Trikki Beltran's bad concussion and his helmet

In article Dy7Ne.2831$wb.2478@trndny08,
Mark & Steven Bornfeld wrote:
wrote:

IOW, you perceive there is protection from the helmet. Therefore,
because of that perceived protection, you engage in an activity you
would otherwise avoid, at least sometimes. Briefly, you are giving
personal testimony about your risk compensation.

Yes--if you define wearing a helmet as "risk compensation". Of course,
you wouldn't, but I would. ;-)

Or if you do something with the helmet that you wouldn't do without it,
because of the (perceived) protection that you get from the helmet.

Of course, there are risks I face every day at home and (especially) in
the workplace. Yes, I wouldn't pick up a hot pan without a potholder.
So you may say the potholder permits me to engage in a theoretically
risky activity. You may, but I reserve the right to call you silly!

How is that silly? If you're picking up a hot pan that you wouldn't pick
up without the potholder, you're compensating for the protection that
the potholder provides by doing something that would be prohibitively
dangerous without it.

What you're missing is that risk compensation isn't inherently a Bad
Thing; if you're correctly assessing the risks involved and the protection
provided by safety equipment, risk compensation is what allows you to
do things that are desirable or important but that would be dangerous
under some conditions - like, say, getting out of bed in the morning.
Would you trust your potholder to protect you if you were picking up, say,
a red-hot horseshoe fresh off of a blacksmith's anvil? Why or why not?
Would it be silly and/or stupid to give the opposite answer?

For an illustration that's on topic he When I'm riding my bike
at night, I just turn on my lights and proceed to ride the same way
as I would during the day without worrying about not being seen; I'm
compensating for the added safety provided by the lights (people can see
that I'm there because of the lights, even if they can't actually see me
or the bike) by doing something that decreases my safety (not worrying
about getting out of the way of other road users because they might
not know I'm there). Would it be stupid to assume that I was visible
at night without the lights? Would it be silly to stop and pull off
of the road every time a car came by because they might not see me,
even if I had my lights on?


Where risk compensation is a problem is when the perceived extra
safety from something is greater than the actual extra safety, and
the compensation for the perceived extra safety actually puts you at
significant extra risk. If I gave you a thin plastic glove (like the
ones used by food handlers at fast-food restaurants) and told you that it
would protect your hand from the hot pan (and you believed me), would you
go ahead and pick up the pan with it? If you burned your hand doing it,
would you conclude that picking up hot pans is dangerous and therefore
a Bad Thing to do, or that the glove didn't provide the protection
I claimed it would and that something that actually did provide that
protection would make it safe to pick up the pan?


Go read the description of what kind of impact helmets are actually rated
for (you should have no trouble finding references in any of three or
four current threads). After reading it, would you trust that to protect
you from anything you wouldn't be able to walk away from without it?
If not, why are you doing something with the helmet that puts you at
(perceived) risk of serious injury without it?


Once you've read *and* *understood* that last paragraph, and thought
through the consequences of what it says, go back and read this again:

wrote:
IOW, you perceive there is protection from the helmet. Therefore,
because of that perceived protection, you engage in an activity you
would otherwise avoid, at least sometimes. Briefly, you are giving
personal testimony about your risk compensation.

and tell us whether it makes sense, and whether your response to it
makes sense.


dave

--
Dave Vandervies
[Y]ou're overlooking the origin of the doctrine, which is inherently based
in mercy, something God has been accused of from time to time, with varying
degrees of justification. --Eric Schwartz in the scary devil monastery

"SMS" wrote in message
...
Very appropriate. The reason that some people, i.e. Frank and Guy, are so
unrelenting in their postings of what is known not to be true, is because
they want others to share their faith in what they know to be untrue.
Evangelists are always the most insecure people.

That, and they have jobs which feature virtually limitless and unsupervised
access to computers.

Oh, yeah, that and no life at all.

