NYC XYZ wrote:


Hell, forget about killed -- I'd always maintained that at least then
my problems would be over! I'm worried about crippled, as in paralyzed
or brain-impaired!

From riding a bicycle? Forget about it.

Before Bell had a commercial product to sell, and began (through Snell
and Safe Kids) the big propaganda attack, nobody associated bicycling
with serious head injury. Nobody worried about it because it
essentially never happened.

And indeed, if you dig for comparative data, you'll find that cycling
is roughly 1% of the serious head injury problem. Riding in motor
vehicles is about 50% of the problem. Falling around your own home is
roughly 40% of the problem.

And it's not just because people don't cycle much. On a per-hour
basis, walking anywhere near traffic has more serious head injuries per
hour than cycling. Riding inside cars is roughly equal to cycling in
serious head injuries per hour.

Helmet manufacturers, their trade associations, and the "safety"
societies they donate big money to (like, for example, Safe Kids Inc.)
have falsely portrayed ordinary cycling as a tremendous source of
serious head injuries. Don't fall for it.

- Frank Krygowski