You don't need an expensive bike helmet to ride safely---BHSI LabTests Finds no difference between expensive and cheap helmets.

On 12/04/10 11:04 AM, Jay Beattie wrote:

What makes his reality the alternate one? Every statistic is promoted
by a party with an agenda.

I have no agenda. Sometimes I don't wear a helmet, sometimes I do,
depending on the cycling environment. If I were cycling in the
Netherlands I wouldn't wear one. When I'm cycling in most parts of the
Bay Area, or going down steep hills on windy roads at high speed I do
wear one. If there's any agenda I have it's that being honest about the
benefits of helmets while also allowing adults to choose how much risk
they're willing to accept, is the best approach to preventing compulsory
helmet laws. Lying about the benefits of helmets, the approach taken by
Frank, Phil, Tom, etc., is not in the best interest of preventing MHLs.

None of the statistics have proven true in
my town,where helmet use and ridership are up and injury rates are
down.

Hold on there, please don't imply that there is _anywhere_ where helmets
have resulted in lower ridership and higher injury rates. There is zero
evidence of this having happened _anywhere_.

However, I was watching the UCI World Cyclocross Championships last
night. I would not ride that course without a helmet (snow, ice, 150
degree corners with metal barriers all over the place). That is head
whackage waiting to happen. 8oz of foam will help -- at least with
preventing scalp injury and skull fracture on some obstacle.

What's a bit funny-sad is when you see people that dismiss a helmet as 8
ounces of foam that would have no effect in a crash, concede that they'd
wear a helmet under certain circumstances. That makes no sense at all.
If what they keep saying is true, "magical foam hats" are not to be worn
at any time because they provide no benefit at all. Yet even the people
that lie the most about helmets apparently wear them sometimes, i.e. Guy
Chapman.

It's just like the top of the web page says: "Simply put, they have
contempt for the concepts of truth, logic, and evidence. Worse, there is
a hypocritical divide between what they say (or write) in public and
what they actually know to be true." The personal attacks are ample
evidence that they have nothing factual to contribute to the discussion.

On Apr 12, 11:33*am, "(PeteCresswell)" wrote:
Per Jay Beattie:





That's ridiculous. *We all bump our heads. *I've rung my bell skiing a
number of times, and not on bunny slopes. People fall on the bunny
slopes all the time -- it is a perpetual state of carnage. *Natasha
Richardson developed severe headaches an hour after the fall, along
with other symptoms. *She delayed follow-up for an hour or more, and
she was remote from a major medical facility. *She was also trending
toward a higher risk category, the elderly. *She was not a no-symptom
case, or a fall and die case. *I also question whether, with her
initial symptoms (minor headache) she would have gotten anything more
than an aspirin and an order to return if it got worse.

Really, you need to think through a no-symptom/minor headache ER visit
-- the doctor asks you if you have pain. *He checks your pupils and
your cranial nerve response. *He looks for blood in your ear canals
(and at the quality of your eardrums, which is secondary). *He judges
your speech and orientation and asks if you were knocked out. If your
clinical picture is benign, you go home -- with a big bill and an
order to take some Tylenol and call back if symptoms worsen. *It's not
like "House" where a magical doctor determines that there are sinister
implications to a totally benign exam. You're not going to get a CT
scan unless you are very old.

If you are an MD (which seems pretty plain from the post), then I
call that one a "Keeper".

I'm not a doctor. I don't even play one on TV -- but I was an
ambulance driver for six years and was instructed on Glasgow coma
scale ratings, simple neuroligical evaluations and saw many, many head
injury cases and saw the same ER neuro exam over and over again. I
have also been evaluated for head injury on a number of occasions
(unfortunately).

I must confess that when I was working ambulance, patients were rarely
referred for CT scans because scanners were rare. They were also slow
as molasses. You would stand there in the control room as the image
was collected and sent to a monitor line-by-line. The operator would
then swing a Polaroid camera over the screen and take a picture.
Pretty low tech by today's standards, but back then they were like
something out of a sci-fi movie. -- Jay Beattie.

In article ,
"(PeteCresswell)" wrote:

Per Frank Krygowski:
...magic protection.


Until hearing from a couple of EMTs and nurses over the winter, I
had been doing my non-MTB riding bare-headed. Now I'm trying to
wear the helmet 100%. Hot weather will tell....

Seems to me like there are extremes in cycling environments.

So far, nobody has drawn a distinction between one extreme:
riding down a bikeway along a river (i.e. grass on each side of
the path, no curbs, no proximity to traffic) and the another
extreme: going downhill though a rock garden full of baby heads.

Like I said before, I profess no expertise - and probably don't
have that much functioning grey matter left - but I'd say that
immersing ones' self in scenario B without head protection is
high-risk.