Dave Vandervies wrote:
In article Dy7Ne.2831$wb.2478@trndny08,
Mark & Steven Bornfeld wrote:

wrote:


IOW, you perceive there is protection from the helmet. Therefore,
because of that perceived protection, you engage in an activity you
would otherwise avoid, at least sometimes. Briefly, you are giving
personal testimony about your risk compensation.

Yes--if you define wearing a helmet as "risk compensation". Of course,
you wouldn't, but I would. ;-)


Or if you do something with the helmet that you wouldn't do without it,
because of the (perceived) protection that you get from the helmet.


Of course, there are risks I face every day at home and (especially) in
the workplace. Yes, I wouldn't pick up a hot pan without a potholder.
So you may say the potholder permits me to engage in a theoretically
risky activity. You may, but I reserve the right to call you silly!


How is that silly? If you're picking up a hot pan that you wouldn't pick
up without the potholder, you're compensating for the protection that
the potholder provides by doing something that would be prohibitively
dangerous without it.

What you're missing is that risk compensation isn't inherently a Bad
Thing; if you're correctly assessing the risks involved and the protection
provided by safety equipment, risk compensation is what allows you to
do things that are desirable or important but that would be dangerous
under some conditions - like, say, getting out of bed in the morning.
Would you trust your potholder to protect you if you were picking up, say,
a red-hot horseshoe fresh off of a blacksmith's anvil? Why or why not?
Would it be silly and/or stupid to give the opposite answer?

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. There is no acknowledgement that there is any
benefit to safety devices or behaviors. No time in this very lengthy
debate (to my knowledge) is spent on speculating how safety devices can
be improved; only whether they have a right to exist at all


For an illustration that's on topic he When I'm riding my bike
at night, I just turn on my lights and proceed to ride the same way
as I would during the day without worrying about not being seen; I'm
compensating for the added safety provided by the lights (people can see
that I'm there because of the lights, even if they can't actually see me
or the bike) by doing something that decreases my safety (not worrying
about getting out of the way of other road users because they might
not know I'm there). Would it be stupid to assume that I was visible
at night without the lights? Would it be silly to stop and pull off
of the road every time a car came by because they might not see me,
even if I had my lights on?


Where risk compensation is a problem is when the perceived extra
safety from something is greater than the actual extra safety, and
the compensation for the perceived extra safety actually puts you at
significant extra risk. If I gave you a thin plastic glove (like the
ones used by food handlers at fast-food restaurants) and told you that it
would protect your hand from the hot pan (and you believed me), would you
go ahead and pick up the pan with it? If you burned your hand doing it,
would you conclude that picking up hot pans is dangerous and therefore
a Bad Thing to do, or that the glove didn't provide the protection
I claimed it would and that something that actually did provide that
protection would make it safe to pick up the pan?


Go read the description of what kind of impact helmets are actually rated
for (you should have no trouble finding references in any of three or
four current threads). After reading it, would you trust that to protect
you from anything you wouldn't be able to walk away from without it?
If not, why are you doing something with the helmet that puts you at
(perceived) risk of serious injury without it?


Once you've read *and* *understood* that last paragraph, and thought
through the consequences of what it says, go back and read this again:


wrote:

IOW, you perceive there is protection from the helmet. Therefore,
because of that perceived protection, you engage in an activity you
would otherwise avoid, at least sometimes. Briefly, you are giving
personal testimony about your risk compensation.


and tell us whether it makes sense, and whether your response to it
makes sense.

It makes sense, as does my response--because the use of the term "risk
compensation" in this thread has become as slippery as Frank wants it to be.

Steve



dave



--
Cut the nonsense to reply

"Bill Sornson" wrote in message
...
David Damerell wrote:
Quoting :
David Damerell wrote:
Your reading comprehension is too limited to explain this. I did
not say that the negative and positive effects were equal. Please
reread it until you understand what I am saying; then perhaps we
can discuss it.
You wrote:
the supposed negative and positive effects being discussed are
equally "once an accident has happened".
I'm guessing you meant "equal".

