Wear a helmet please!
 

I like you; you know I do.

-but-

This most definitely belongs in the helmet thread, already extant, and:

"...I am being slammed face first into the ground..."

...how would a helmet have helped him...?

a helmet can't cure stupid

My apologies. Can we get it moved?

A helmet might help helped. Not sure.

What's bad is that he was using his bike to walk his dog. I think that's very unsafe.

Or, don't bike with your dog.

I, quite frequently, see folks on bikes with dog(s) tethered alongside. Since this is a bit risky, I wonder why they do it. Is is that they are lazy and don't want to walk? Or maybe they figured that their dog(s) need a bit more pace? Or maybe they want more exercise for themselves (but biking slow enough to "walk" dogs is less exercise than walking)?

When I lived in Napoli in the 80's, my commute took me past the Agnano Hippodrome. I often used to see them exercising the horses along side a car being driven. Usually there was a passenger holding the reins.

-G

That's quite the echo chamber.

Between the guys who apparently had no idea a person could get hurt on a bicycle prior to seeing a picture, and the people who think bicycle helmets are practically a guarantee of safety even when hit by a car, my respect for mountain bikers just took a nosedive.

Those were not real mountain bikers. Real mountain bikers talk about the latest equipment and the greatest sigle track, NOT how they crashed bike walking their dog.

or make sure your dog wears a helmet.

I advocate wearing helmets, especially for kids. I'm on a mini crusdae right now to try to get the kids at my school here in Taiwan to wear helmets on scooters and bicycles. Currently only one does so. The response I keep getting from kids is "I don't need it", and administrators just say it's hard to tell parents what they should do.
So one 3rd garder comes to class yesterday with a gig scrape over her eye and a big bandaid. The other kids are quick to tell me she fell off her bike and hit her head.

I myself believe that the advantages of bicycle helmets are overstated and that culturally we treat them as the magical final word in bike safety. I'd personally like to see a cultural shift on the matter. I myself do not wear one but I think you're right about kids for two important reasons.

1) Kids ride differently than adults and they fall differently. Helmets are most advantageous in falls where the momentum is perpendicular to the ground and kids, riding at low speeds, tend to fall in this way.

2) Kids heads are disproportionally large and heavy. This makes head injuries much more likely.

Voluntarily wear your helmet, or we'll make you do it!

"We wanted to use positive reinforcement, positive change, and we've done that … we are seriously considering the legislation."

If the goal is to prevent schoolchildren from getting scraped, you're going to have to expand your campaign a bit, my friend.

Maybe you missed the part that said "Taiwan". US roads are far safer in many respects than roads here. WAY more traffic is cramming into WAY narrower spaces here, making riding a bike or scooter very dangerous in most towns. The unofficial hierarchy of the road is biggest, most expensive, more guts, scooters, bicycles, pedestrians. There is a written right of way law, but most people don't have a clue what that means. Really. I've asked locals about that and they don't understand my question.
So trying to get kids to wear helmets is a place to start since it's a law that people do understand. Almost all the parents wear helmets on their scooters, while the kid climbs on behind them, or stands in front of them:mad:, without one.

chip

A helmet cant cure stupid, but it might save his life.

Have you found out what committee will be considering the bill? Have you informed members about the reality of situation? Is there going to be opportunity for public comment and do you plan on attending any public hearing on the issue...? Have you rallied sympathetic Manitoba cyclists?

'Rondeau knows that first-hand. He was involved in a collision with a vehicle last year while out riding his bike.

"I went sideways and hit my head and cracked my helmet. I know that if I was not wearing a helmet, I would have had a serious brain injury," he said.'

^^^ Seriously...?

Yeah. It's frustrating...

I wish more helmet advocates would educate themselves on how helmets actually work instead of assuming that whatever happens to the styrofoam would've happened to their skull.

Is this an argument for or against helmets in Taiwan? The research I've seen shows that helmets are probably useless--or worse than useless--when the accident involves a motor vehicle. Or does the motor traffic force all cyclists to be mountain bikers?

"I didn't wear a helmet, but now do"

70's/80's/90's/00's wouldn't be caught dead in one. road/mtb/bmx/skateboarding. never thought about it. bounced my head off the ground plenty of times.

but i promised my wife i'd wear it. :)

i put helmets in the same class as cell phones (hate cell phones): i have one for the off chance i might need it.

Helmets/guns: better to have one and not need it than not have one and need it.

Since the 90s helmet use is up and cyclist deaths are down. BTW I am still wearing mine!!!!

rydabent is still evangelizing the liberal nanny state propaganda I see.

I don't think that particular rydabent statement is evangelizing, but it's certainly a fallacious statement absent supporting data and research.

Correlation is not causation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correla...mply_causation

I've noticed drivers are much, much, much better at giving me space and not hitting me than in the 90's. I was hit 5 times in that wonderful decade. 4 times by "old people" who thought the rules from the 50's still applied.
point being it might be the drivers of cars being responsible for the decline in deaths more so than the use of helmets.