Originally Posted by
Shifty
Hahaha! I'm far from a helmet cultist
But unlike many posters here I have something in my skull that I'd like to protect. I have two teenage kids who automatically grab their helmets before they ride, they don't even think about it, they also have much to protect in there.
I've also worked around healthcare long enough (and it doesn't take long) to see the pain and suffering that head injuries can cause, as well as seeing the positive effect when helmets are involved.
If others wear a helmet is not my business, I do encourage the practice. When it does become my business is when they show up at the hospital and we need to try to put them back together. At these times we never fail to act, when these a**holes don't pay for these critical services and thumb their noses at yet another responsibility, then I get a bit crabby with ignorance.
Well, well, well... I believe you're in good faith, as, after all, most official safety agencies will tell you that helmets are very effective in saving lives. And I guess this makes you look at the victims of traffic accidents, murmuring to yourself "Oh dear, another one who could have been saved if only" etc.
The sad thing about it all is that neither you nor I nor anyone else know for sure. The most radical bids for helmet efficacy have been shot down, and what remains is, as stated ealier, a wide field of uncertainty. Definitely wide enough to make it almost impossible for you to say for sure if anyone hospitalized might have fared better with then without helmet. You see, when in fact uncertainty is so great, it's almost purely a question of statistics, and anecdotal evidence carries very little weight.
What makes some of us a little grumpy is that, in spite of the fact that "the most radical bids for helmet efficacy have been shot down", helmet zealots will go on as if it never happened, trying to force through those silly helmet laws - and in some cases even having them impemented.
Remember, if we follow the money, they lead us back to the helmet producers. They started the campaigns, they funded the first research. Remember also, that superstitions are everywhere in our seemingly enlightened world, like "you should pull up on your pedal between 7 o'clock and 12 o'clock" or "your pedal spindle must be right under the ball of your foot" etc.
Oh, you thought those were hard and fast truths, too?