prathmann

This seems totally at odds with your previous statement:
"I disregard probability and statistics because I have something better, the real McCoy. And if I were to use the past to know what to expect in the future, no past is my relevant than my own. I need not probabilistic estimate to tell me what I know for sure, that cycling the way I do, where I do, I can hurt my head."

If the past in no way determines what will happen in the future then why did you state that 'no past is [more] relevant than my own.'
You seem to be saying that now that you have had a bad crash you do regard the past as being relevant to your estimate of future events but prior to 2013, when your past record would have indicated no need for extra safety equipment that past experience was to be disregarded.

Seems rather inconsistent - and illustrates the need for statistics where the experience of a large number of people is gathered and analyzed to indicate the relative risks of different types of activities without each of us having to engage in the activity long enough to actually experience negative consequences.

Tiglath

You might feel that bicycles are remarkably stable, but the typical biker is a precariously balanced, moving top-heavy object par excellence. All is well as long as no one touches your wheels and a myriad other things we take for granted, and let is not confuse the fact that riding a bike is not a difficult skill with the fact that bikes are stable objects.

One thing I admire scientists for is that they often couch their statements in cautionary language to reflect the fact that they practice educated uncertainty as opposed to ignorant certainty. Even when a fact is firmly established you see scientists using phrases like, "the data seems to suggest..." Not just "seems" or just "suggest" but double the uncertainty. And here we have a poster that on the patently dubious question of how things would turn out were he to fall off his bike and hit his head (god forbid) his uses 'rare' as the probability that he would be injured seriously. Such faith.

Tiglath

It is not inconsistent at all. The fact that people have expectations does not mean that the past determines the future.

Both heads and tails have 50/50 chance in a coin flip; that is the expectation. But if you get heads ten times in a row, there is a natural tendency to expect that tails are due soon, yet in no way the past determines that in the eleventh flip tails have a better chance. It's still 50/50.

When you live 50 years with good luck the fact that accidents only happen to other people sinks in and affects expectations. Yet your chances to have a accident are the same, regardless.

Similarly, I know accidents do not just happen to other people, so my expectations have changed, but not in the sense that, same as before the accident, I still don't know what to expect, so I wear a helmet, as I did when I had the first accident in my life. The only thing the past has determined is my certainty that I was right to be prepared.

rydabent

Your point is spot on. I have posted many times that even tho the anti helmet types have never had an accident, it is no proof that they never will.

As I told my customers, there are two types of computer hard drives-----those that have crashed, and those that will.

mconlonx

There is no anti-helmet crowd. There is a bare-head-brigade around here, however, who are more an anti-helmeteer-fear-based-prosletyzing-more-with-scare-tactic-hyperbole-than-actual-facts crowd. They tend to be vocal when someone starts posting typical helmeteer nonsense.

To wit:



Bicycles are remarkably stable. Considering how I have stayed upright in some situations encountered on the road, I stick by that statement. If people are touching your wheels while in motion on a regular basis, you are doing it wrong. A bike in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. Outside forces acting in an untoward manner while riding a bicycle is indeed a rare, or at least non-common event. Again, if this is not the case for you, perhaps you should reconsider your riding style--millions of people worldwide ride bicycles without crashing every day. If you'd care to back up with figures your statement that cycling crashes resulting in serious head injury are other than rare, I'm all ears.

wphamilton

For some hard drives, or consumer hard drives operating 24/7 in servers. I used to look at the customer's use case, consider the annual failure rate and mean time before failure as much as was known then, and recommend hard drives that would likely perform without failure for the expected life cycle. I have a box full of hard drives that I've outgrown, that never crashed.

Just like helmets and injuries - it all depends on the probability of failure and how necessary precautions are. Anyone with any sense would back up their mission-critical data, but Raid-5 with network mirroring would be silly for your "my documents" folder on your desktop.

rydabent

I worked for a large computer corp, and I can assure you that hard drives are engineered to have a specific life. If engineered to 10,000 hours, only a few will crash before that. Many will even have a life of 50% more than their designed life. However---------what I say is true. If used continously there are those that have crashed, and those that will.

The greatest cyclist here on this forum that claim they have not, and will never crash are only fooling themselves. Im pretty sure they are not as good as many of the world class cyclist that have crashed, and some that have died.

