Trikki Beltran's bad concussion and his helmet

41 wrote:
wrote:


Fact is, for every activity this side of knitting, you can list
examples of tragic injuries.


Just because you're a mechanical engineer, you think you know
everything and can pronounce on subjects which you have no experience
in. How much have you knitted over the years? Have you ever belonged to
a knitting club, where you could meet a statistically significant
sample that you might learn from? Many of my friends have had tragic
injuries while knitting and your callousness towards their suffering is
beyond the pale. Just because you haven't seen them on Jerry Springer,
you think they don't exist.

Oh, tell me I don't know what I'm talking about. I'll have you know
that because I'm more concerned about safety than you, I decided to
take my life seriously and knit myself a helmet. Wouldn't you know but
I knocked a tooth out with a #16 steel needle, that's right, the one
they call Big Bertha. If only I had been wearing a helmet.


r


Giggle, giggle, giggle. Yer a funny guy!
Thanks for bringing some levity to this thread.

Robin Hubert

In article ,
Bill Sornson wrote:
Dave Vandervies wrote:

I really need to go on a long bike ride instead of arguing on usenet,
but the bike shop hasn't finished fixing my brakes yet, and the
weather 'round here sucks this weekend anyways. But I definitely
need to find something to do where being grumpy won't lead to
embarassing myself in public.
If you[1] catch me posting again before the end of the weekend, beat
me over the head with a crushed helmet or some other suitable
implement.

Just wear your helmet.

When am I supposed to be wearing the helmet? For the beating that was
supposed to discourage me from posting until I'd taken a weekend off?
That'd've kind of defeated the purpose. (See? Risk compensation!)
For the computer work I ended up doing instead? It didn't go as well
as I'd've liked, but since I Don't Do Windows I was in no danger of
wanting to beat my head on the wall or anything, so a helmet wouldn't've
helped any there (and no, I'm not going to wear a helmet just so I
can use Windows without hurting my head banging it against the wall).
For the ride that'd've been rather more helpful than just a weekend off?
Can't do that until I get my bike back (hopefully today).


dave

--
Dave Vandervies
It is always satisfying to be able to insult people without them realizing it
... Of course the downside is insulting without realizing you are doing so.
--CBFalconer in comp.lang.c

Dave Vandervies wrote:
In article ,
Bill Sornson wrote:
Dave Vandervies wrote:

I really need to go on a long bike ride instead of arguing on
usenet, but the bike shop hasn't finished fixing my brakes yet, and
the weather 'round here sucks this weekend anyways. But I
definitely need to find something to do where being grumpy won't
lead to embarassing myself in public.
If you[1] catch me posting again before the end of the weekend, beat
me over the head with a crushed helmet or some other suitable
implement.

Just wear your helmet. {smiley thing went here}

When am I supposed to be wearing the helmet? For the beating that was
supposed to discourage me from posting until I'd taken a weekend off?
That'd've kind of defeated the purpose. (See? Risk compensation!)
For the computer work I ended up doing instead? It didn't go as well
as I'd've liked, but since I Don't Do Windows I was in no danger of
wanting to beat my head on the wall or anything, so a helmet
wouldn't've helped any there (and no, I'm not going to wear a helmet
just so I
can use Windows without hurting my head banging it against the wall).
For the ride that'd've been rather more helpful than just a weekend
off? Can't do that until I get my bike back (hopefully today).

Sheesh. In the time it took you to write THAT you could have geared up for
/another/ ride!

:-P

In rec.bicycles.misc Steven Bornfeld wrote:
wrote:

Risk compensation is real, and denying it is vacuous.

No one is denying it. I am denying that safety measures are fruitless.
I think it was Guy who suggested that road signs be removed in order
to make vehicular traffic safer.

