closetbiker

Who am I calling names John?

John C. Ratliff

Closetbiker,

"You" do gang up on people who post positive things about helmets here. It was the other two named individuals who were calling names, and I apologize for including you as one of those, although I did use the names called in posts just prior to the one above. I will change the post above.

John

closetbiker

Do you have a problem if I disagree with a point and explain why I disagree?

chipcom 

47,000 elderly falls in US tied to canes, walkers
https://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090629/..._elderly_falls

If we would only have made these poor folks wear helmets!

nycwtorres

Are you implying a helmet could protect old bones against broken hips and wrists?

John C. Ratliff

Closetbiker,

No, not at all. I actually like discussions like this, as it helps explain positions. I don't have much time until tonight to reply though.

John

RazrSkutr

They're politely told that their confidence is at odds with the known design of those helmets, and more importantly with the hundreds of thousands of accumulated anecdotes gleaned from the compulsion of helmet wearing in N.Z., Australia, Canada and other illiberal countries which has resulted in no reduction of serious head injuries.

There's no ganging up. Just because there are several uncoordinated responses which take issue with the arrogance of someone stating something which they definitively don't know (e.g. "my helmet saved me" or "the moon is made of blue cheese") doesn't mean there's "ganging up". Better go tell teacher anyway. In fact such posts are a rather rude and provocative thing to do in the middle of this particular thread.

Ah, injured innocence. As with most of your postings you ignore that which does not suit what you wish to argue. Your description of the painstaking, clear and reasoned presentations which have explained to you and others that bicycle helmets can only at best provide protection in scenarios which are restrictively implausible in real cycling life as "hog wash" and "ill-informed" shows that you're great at dishing it out on a thread which is based upon insulting those that choose not to wear helmets. If you prefer I'll recant my description of those people that post long, rambling screeds of half-understood information as "nuts" or "gullible idiots" and instead describe those screeds as idiotic, gullible and nuts.

Anyhow I think you're the only person I've identified in this way. That's because your posts consistently indicate such qualities. The little snippet above is an example. _Nowhere_ has Meanwhile denied that helmets work in very restricted circumstances. Your last little sentence above is another malicious, distracting barb intended to muddy the waters. Behavior such as that strikes me as a bit bonkers because I can't see a sane person trying to create such confusion.

A few posts back I clearly told someone that if they felt happier with a helmet then they should go out and enjoy themselves with it on. I extend the same courtesy to you. If you like it then wear it, but don't post lies about how they work.

njkayaker

There is an economic and convenience cost.

Not proven. And, a fair number of people say that safety equipment makes people act more recklessly.

Not proven. There could be other more-significant cause of this effect.

The vast majority of cyclists are very casual. Whether or not this population cycles at all might have no real effect on population health.

There are other trends in the US that likely have a larger impact on reduced cycling than helmets.

I basically don't disagree with this. I do think that some of the evidence for the "negatives" is not very strong.

chipcom 

Are you implying that these folks don't suffer head injuries from their falls?

nycwtorres

yep

meanwhile

This example has NOTHING to do with a break fall! Your own description should make that clear.

That might be a secondary benefit, but it isn't the design motivation. And a lot of shells aren't strong enough to do this. Some helmets that met the earlier tougher certs were actually softshells, which use lycra for a shell. Helmets don't work like you think; take a look at the BHSI page.

Not really, no. First of all neck flex will tend to convert the frictional force into rotation. Secondly the liner on current helmets will shred in accidents fast enough to need that sort of benefit. Your argument would work better for motorcycle helmets.

I think helmets could reduce a good number of minor concussions if worn properly, which currently they very rarely are. But the odds of suffering one are so low and the consequences so minimal that it isn't an important safety investment.

meanwhile

John -

It is hard not to address you in a way that reveals that I necessarily consider you a liar or an idiot or a nut when you say things like this.

My position has ALWAYS been that:

1. Helmets provide trivial benefits in a low speed doh-I-fell-off-my-bike

2. They don't help at all in a typical impact with a car or other accident likely to cause serious injury

3. Serious injury is any case an extremely low risk.

If you don't understand the above after all this time then yes, I wouldn't consider you a potential brain surgeon. Otoh, if you understand but are lying then you are a liar, aren't you, hmm?

If you want to know what I actually think of you, I think that you're not smart enough to have understood what I said in the first place. To you helmets either "work" or not, as you more or less just wrote. "Useful in some circumstances, not in others, overall statistically not worthwhile" is just too complex for you to deal with.

And yes, obviously I will find irritating someone who completely mis-represents my views and consider them an idiot if they have done this out of intellectual inadequacy (at least on a subject as simple as this) or a liar if they have done so deliberately. Or at least I will do if this behaviour is part of an utterly consistent pattern lasting - what? A year now?