Im only suggesting that cyclist give themselves every chance to survive a crash without injury or even death that is possible, and that included wearing a helmet.

mconlonx

No one here has ever claimed they are the greatest cyclist, nor that they have not or will not ever crash. The world class cyclists who have crashed and died, are you including the ones who were wearing helmets at the time...?

Cyclists have every chance to survive a crash without injury or death, even if they are not wearing a helmet. In the event of a crash, a helmet may provide some injury mitigation. Or it may not.

Tiglath

Sorry, I meant the pro-death faction.

A gratuitous assertion that can be denied just as gratuitously.

The poster again flags his faith in imagined numbers about the past to predict the future as his go-to silo of ideas when needing answers about safety.

He remains oblivious to the fact that when he rides a bike his head moves at a speed at which almost any impact will cause decelerations that can kill or badly damage the brain. It happens regularly to people moving at lesser speeds practicing sports on foot. He believes that his cycling skills make the risk "rare," that is, negligible, which he represents as his being in control of the situation, when in fact, his skill, being human, is less than impeccable, and there are countless forces, other drivers mostly, over which he has no control at all.

Some people call faith a virtue. I call it believing something for no good reason at all.

Most people know the forgoing just by thinking about it, but for those enable to do so, there is help...

"While football tends to dominate the discussion of sports-related head injuries, research shows that bike accidents account for far more traumatic brain injuries each year. According to the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, cycling accidents played a role in about 86,000 of the 447,000 sports-related head injuries treated in emergency rooms in 2009. Football accounted for 47,000 of those head injuries, and baseball played a role in 38,394. Cycling was also the leading cause of sports-related head injuries in children under 14, causing 40,272 injuries, roughly double the number related to football (21,878). Part of the reason is that bicycling is so ubiquitous. But people are also more cavalier about taking precautions, said Dr. Gonzalo Vazquez-Casals, a neuropsychologist at Jamaica Hospital Medical Center in New York. Bicyclists are also at high risk of colliding with motor vehicles, and when riders are not wearing helmets, such collisions frequently result in serious head injuries.'

"In New York City, 75 percent of all fatal bike accidents involve a head injury. Nearly all bicyclists who died (97%) were not wearing a helmet. In addition to wearing a helmet, another helpful precaution is using a marked bike lane:

"THE BOTTOM LINE
Bike accidents contribute to more sports-related head injuries than any other activity."

https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/0...injuries/?_r=0


"The following 20 sports/recreational activities represent the categories contributing to the highest number of estimated head injuries treated in U.S. hospital emergency rooms in 2009.

"Cycling: 85,389
Football: 46,948
Baseball and Softball: 38,394
Basketball: 34,692
Water Sports (Diving, Scuba Diving, Surfing, Swimming, Water Polo, Water Skiing, Water Tubing): 28,716
Powered Recreational Vehicles (ATVs, Dune Buggies, Go-Carts, Mini bikes, Off-road): 26,606
Soccer: 24,184
Skateboards/Scooters: 23,114
Fitness/Exercise/Health Club: 18,012
Winter Sports (Skiing, Sledding, Snowboarding, Snowmobiling): 16,948
Horseback Riding: 14,466
Gymnastics/Dance/Cheerleading: 10,223
Golf: 10,035
Hockey: 8,145
Other Ball Sports and Balls, Unspecified: 6,883
Trampolines: 5,919
Rugby/Lacrosse: 5,794
Roller and Inline Skating: 3,320
Ice Skating: 4,608

"The top 10 sports-related head-injury categories among children ages 14 and younger:

"Cycling: 40,272
Football: 21,878
Baseball and Softball: 18,246
Basketball: 14,952
Skateboards/Scooters: 14,783
Water Sports: 12,843
Soccer: 8,392
Powered Recreational Vehicles: 6,818
Winter Sports: 6,750
Trampolines: 5,025

"*Note: Reported incidence is known to be significantly underreported (up to 50%, McCrea Clin J Sports med 13:13-17, 2004) and do not reflect those that are treated by family doctors or other para-medical professionals."

https://www.aans.org/Patient%20Inform...%20Injury.aspx

Tiglath

Note the deliberately ambiguous, inexplicit and dubious tone the poster casts over helmets.

What does he mean, that helmets won't prevent a broken leg? Road rash?

It is fairly clear that for every helmet damaged in a fall the rider would be worse off if that damage had been to the head instead. Why shroud this question in doubt? To what or whose benefit? Sane minds wonder.

Really? Even those who were injured or died?