You obviously think that is a totally loony suggestion, but you might
want to do a little more reading first. A number of countries have
experimented with this with fair degrees of success.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0127/p01s03-woeu.html

--
Dane Jackson - z u v e m b i @ u n i x b i g o t s . o r g
To accuse others for one's own misfortunes is a sign of want of education.
To accuse oneself shows that one's education has begun. To accuse neither
oneself nor others shows that one's education is complete.
-- Epictetus

"Steven Bornfeld" wrote in message
...

Please feel free, Frank. If you have in fact worked on making helmets
safer, accept my apologies. If you think the brain-injured and dead
people I've known are a waste of time, you can go to hell.

Steve, let me see if I can explain this so that you understand - there isn't
enough space and the head and neck arne't capable of carrying enough weight
to make an effective helmet for the market.

No material improvements will make any difference at all. What is required
is for human beings to have shoulders about 5" wider, chests 5" deeper and
necks capable of carrying an additional 1 lb of protection that will weigh
300 lbs or more on impact.

I've got to tell you, for anyone that understands engineering that has
actually thought about the problem of helmets, it is almost a joke. I even
had Dr. Shively, the DEAN of helmets as past director of the Snell Institute
admit at the transportation committee in Sacramento that no possible helmet
can make a difference in any accident which would normally cause a fatality
on a motorcycle.

You can suggest a set of circumstances in which a helmet that is possible to
build might have some salient effect, but the truth is that when you go
through accident reports like some of us have, you don't find accidents of
those types.

Of course I have to say this every time because elsewise I'm branded
"anti-helmet" - the most common accidents in which the human head hits the
ground is a relatively mild blow. The modern bicycle helmet probably
provides some reasonable protection against these accidents. And since they
comprise 90% or more of "head injury" accidents it isn't any surprise that
you get thousands of people telling us that they're lives were saved because
their helmets have a small chunk broken off a corner of one of the edges.

But helmets aren't marketed as devices to make a relatively minor accident
less severe. They're marketed as "Helmets Save Lives" and that is a lie and
every helmet manufacturer knows that. In fact Bell Sports even got out of
the motorcycle helmet business and into the bicycle helmet business for
exactly that reason. Their lawyers told them that sooner or later a
motorcycle accident victim's family was going sue them out of business. The
only business they had was "safety helmets" and so they invented the BICYCLE
helmet, not because there was any need for it, but in fact exactly the
opposite - the number of death on bicycles is so small and the causes of
death so massive that they would ALWAYS be able to argue in court that even
if the helmet had worked 100% the victim would still be dead and so the fact
that the helmet had little or no effect would be moot.

The statistics are plain and easy to read - there are no reductions in
serious or fatal head injuries that are attributable to helmets and that is
the plain unvarnished truth.

Suggesting that there would be "improvements" to helmets only demonstrates
that you don't understand the underlying engineering principles.

"Mark & Steven Bornfeld" wrote in message
news:bTGNe.221$Ck2.4@trndny04...

Now YOU'RE missing my point JT. I'll outline it again for you, and then
I've said all I'm going to.
Frank said a safer cycling helmet could be made, but it would have to look
like a motorcycle helmet.

That's sort of a problem Steve. A better helmet COULD be made but it would
be usable. And perhaps that's what you didn't understand from Frank. 6" of
foam would ALWAYS make the performance of the helmet superior in the
collision test. But it wouldn't be a usable helmet.

Drat! Make that UNusable.

"Tom Kunich" wrote in message
.net...
"Mark & Steven Bornfeld" wrote in message
news:bTGNe.221$Ck2.4@trndny04...

Now YOU'RE missing my point JT. I'll outline it again for you, and then
I've said all I'm going to.
Frank said a safer cycling helmet could be made, but it would have to
look like a motorcycle helmet.

That's sort of a problem Steve. A better helmet COULD be made but it would
be usable. And perhaps that's what you didn't understand from Frank. 6" of
foam would ALWAYS make the performance of the helmet superior in the
collision test. But it wouldn't be a usable helmet.

