rydabent

trick

Yup-----------get bent has a nice ring to it doesnt it??

But even now as I have mentioned I still use a helmet on my tadpole trike. Flying low, riding safe, having fun. Paying no attention to the nay sayers in the world.

closetbiker

I think the point of this thread is educational, rather than confrontational, but there certainly are those who don't want to explore the topic in greater detail.

To that end, and to your former point, without even looking, I'll bet I can find 10 posters that have denigrated others for their choice to not wear a helmet, for each poster you can find that have have denigrated others for their choice to wear a helmet.

Game?

hagen2456

Time for a change. Let's bash the helmet wearers!!

Anyway, though I think that a large majority of the helmet wearers either haven't for a moment reflected on why they do it, ot if they have, have swallowed the greul propaganda - I also think that the helmet "skeptics" tend to put too much value in research that seem to support them. IMO, it's pretty safe to say that for every paper supporting helmet use, there's one that goes counter to it. It's definitely not clear cut like in the case of the Amsterdam model.

closetbiker

And since it is true that research results are far from clear, you'd think the ones denigrating people on bikes for not wearing helmets would understand their position is far from certain as well - that is, if they understood what research shows and not just what some of the research shows.

CB HI

But in their minds, there can only be one answer.

And too many of them are willing to force their answer on others.

closetbiker

And that is probably the biggest reason this thread exists, to show a different viewpoint can be valid

Six jours

If a person claims to be a proponent of personal rights, then to avoid hypocrisy he needs to be in favor of all personal rights. If he is in favor of only certain personal rights, then to avoid hypocrisy he needs to say so. This is why the ACLU is a hypocritical organization.

Strawman. For all practical purposes, there is no such thing as an anti-helmet nanny. The lines are drawn between pro-helmet and pro-choice.

mconlonx

Actually, no. Seems to me, the majority of pro-helmeteers posting here are mainly among the "I wear a helmet; I don't care if you do or not." Most definitely not forcing their views on others, merely chiming in with their (maybe misguided) reasons for wearing a helmet.

And then they get e-mugged by the bare-head brigade.

This topic has devolved to politics, pure and simple.

mconlonx

Not on those terms. How 'bout comparing pro-helmet posts to pro-barehead posts, rather than posters?

Game?

mconlonx

fify

That was way too easy. And equally true.

Six-Shooter

I just explained the distinction but will try one last time. Let's say someone likes football and baseball but doesn't care about basketball and actively dislikes tennis. Does that person therefore not like sports? No, he merely has an affinity for some, no opinion on another, and dislike for one. You keep trying to boil things down to simple binary oppositions, where it must be all one way or all the other; otherwise, it's apparently "hypocrisy." In the real world, not everything can be boiled down to simple either/or absolutes. That was my point with the civil liberties issue: it's not hypocrisy to support some but not others. It is hypocrisy to claim to support them all but not do so.

Btw, "hypocrisy" has been misused in this thread. What it means is

--Merriam Webster

--Dictonary.com based on Random House Dictionary

So, e.g., claiming that you don't care whether someone wears a helmet but actually trying to convince him that it's not worth wearing one is hypocritical: you adopt the stance of open-mindedness or indifference but try to actively influence a viewpoint/behavior you say you don't care about.

Conversely, claiming that every cyclist should wear a helmet but not wearing one yourself is hypocritical: you espouse a practice you don't practice yourself.

(The "you"s in those examples are of course generic.)

As for the ACLU's arbitrary, selective stance on civil liberties, that's grist better saved for another mill

See above: if it were really and truly "pro-choice," there would be no denigration of helmet wearers here, no attempts to convince them that any of their views are wrong, etc. The anti-helmet contingent would just let them do and say what they want and not get their feathers ruffled by it. They would have done their own thinking or research on the issue, come to their own conclusions, and leave it at that, instead of trying to get others to come to the same conclusions.

Six-Shooter

Interesting, too, that helmets become such a dominating focus for some people where bike safety is concerned. But there's so much more to it than just that: maintaining awareness of physical road hazards, learning how to interact with cars and other bikes and pedestrians, learning how to maintain your bike, establishing personal visibility, etc.

