Originally Posted by
B. Carfree
Huh? How is a styrofoam hat going to help me when my internal organs are crushed by a 5000 pound machine travelling at 50+ mph? Helmets have their place, mostly on the heads of inexperienced riders and anyone riding in a pace line, but lets' not ascribe magical properties to them. One small step from that is victim blaming when someone is harmed and wasn't wearing one.
My favorite analogy is the packaged computer. It is also safely ensconced in styrofoam to protect it from falls. However, if the delivery truck runs it over, the computer is toast, just like a human would be.
What he is saying is that your odds of the type of collision that the helmet is effect protection for, are vastly greater than the odds of the rare (highly newsworthy) dramatic death by giant truck. Or in other simpler words... you are much more likely to fall many many times... than to be killed by oaf in big truck... thus a helmet is good.
But let's go one further... for this thread... the issue I brought up is that here a news agency choose to berate cyclists, and tell them how to ride on the road, and to wear helmets, while ignoring the FACT that a driver was clearly in violation, and had caused vastly more harm than any of the stupid suggestions that the news agency proposed, would possibly "cure."