Tom Kunich wrote:
"Steven Bornfeld" wrote in message
...

Please feel free, Frank. If you have in fact worked on making helmets
safer, accept my apologies. If you think the brain-injured and dead
people I've known are a waste of time, you can go to hell.


Steve, let me see if I can explain this so that you understand - there isn't
enough space and the head and neck arne't capable of carrying enough weight
to make an effective helmet for the market.

No material improvements will make any difference at all. What is required
is for human beings to have shoulders about 5" wider, chests 5" deeper and
necks capable of carrying an additional 1 lb of protection that will weigh
300 lbs or more on impact.

I've got to tell you, for anyone that understands engineering that has
actually thought about the problem of helmets, it is almost a joke. I even
had Dr. Shively, the DEAN of helmets as past director of the Snell Institute
admit at the transportation committee in Sacramento that no possible helmet
can make a difference in any accident which would normally cause a fatality
on a motorcycle.

You can suggest a set of circumstances in which a helmet that is possible to
build might have some salient effect, but the truth is that when you go
through accident reports like some of us have, you don't find accidents of
those types.

Of course I have to say this every time because elsewise I'm branded
"anti-helmet" - the most common accidents in which the human head hits the
ground is a relatively mild blow. The modern bicycle helmet probably
provides some reasonable protection against these accidents. And since they
comprise 90% or more of "head injury" accidents it isn't any surprise that
you get thousands of people telling us that they're lives were saved because
their helmets have a small chunk broken off a corner of one of the edges.

But helmets aren't marketed as devices to make a relatively minor accident
less severe. They're marketed as "Helmets Save Lives" and that is a lie and
every helmet manufacturer knows that. In fact Bell Sports even got out of
the motorcycle helmet business and into the bicycle helmet business for
exactly that reason. Their lawyers told them that sooner or later a
motorcycle accident victim's family was going sue them out of business. The
only business they had was "safety helmets" and so they invented the BICYCLE
helmet, not because there was any need for it, but in fact exactly the
opposite - the number of death on bicycles is so small and the causes of
death so massive that they would ALWAYS be able to argue in court that even
if the helmet had worked 100% the victim would still be dead and so the fact
that the helmet had little or no effect would be moot.

The statistics are plain and easy to read - there are no reductions in
serious or fatal head injuries that are attributable to helmets and that is
the plain unvarnished truth.

Suggesting that there would be "improvements" to helmets only demonstrates
that you don't understand the underlying engineering principles.

Clear, cogent, and without the overlay of contempt that seems to come
so easily to some others.
Thanks!

Steve





--
Cut the nonsense to reply

Per Tom Kunich:
I even
had Dr. Shively, the DEAN of helmets as past director of the Snell Institute
admit at the transportation committee in Sacramento that no possible helmet
can make a difference in any accident which would normally cause a fatality
on a motorcycle.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what's above. Is that to say that somebody claims
that a motorcycle helmet cannot save somebody's life?
--
PeteCresswell

Quoting Steven Bornfeld :
Context is everything. Anti-helmet folks using risk compensation seem
to say that any perceived protective measure is useless for its intended
function--that safety measures in short do not promote safety--that they
promote risky behavior.

This, specifically, is false. I've mentioned many times to Scharf that the
only effect of lights actually demonstrated by research is that of "any
lights" versus "no lights" (not, alas, "battery lights SMS sells^W likes"
versus "dynamo lights").

Based on the research of the UK's Transport Research Laboratory I am quite
confident that lights improve overall safety.

I also believe that brakes improve overall safety, although I have no
definite statistics (but there's nothing wrong with using supposition
where there _are_ no definite statistics); I think that riding at all with
no brakes is so dangerous that it simply is not possible to increase speed
in order to achieve a similar level of danger on a bike with brakes, and
incredibly difficult to maneuver so as to achieve that level of danger.
--
David Damerell Distortion Field!
Today is First Monday, August.