists who announce that they ride without a helmet and haven't had
> a head injury.
The available statistics have some trends which have probably already been covered and, if not, such discussion is readily available in less pleasant and more contentious forums (fora?). Check Google Groups for rec.bicycles.tech and read any one of the dozens of helmet threads, which are incredibly tedious and repetitive FWIW. One of them will be enough. The interested reader can also check www.cyclehelmets.org for a broad perspective on the helmet issue. I don't care to repeat that stuff, I've been in enough discussions about helmets that I have had a bellyful. No longer interested in the debate.
The fundamental problem is that bike crashes are chaotic events. One can tumble down the road or trail and never bump your head. Or you can hit it 11 times. You can hit your head and get nothing but a bump or a cut; you can hit your head and squash part of your brain. Helmets can only protect against certain kinds of brain injuries, if they provide any protection at all. You can die from a traumatic brain injury without your head ever touching anything (e.g., shaken brain syndrome) and a helmet can't help at all with that. The extra weight may even make matters worse. There's just no way to know in any given crash whether the helmet helped significantly or not. It might have; it might not have. In the past few years around here, almost every cyclist killed while riding was wearing a helmet as reported in the news; most died from non-head injury causes and most from being struck by a motor vehicle. One of the oddest was two helmeted cyclists who collided headfirst in a bike path tunnel, killing one of them on the spot.
So, you pay your money and you take your chance. Go for a ride. With or without a helmet it is overwhelmingly likely to be a nice thing to do and the likelihood of dying while doing it is extremely small. Probably on the order of one death for every 1,000,000 rides. If you get to 999,999 maybe be extra careful on that next ride.
Bravo! And when you're thinking about "severity" let's not limit the
field to brain injuries alone. I'll bet if she saw the scrapes on the
side of my helmet that time I went down sideways going around the
traffic circle at Mount Vernon, when my wheel got caught between the two
concrete lanes, and imagined them on the side of her face, Anne would
have rated that as a "pretty damn severe" injury.
This sounds like a misanalysis to me. Are we supposed to throw up our
hands and say, we can't estimate the probability of an adverse event,
so we'd better take precautions in case it happens if the precautions
aren't particularly onerous? So I should wear my bike helmet when I
cross the street? Should I bring mountain-lion repellent when I go for
a bike ride? (I actually saw a mountain lion cub when I was riding a
couple of weeks ago. Very cool. But I digress.) We don't take
precautions against extremely low probability events, even if the
precautions would be not very onerous.
A helmet isn't hugely onerous (and as I said, I always wear one) but
it's not totally without drawbacks. It messes up my hair, it costs
money, it's not totally perfect. If I knew about the probability of
accidents *where a helmet would protect me from injury* and that
probability was really really small, I'd stop wearing one.
Shucks, 'twas nuthin, really.More eloquent by far than I, BSNYC indulges in some amusing punditry and soul moving commentary on recent "bicycle safety rules" here: http://bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com/
On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 12:07 PM, MontclairBobbyB <montcla...@gmail.com> wrote:Patrick;I'm sure I've already told you this, but I'll be first in line at your book signing... you are indeed fun to read. (In fact if you have a reason to travel East, you should consider joining us for Riv Rally East May 6-8... With Robert Zeidler, Steve Palincsar and Kelly Sleeper (among others) planning to attend, I expect the dialogue (in addition to the scenery) to be rather colorful...
Peace,
BBOn Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 1:54 PM, PATRICK MOORE <bert...@gmail.com> wrote:
A mons parturating (or perhaps "cacare" is better -- "Culus tibi purior salillo est,
nec toto decies cacas in anno"; yes, I had to look that up) Charlie Sheen would be even more ridiculous. Who needs satire? God preserve us from becoming rich, famous, sexy and important or more of us would end up like him.Anyway, this is the old proverb about a mountain straining and groaning and giving birth to a mouse: tempest in a teapot.
On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 11:47 AM, Montclair BobbyB <montcla...@gmail.com> wrote:
...and Patrick... Please help me to appreciate "the impending,
ineluctible, overawing and highly terrible roar of a mons parturatinga mus"... :)
--
Patrick Moore
Albuquerque, NM
For professional resumes, contact
--
"LIFE... is better, when you ride bikes"...
Bob Birmingham
Cell: (908) 303-6887
--
Patrick Moore
Albuquerque, NM
For professional resumes, contact