Scenario A.... I'm still flip-flopping on...

As far as what is in-between....

Personal choice is grand.

--
Michael Press

On 12/04/10 1:14 PM, Simon Lewis wrote:

I thought better of you to be honest than to defend that nonsense from
Frank.

LOL, apparently there is nothing that Frank can lie that Fogel is honest
enough to not defend.

On Mon, 12 Apr 2010 22:14:57 +0200, Simon Lewis
wrote:

writes:

On Mon, 12 Apr 2010 17:42:51 +0200, Simon Lewis
wrote:

ANY head injury which is more than a tap should be checked out.

The actress Natasha Richardson's untimely death being a great reminder
of how seemingly innocuous head injuries can lead to pain, paralysis and
even death.

Suggesting that someone telling someone to have a head injury checked is
"fear mongering" borders on the criminally insane.

Dear Simon,

Richardson was taken to a hospital within 3 hours of her accident.

Unfortunately, it didn't save her.

Err, we know.

The POINT was that initially she appeared to be fine.

And any arse who suggests NOT getting blows to the head checked is
worthy of contempt.

I thought better of you to be honest than to defend that nonsense from
Frank.

Dear Simon,

Richardson was taken to the hospital when she began to exhibit
symptoms, namely a headache.

Until then, there were no signs that she had in fact suffered a head
injury.

She fell on a beginner's ski slope. She was lucid and said that she
felt fine.

Would you have everyone who falls on a beginner's ski slope taken to
an emergency room?

Would you take every member of a typical high school football team to
the emergency room after the first ten minutes of the game?

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

In article
,
Jay Beattie wrote:

However, I was watching the UCI World Cyclocross Championships last
night. I would not ride that course without a helmet (snow, ice, 150
degree corners with metal barriers all over the place). That is head
whackage waiting to happen. 8oz of foam will help -- at least with
preventing scalp injury and skull fracture on some obstacle.

That depends on whether the impact is within the parameters of the
helmet. For cycling they are absurdly low- to the point of offering no
demonstrable protection.

That's the fundamental problem with the push for making everybody wear
helmets (either through compulsory laws or through social pressure).

Now, I do think that current helmets are likely to provide some useful
protection for small children because their crashes are more likely to
be within the parameters of helmet design. But for adults the effect
size is so low as to be invisible in the statistics.

In article ,
SMS wrote:

On 12/04/10 11:04 AM, Jay Beattie wrote:

What makes his reality the alternate one? Every statistic is
promoted by a party with an agenda.

I have no agenda.

Speaking of lying... jeez, Steven. You're lying through your teeth here.

Sometimes I don't wear a helmet, sometimes I do, depending on the
cycling environment. If I were cycling in the Netherlands I wouldn't
wear one. When I'm cycling in most parts of the Bay Area, or going
down steep hills on windy roads at high speed I do wear one. If
there's any agenda I have it's that being honest about the benefits
of helmets while also allowing adults to choose how much risk they're
willing to accept, is the best approach to preventing compulsory
helmet laws. Lying about the benefits of helmets, the approach taken
by Frank, Phil, Tom, etc., is not in the best interest of preventing
MHLs.

More lies and bull****, Steven.

None of the statistics have proven true in my town,where helmet use
and ridership are up and injury rates are down.

Hold on there, please don't imply that there is _anywhere_ where
helmets have resulted in lower ridership and higher injury rates.
There is zero evidence of this having happened _anywhere_.

This is another lie, Steven. You've been proven wrong on this enough
times already. Do you need to have this happen yet another time?

However, I was watching the UCI World Cyclocross Championships
last night. I would not ride that course without a helmet (snow,
ice, 150 degree corners with metal barriers all over the place).
That is head whackage waiting to happen. 8oz of foam will help --
at least with preventing scalp injury and skull fracture on some
obstacle.

What's a bit funny-sad is when you see people that dismiss a helmet
as 8 ounces of foam that would have no effect in a crash, concede
that they'd wear a helmet under certain circumstances. That makes no
sense at all.

If I knew you were going to whack me on the head with a brick, I'd wear
a helmet. For that matter I would wear whatever I could put on my head-
a stocking cap, a baseball hat, whatever in the off chance of hoping to
deflect some of the blow a little bit. So there's one circumstance in
which I'd wear a helmet. I'd wear one if I know I was going to be
caught in a hailstorm on a ride; so there's another.

As I think back on it, I realize that the last time I crashed was more
than 10 years ago- maybe 50,000 miles of riding- and that was in a bike
race. And why would I crash? I know how to ride a bike well, I know
how to corner, I know how to ride in traffic. I don;t race any more.
What's a helmet going to protect me from if I don't crash? Nothing.

