Ontario Helmet Law being pushed through

On Fri, 07 Jan 2005 08:12:48 GMT, (Bill Z.)
wrote in message :

I don't blame Steven for not paying attention to Krygowski et al.

Indeed. we are far too good at pointing out that all the failings he
attributes to sceptics an sceptical evidence apply to a far greater
degree to zealots and to pro-helmet evidence. I can quite see why he
has killfiled those who point this out, it must make his world-view
that much easier to sustain.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

85% of helmet statistics are made up, 69% of them at CHS, Puget Sound

On Fri, 07 Jan 2005 16:35:54 GMT, "Steven M. Scharf"
wrote in message
t:

All the ER studies that have looked at injuries incurred by helmet
wearers versus non-helmet wearers prove a huge difference.

False. The largest, Rodgers, covering eight million cases, found no
benefit.

Where you will get no argument from me, is that cycling is not that
dangerous in the first place, so full population studies show much less
of a differnce in overall injury and fatality rates for helmet wearers
versus non-helmet wearers. Unfortunately, statistics are notoriously
unreliable in the protection of your head, in the event a crash does occur.

And hospital-based studies necessarily ignore the cyclists who never
crash in the first place, which is why they are all vulnerable to
self-selection bias and other confounding.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

85% of helmet statistics are made up, 69% of them at CHS, Puget Sound

On Fri, 07 Jan 2005 02:48:10 GMT, (Bill Z.)
wrote in message :

When was the last call for a mandatory helmet law and who made it?

Check the thread title, Bill. Do try to keep up at the back!

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

85% of helmet statistics are made up, 69% of them at CHS, Puget Sound

"Just zis Guy, you know?" writes:

I have just been watching a classic TV series from the early 1980s.
It is full of people of all ages riding bikes - this is not subject
matter, it's just how they happen to get around. None of them are
wearing foam hats. None of them get killed. Nobody thinks it's
dangerous.

Those were undoubtedly stuntmen. Were they also smoking?


Joe

On Sat, 08 Jan 2005 16:28:39 GMT, Joe Riel wrote
in message :

I have just been watching a classic TV series from the early 1980s.
It is full of people of all ages riding bikes - this is not subject
matter, it's just how they happen to get around. None of them are
wearing foam hats. None of them get killed. Nobody thinks it's
dangerous.

Those were undoubtedly stuntmen. Were they also smoking?

They were actors, and no. But thanks for caring :-)

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

85% of helmet statistics are made up, 69% of them at CHS, Puget Sound

"Just zis Guy, you know?" writes:

Those were undoubtedly stuntmen. Were they also smoking?

They were actors, and no. But thanks for caring :-)

You're welcome. Just trying to inject some humor 8-).


Joe

"Just zis Guy, you know?" writes:

On Fri, 07 Jan 2005 02:44:42 GMT, (Bill Z.)
wrote in message :
"Just zis Guy, you know?" writes:
On Thu, 06 Jan 2005 02:51:06 GMT, (Bill Z.)
wrote in message :
Would you care to try the "mini-minded" test?
Is that where we try to emulate your mini-mind?
Is that the best you can do? You go back into your timeout,
little boy. Your remaining messages today will be ignored.
Translation: Laa laa I'm not listening. As usual.

Only Guy would expect anyone to listen to his infantile banter.
The rest of his garbage gets ignored today as well - I have
better things to do and don't really mind if his feelings are
hurt by merely being ignored.


--
My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB

On Sat, 08 Jan 2005 19:30:08 GMT, (Bill Z.)
wrote in message :

Only Guy would expect anyone to listen to his infantile banter.
The rest of his garbage gets ignored today as well

Translation: Laa laa I'm not listening. As usual.

Congratulations on successfully avoiding substantive content
elsewhere. As usual.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

85% of helmet statistics are made up, 69% of them at CHS, Puget Sound

On Sat, 08 Jan 2005 17:40:41 GMT, Joe Riel wrote
in message :

They were actors, and no. But thanks for caring :-)
You're welcome. Just trying to inject some humor 8-).

Duly noted.

Last evening we (the missus and I) finished watching the classic
series in question, The Beiderbecke Connection (a set of three series
commencing with The Beiderbecke Affair). I know it is fiction, and
comedy at that, and Alan Plater is a marvellous writer of gentle
humour, but it reminded me that only twenty years ago it was
acceptable for a prime time TV comedy to be artistic, measured rather
than frenetic, and intelligent. Busibodies exist in the film as
figures of fun, and the hero is so laid back he needs a roller skate
under his head. I find myself wondering: when did things change?

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

85% of helmet statistics are made up, 69% of them at CHS, Puget Sound

Bill Z. wrote:

Frank Krygowski writes:

As usual, Scharf speaks with incredible hubris and incredible
ignorance. And as usual, Scharf distorts what I've said in a desparate
attempt to look a little less foolish.


Hmm. You just said that about me, as you do about anyone who disagrees
with you on your helmet pet peeve.

Also false.

FWIW, I've been in many discussions with pro-helmet people. While most
people know very little about the issue beyond what they might read in
Parade magazine, most people do not display Scharf's hubris. Honestly,
he's the only person I know who has waded into a decade-long, technical
discussion and immediately declared himself to be "one of the world's
greatest authorities" on that subject. That _does_ take both ignorance
and hubris!

And speaking of the discussions with others: I've gotten some folks who
have absolutely refused to look at data and absolutely refused to
consider they may be wrong. But there have been only a few of those.

I've gotten other folks who have not wanted to bother looking at data,
but have indicated interest that bike helmets may be oversold. You
might say they became skeptics, albeit incurious ones.

I've had people who didn't look at data, but were glad to hear such data
existed, because they objected to bike helmets on grounds that really
weren't data dependent - for example, on grounds of personal choice.

Finally, I've had quite a few people who have looked at data and changed
their minds completely, becoming quite skeptical of both the need and
the efficacy of bike helmets. In some cases, these people went on to
learn much more. At least one is actively working against helmet
compulsion in his country of residence.

So, to put it bluntly, Bill: Not everyone who agrees with you is a
hopeless twit! ;-)

--
--------------------+
Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com,
replace with cc.ysu dot edu]