The poster sounds as he believes that "chance to survive" is something you carry in a bottle in the seat tube and it's up to the rider to sip it at the right moment.

mconlonx

More hyperbole. Although the "can" modifier this other poster sneaked in is a nice concession, as long as "can" = "will most likely not."

Sports!

mconlonx

Perhaps the poster was just using the language of helmet experts who stop short of definitively claiming that helmets save lives or mitigate damage, especially as it pertains to any given event. All scientific and such.

The poster might further have meant that since not all crashes involve injury or potential injury to the head, helmets are not significantly useful in such cases, nor do they mitigate injury in the event of such crashes.

It has yet to be proven than any given rider would be worse off or not given helmet damage as a consequence of any specific fall, and yet this same poster had previously stated that helmets may indeed mitigate damage in some cases. Such injury mitigation rate falling as the severity of the injury rises.

The poster was probably referring to those cyclists who survive crashes and falls. Obviously. And since the replying poster implies that "faith in imagined numbers" should not be taken into account, that original poster might even go so far as to say that most bicycle crashes are survived without serious injury or death, helmet use or not.

The poster further might rely more on safe cycling tactics and skills than anything one might carry with them or wear as it pertains to not crashing in the first place. But in the event that this poster does crash on his head, it is probably a good thing that poster wears a helmet.

Tiglath

No surprise. A familiar pattern. It used to be galling to realize I was not dealing with a man's reason but his will. The will is impervious to argument, and it is that poster's will to belittle the benefits of wearing a helmet, come what may.

First he dismisses a reasoned argument about the fragility of the human head with naked assertions, but to disguise his ferrous will with reasonableness asks for hard figures and statistics, "I'm all ears." Yet when provided with relevant numbers and statistics, he ignores them completely, and dismisses carefully researched professional reports as "hyperbole."

At this point, unless insincerity is part of your arsenal, your signature provides the best explanation for our short and regrettable conversation.

wphamilton

@Tiglath, the numbers you provided are not really meaningful with respect to risk without knowing the amount of participation in each sport. For example, estimated one million boys play football in high school, while about 14.5 million kids 7-17 ride bikes. (Census Bureau and National Sporting Goods Association Sports Participation Study,2010 & 2000).

So the fact that there are more head injuries in cycling than in football does not mean that cycling is more risky. It's the other way around, by a great margin. Further, that is only approximate since you really need to compare the time spent in each activity instead of just persons, and you may find an even greater discrepancy (in favor of cycling being safer).

Tiglath

I am not too interested in statistics. I merely provided them in reply to the assertion that cycling head injuries are rare. People can decide for themselves what those numbers mean. They had no apparent effect on me before my accident, and now I am in the figures. Their utility is for city planners, mostly. For the individual, the argument for helmets lies in the inescapable facts about the fragility of the human head, cycling speeds, and the many factors out of our control.

I believe you are correct. Cycling is far safer than football, and many other sports, as you correlate users and injuries. There is little risk in riding a bike itself, most of the risk is in the environment. Biking in Manhattan or a small quiet town involves vastly different risks. Again, those are ancillary considerations for me. I know bad luck or human error can make me fall and I don't relish tumbling on the ground thinking "I wish a had a helmet on."

Motorbike helmets are hell, truly a head cage that robs much of the fun of riding, but cycling helmets are light, unobtrusive, airy, and aerodynamic, and after a while I don't even feel I have it on. That is, the cost/benefit ratio is outstanding.

2 Piece

I think I already tried that argument without success They just don't get it. I try to live my life in such away as to prevent and avoid accidents at all times and not worry about "what if". They live in fear, and by doing so they are not really living at all. And they don't even realize they are living in fear, or they make up an excuse (skin of the truth stuffed with a lie) as to why they live in fear. One good thing is that the capitalist, rich, economy, science and religions all make out like a bandit when people live in fear.

Tiglath

No wonder your trying the same lame argument did not succeed.

I am all for defensive driving, but what kind of argument is that the best prevention against accidents is to have the skill not to have an accident in the first place?

Kindly describe the precise skill that will stop a careless driver car knocking your down as you ride your bike respecting traffic laws.

It's an argument that makes as much sense as the rest of your post, by which, we are not living, apparently, because we live in fear, though we don't actually know we live in fear. ???

Who makes out like a bandit again? Helmet: $150.

