Originally Posted by filtersweep
That is false logic. Body armour is false security. It is not designed to protect against the impact of vehicles, nor protect limbs from impacting the pavement. It won't prevent a broken collar bone... or broken pelvis, or hip. It might help with a bit of road rash, but when I've gone down, road rash was the least of my concerns.
If you are that afraid, take the bus!
this is what I meant - the arguments you have used are the ones that the anti-helmet faction use- won't help if you hit a bus and so on. Fortunately most accidents are not so severe and some body armour may well help. It makes me wonder why body armour exists at all when it is all so suddenly useless out of the particular context of downhill racing.
Also why do rollerbladers wear body armour?- rollerblading is in essence a similar activity to cycling
In the last accident I had on my bike I hit a kerb with the front wheel and landed on my spine. Luckily on that occasion although I was not wearing any body armour I had my rucksack on and it had some magazines and soft stuff in.
Now I would imagine that you would also scoff at the safety value of rucksacks stuffed with magazines and soft stuff but it saved me some considerable pain and possibly some permanent damage.
It is not a question of being afraid but of merely balancing the risk. You are free of course to balance your own risk (or not if you dont want) but why can't you just accept that people will come to different conclusions than you?