Why else might I need a helmet? If I get hit by a motor vehicle. That
might cause a brain injury. It's also going to cause compound
fractures, internal bleeding and I'm as likely to die from those causes
as from a brain injury. A helmet will provide no benefit for those
things. Should I also be wearing body armor when I go for a bike ride?

If what they keep saying is true, "magical foam hats" are not to be
worn at any time because they provide no benefit at all. Yet even the
people that lie the most about helmets apparently wear them
sometimes, i.e. Guy Chapman.

I occasionally wear one to mitigate my wife's anger with me when I
don't, since she believes in helmets. A happy wife is good and an
unhappy wife is a far greater detriment to one's quality of life than
the inconvenience of wearing a useless hat.

It's just like the top of the web page says: "Simply put, they have
contempt for the concepts of truth, logic, and evidence. Worse, there
is a hypocritical divide between what they say (or write) in public
and what they actually know to be true." The personal attacks are
ample evidence that they have nothing factual to contribute to the
discussion.

That page is a wonderful demonstration of the problems of arguing from a
position of weakness, rife with ad hominem, appeals to authority,
unsupported assertion taken as fact, etc. You should be ashamed to have
written it let alone attempting to cite it as proof.

The simple facts are that there's at best very weak evidence that
helmets provide benefits. Until that changes, you've got nothing except
your personal belief that you helmet provides you with protection. You
are welcome to your beliefs. Just don't try to proclaim them as facts.
As the old saying goes. just because you believe it doesn't mean that
it's true,

In article ,
Andrew Price wrote:

On Sun, 11 Apr 2010 16:42:57 -0500, Tim McNamara
wrote:

Oh, Steven, we've been down this road so many times with you and you
just don't learn. Why go there again?

Do you really expect to obtain a rational answer from him? I didn't,
so the kill-file was the easiest solution.

Not a bad idea, all things considered.

In article ,
SMS wrote:

On 12/04/10 7:18 AM, Tim McNamara wrote:
In ,
wrote:

On 11/04/10 7:42 PM, wrote:

How about the FACT that people who are not injured generally
don't go to the hospital? If they don't go to the hospital they
are out of the count - right?

That's a big problem with the case studies. They can compare
helmeted versus unhelmeted cyclists that have injuries serious
enough to warrant medical treatment, but they leave out all the
cyclists where the helmets prevented any injury or mitigated the
injuries to a level where no hospital treatment was sought by the
cyclists.

There you go again with your faith-based mathematics.

Not at all. I accept the statistical evidence of scientifically
conducted case studies that you do not. However even those that
conduct those studies warn of the cases that fall outside the study.
In the ER helmet case studies it is important to look at the big
picture and understand that though they all show a large preventative
effect regarding injuries and fatalities, they obviously leave out
those whose injuries were prevented, or mitigated to the point where
medical treatment was not sought.

Your notion of looking at the "big picture" means fabricating assumed
evidence to fill in the gaps in order to defend your conclusion. That's
faith-based mathematics.

Your problem is that you're so desperate to believe the junk science
that people like Frank are so fond of, that you've lost the ability
to think critically.

Check a mirror, Steven. Thanks again for the irony supplements.

On Apr 12, 4:49*pm, Tim McNamara wrote:
In article
,
*Jay Beattie wrote:

However, *I was watching the UCI World Cyclocross Championships last
night. *I would not ride that course without a helmet (snow, ice, 150
degree corners with metal barriers all over the place). *That is head
whackage waiting to happen. *8oz of foam will help -- at least with
preventing scalp injury and skull fracture on some obstacle.

That depends on whether the impact is within the parameters of the
helmet. *For cycling they are absurdly low- to the point of offering no
demonstrable protection.

Dude, these guys are going around the barriers at about 2kph. It's a
perfect situation for a helmet -- slip sideways and whack your head on
a barrier top. They are not getting hit by cars on the course.

That's the fundamental problem with the push for making everybody wear
helmets (either through compulsory laws or through social pressure).

Who is talking about MHLs or social pressure. I'm talking about
whacking your head in a cross race on barriers.

Now, I do think that current helmets are likely to provide some useful
protection for small children because their crashes are more likely to
be within the parameters of helmet design. *But for adults the effect
size is so low as to be invisible in the statistics.

My helmet probably saved me $200 in sutures and maybe more, if you
assume I could have fractured my skull. Like I said, my injury stopped
at the helmet line -- not because of my belief in magical foam hats,
but because the helmet protected my head. And I assume the blow that
fractured the helmet would have been absorbed by my soft scalp and my
bony cranium. I would much prefer to have a helmet take that blow
than my tissue. I never want my head tissue to touch the ground. I'm
very sensitive in that way. I'm a sensitive helmet wearer. -- Jay
Beattie.