A funeral runs several thousand. And living with any substantial concussion will probably involve:

• Baseline testing
• Post-injury evaluation
• Treatment/rehabilitation
• Cognitive screening
• Neurologic assessment.

It is yet to dawn on you also that when you prepare yourself against an eventuality, it properly addresses any fear of it.

2 Piece

When the hit and run driver hit you from the rear, why didn't you see him coming?

wphamilton

I can't help but point out that to answer your question, you must consider the probability of each outcome.

Each is a one-time cost, there are only two outcomes being considered, you assume that the helmet is completely effective in preventing death, and you're only talking about the dollar value, so this is simple.

Say the funeral is $3000, or 20 times the cost of the helmet. If during your entire cycling career, you have a 5% chance of getting killed without the helmet then the costs are equivalent. If you have greater than 5% chance of getting killed, buy the helmet to save money. Less than 5%, the helmet loses out dollar-wise.

I suggest that if the odds of having that severe an accident really were 5% or greater, no one would risk climbing on a bike. Therefore, given your parameters it is the helmet manufacturers who make out like a bandit.

Tiglath

Funny how you edited what I said to fit your purpose -- such shameless loading of the dice.

I clearly considered THREE outcomes. (1) Helmet + no-head-injury, (2) No-helmet + lethal-head-injury, (3) No-helmet + serious-head-injury.

In outcome (3) I even enumerated some of the typical treatment, cost unspecified but probably gigantic.

Your handling or probability is also hilarious. Statistics merely recount what happened to a population, and the same never happens again, though maybe an approximation, who knows. Most importantly, statistics do not determine in the slightest what happens to particular individuals.

Outcome (1) benefits helmet makers indeed, but you only need the helmet to save your head once, and it's YOU who makes out like a bandit. I know, I am one.

wphamilton

I did not edit - I just addressed the first of two scenarios that you brought up.

The second situation is similar, but slightly more complex. It has the same final conclusion however.

My handling of probability, though it was the simplest case, was correct. You are evidently operating under a mistaken impression about probability and statistics. Both are absolutely applicable to an individual and to individual events. I'm not going to argue about it, just give you the facts.

You have mentioned twice that you do not care for statistics and you do not believe that probability is meaningful. I suspect that you just don't understand it very well. I do understand it, so let's knock off the snarky value judgments about math here, OK?

Tiglath

I understand statistics only too well. I am not a statistician, god forbid, but I am a math major. Another poster dared defined statistics as reality. I beg to differ. The only part of reality statistics may capture is history, as it describes what events occurred to populations. And that's it. Probability is a human invention, which assumes history will repeat itself.

Here is an example. Cyclists deaths are about 2.8 per million people. That tells you ONLY that in the past the average cyclist death per million people are 2.8, and no more. Reality involves the present. In the present there are 100% dead cyclists and 100% living cyclists ONLY. There are NO <probability>% dead cyclists.

Statistics serve best entities like insurance companies, selling insurance to populations. Past events concerning that population are likely an approximation to what to expect, as long as trends continue and models are correct. But contrary to what you state, statistics say nothing about what will occur to an individual. Proof of it is that statistics of small numbers is a common fallacy.

https://prezi.com/z425s00sshsd/logic...small-numbers/

What happens to a small number of individuals need not correspond to what happens to a larger population. And it's a two-way correspondence naturally: statistics of a large population do not govern events occurring to a small population subset or individuals.

wphamilton

I don't think so. You need to understand that probability is predictive, and that statistics and probability are not synonymous.

But you can derive probabilities from statistical analysis of populations or events, and yes these are predictive for individual elements within the population. Ask your undergraduate math professor.

Tiglath

I never said that statistics and probability are the same thing.

As to what statistics/probability mean to the individual, I invite you to be more concrete and instead of saying it, please show me.

To predict is to estimate what will happen in the future. Kindly, show how prediction concerning populations works at the individual level, meaning that you show its practical value, if you can. For example:

If you take the prediction that one in seven people will die of heart problems, it is obvious such prediction has a practical value for any endeavor concerning the health care of the entire population, like knowing how many cardiologists will be required and such, but please point out the practical value for the individual.

What does the prediction say about the health of an individual's heart? Apart from regular checks which will already include the heart, what is that he can do after hearing that prediction? Wear an extra sweater? Does it mean that if he knows seven people one of them must have a bad heart? Obviously not. Please explain the, in your own words, "predictive for individual elements," of the 1 in 7 prediction.

Haikal

thank you,,