You're now making two mistakes: firstly you think I would trust your competence or veracity, secondly you've forgotten that I explained the physics of what actually happened to your helmet and how the limited areas of compression on your helmet mean that it didn't work.

Yep. That confirms my theory.

Btw John - have I missed your revealing the model of that helmet you now wear that has an unbreakable liner, meaning it will offer *some* protection in a hit by a car? It's funny that the manufacturer isn't advertising a helmet like that!

closetbiker

according to a report by the Canadian Institute for Health Information, falls were the leading cause of hospital injury admissions, seniors accounted for over half of these hospitalizations and these falls were responsible for 80% of head injury hospitalizations in seniors. Women were admitted to Ontario hospitals for injuries from falls twice as often as men.

"We often associate head injuries with a younger male population, who are considered to be risk-takers, but the statistics from CIHI’s report and our experience indicate that head injuries are also important among seniors and women," explains Dr. Robert Summerfield, a neurologist with North York General Hospital.

meanwhile

There was a subtle clue in

Hint: one of the words in bold is an anagram of "helmet".

You were complaining that I seem to think that you're not very bright?

I didn't. You probably think I did because your reading skills are - demonstrably - appalling. If you quote what you misunderstood I'll explain your errors to you in detail, but I expect even you will have more sense than to do this, just as you have not to comment on the fact that your own prize source unambiguously says that you're wrong in your belief that helmets are useful in those impacts where serious injury is reasonably likely.



[quote]
Concerning balance and hearing, apparently the pro riders are at a disadvantage (according to you) simply by wearing a helmet--this is simply wrong thinking. What you say here really is a stretch.
[/quote ]

To you, John, reading is obviously a stretch, so yes, applying logic certainly would be. I'll note that pro's complied with wearing helmets only reluctantly - and that until compulsion the pattern was for the star, who needed peak handling skills, to ride lidless, and his backing singers to wear the hats, if hats were to be worn. You won't be able to work out what I mean, but you don't matter.

chipcom 

incorrect

nycwtorres

genius. Glad you figured that one out.

closetbiker

it wasn't hard to see that you were wrong

meanwhile

As for the exasperation that I at now least radiate in this debate, the smartest pro-helmet argument made so far was Torres' use of NYC statistics. And that was based on a lack of basic common sense about how statistics can be used - the difference between causation and correlation - so gross that I would if could disqualify anyone capable of such a mistake from voting. According to the stats that Torres quoted, a pair of fun-bags (aka "Nature's airbags") are equally or more protective in a serious accident than a helmet. Should we expect to see him "rockin'" (as I believe NY bikers say) the tarmac with a pair of implants hidden inside his cycling jersey?

John C. Ratliff

I don't have much time to expend on this thread right now, but I wanted to capture this post simply because it is perhaps the most incoherent post I've so far seen. Now, I've got it and Meanwhile cannot change it.

John

nycwtorres

Awwe common John! Even though it was an attack (I suppose, on my posts) it was about Boobs! and hey it got my attention, my complete train of thought has been completely away from helmets now on boobs.. so in my world this entire thread has finally lead to a conclusion I can focus on.... Boobs!! motor boatin fun!

John C. Ratliff

Okay nycwtorres,

I guess the generation gap sometimes shows.

John

meanwhile

Well, no, John. Of course you don't understand the point being made.

The point is that if one assumed that any difference in head injuries between the helmet and unhelmeted was due to the effect of the helmet (causation) and not due to the fact that the helmeted and unhelmeted contain groups who will behave differently (correlation) then one has to assume this for other groups whose accident stats differ too. Women had virtually no fatal accidents in the period considered, although they formed a population DOUBLE that of helmet wearers. Thus by the logic that Torres employed - which assumes that causation is the ONLY explanation: fun-bags = airbags.

What should frighten you, John, is that most people will be smart enough to have understood this from the original.

What should frighten us is that you won't understand even this spoonfed version - and that you're still allowed to vote. (Eg for MHL.)

In fact, the difference between male and female stats showed that the helmet difference was almost certainly correlative - assuming that one is not silly enough to think that breasts protect in an accident.

But again, there is zero chance of this reaching an individual who will quote a source that explicitly says, in plain English, that this POV is ridiculous.

nycwtorres

Wait!... they don't?! ugghh I'm soo confused. I suppose you should be frightened and pity me and my confusion and ignorance. Sorry you worry so much and get so paranoid about people you don't really know. However I will take your concern as a sign of affection and caring, thank you! Hugs all around!

chipcom 

I have good kidneys

chipcom 

They might not protect, but I'd rather have my unhelmeted head land upon a pair than not.