That's why it's kind of funny where you see these posts saying things like, "You wear a helmet on your bike, so why don't you wear one in the shower?" Because people employ shower-specific safety devices there, such as anti-slip mats or rails for elderly or disabled people.

Do you have a link to that?

I take your point but am leery of that "most," which is why I asked if there's good data for how many people actually believe such things. Before ever researching the issue, I for one never assumed a helmet was some magical protection against any and all injury.

tony_merlino

If it were really and truly "pro-choice", there'd be no helmet thread. Or it would have ended after a page or two.

Monster Pete

I think it's better described as 'pro-informed choice', whereby the bare-headed clan aren't bothered by other people wearing a helmet, but want people to be aware of the limitations of a bicycle helmet, and make their choice based on that. What we want to avoid is people blindly strapping on a helmet purely on the grounds that 'cycling is dangerous' and/or 'a helmet makes you safe'. We also want to avoid helmet laws based on these misconceptions.

closetbiker

not off hand (I have it somewhere) but TRT revised it in '96 after it was shown that the authors compared the head injuries of that 1 group against all injuries to the corresponding group. The revision figure represented a comparison between the 2 groups head injuries.

It should also be known that the 85% figure only applied to children on bicycles under 5 years old. The reduction figure for children 10 to 14 years show a reduction of just 23%.

The 23% figure isn't often used but is equally valid, which really isn't all that valid at all because the study has been widely discredited as because of it's flaws. The study didn't represent a realistic cross section of cyclists, it just showed the results between 2 groups of dissimilar children. It was also developed after Snell and Bell produced their industry standard and funded with the express purpose of promotion for sales. Its designed purpose was to show helmets are effective, and that's what was produced.

Still, because it involves children who only have had simple falls from their bikes, which is what the helmets are made for, it can show for some people who do not collide with motor vehicles and have simple falls at low speeds, helmets can reduce some head injuries to a certain degree.


I get your point as well, but I think that because helmets are used and promoted there must be a reason for it. I for one, was initially led to believe that a wearing helmet could be the difference between life and death. It was some time before I started to look into that and developed a more realistic idea of what they can and cannot do.

I suppose in the world wide view of cycling, helmets are small potatoes. Helmet wearers are the tiny minority, but in the areas where they are used most, those who believe in them are vocal about their beliefs

closetbiker

Instead, what happened was the OP chastised a helmet-optional group as being dumber than children, a few others joined in claiming the lidless would end up as vegetables, so those who felt differently gave their reasons why they thought such generalizations were wrong.

Six jours

Yes, I saw the first explanation and explained why it was inaccurate. Simply repeating it is a waste of time.

And rather than having me explain how silly your "pro-choice" argument is, I'd just have you apply it to the abortion debate and see for yourself.

rydabent

tony + 1

Yet the anti helmet types just wont let it lie.

closetbiker

As an example of what people who favor choice have to absorb from those who feel helmets are important to wear, back on Halloween of 2010, one of our favorite regulars here started off his participation in this thread by posting,

rydabent

closet

Discuss the subject rather than attacking people that dont agree with you.

hagen2456

Weird reasoning. Leaves out that a large segment of helmet bearers are also helmet law advocates (at least here on these pages). Helmet skeptics fight helmet laws. Ergo will helmet skeptics have to try to convince some helmet bearers that helmet laws are bad, because helmets are not what helmet law advocates believe them to be.

Please apply some basic logic to this issue.

tony_merlino

I've heard this said a bunch of times, but I haven't run into much of that at all. I think most of us don't favor helmet laws, regardless of our personal helmet wearing choices.

I wonder what a "helmet law" poll's results would look like...

mconlonx

Please find one post in this current thread where a pro-helmet advocate or mere helmet wearer has advocated mandatory helmet laws.

Seems like most helmeteers are pro-choice and either helmet law ambivalent at worst, or nearly as adamantly anti-helmet law as the bare-head brigade.

closetbiker

You'd have a different perspective if you lived in an area that has enacted a helmet law. I have and I do.

From what I've gathered over the years I've participated in this thread is that very few would favor helmet laws, even those who are adamantly, pro-helmet. That doesn't play out in real life however. There are always many that want to force others to do things "for their own good"

SweetLou

More "Spring Airheads" insults, this time in the Cleveland Plain dealer.