Well, you're wrong. I wrote "equally" because I meant "equally", of
course. Why don't you try reading what I wrote, not what you think I
wrote?

"the supposed negative and positive effects being discussed are equally
'once an accident has happened'" makes no sense.

Do you suppose that's what he meant when he said that he meant to write
"equally"? I'm thinking that what he's saying is that he meant to write
nonsense.

Steven Bornfeld wrote:

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.

That phrase "seem to say" is as accurate as a third grader saying "The
teacher seems to say three times four is fourteen." IOW, you must not
have been paying attention.

What we're saying - well expressed by Dave - is that whether a "safety"
measure is useful or not depends at least partly on whether the user
has a realistic sense of its protective effect.

Risk compensation is real, and denying it is vacuous. It's far too
easy to demonstrate. But that doesn't disprove the benefit of _any_
safety item. To attach hypothetical numbers (for explanation only), if
the person behaves 30% riskier and the protection is 40% greater, the
person still comes out ahead. If the person behaves 50% riskier with
that same protection, the person comes out behind.

What affects the person's behavior? In part, his estimate of
protection. As I've said before, side impact beams in car doors are
largely unknown to consumers. They're not visible, and people don't
think about their presence. They probably cause negligible risk
compensation. Therefore, if they have _any_ protective effect, it's
probably a net positive situation.

OTOH, helmets are constantly obvious on one's head. Worse, the public
has been convinced that they prevent 85% of truly serious head
injuries. Many people probably believe they prevent 85% of fatalities.
Given those facts, helmets probably generate extreme risk
compensation.

I really do believe that if people knew and understood the incredibly
low level of impact in the certification tests, helmet-induced risk
compensation would largely vanish. Unfortunately, the helmet promotion
hasn't started with "Helmets are 85% effective." It's started with
"Cycling is incredibly dangerous." At this point, I think our phobic
public would stop cycling entirely.

There is no acknowledgement that there is any
benefit to safety devices or behaviors.

I don't need to come in here and praise safety devices. We have an
entire industry, plus dozens of government agencies, doing that all the
time. It's reached ludicrous proportions.

Regarding "safety behaviors," I can discuss those readily. Those are
where the emphasis _should_ be. But it's not, not at all. "Bicycle
safety" has become equated with "bicycle helmet."

Maybe it's a natural effect of an instant gratification consumer
society - but
when people want to be safer, they don't try to _learn_ anything; they
try to _buy_ something. And hey, if that "something" fixes 85% of the
problem, why bother with learning?

No time in this very lengthy
debate (to my knowledge) is spent on speculating how safety devices can
be improved; only whether they have a right to exist at all

We can talk about how to improve helmets, if that's what you want.
It's simple. Make them much thicker. Do away with most of the
ventilation holes. Bring back the hard shells. Oh, and redesign the
ridiculously ineffective straps with something that will keep its shape
and adjustment - maybe solid plastic.

One more thing: If you take the recommendation of the Thompson &
Rivara team (originators of the "85%" crap), you should build rigid
chin bars into all bike helmets. You know - full face helmets for
ordinary riding. They actually have called for such things.

Do all those things, and you can probably increase a bike helmet's
protective range from the current 14 mph impact of a decapitated head,
to perhaps an 18 mph impact of a decapitated head.


the use of the term "risk
compensation" in this thread has become as slippery as Frank wants it to be.

You know, I teach for a living. And I've learned that not all students
will get the subject material, no matter what I do or say.

Some just can't comprehend, and some just don't want to comprehend.

Whatever the reason, Steven, I'd recommend you drop this class. If you
truly don't understand what risk compensation is by now, you're just
not keeping up.

- Frank Krygowski

In article 3w4Ne.2836$wb.2818@trndny09,
Mark & Steven Bornfeld
wrote:

David Damerell wrote:

Quoting Mark & Steven Bornfeld :

wrote:

An interesting test for someone who thinks they _don't_ risk compensate
is this: Get into a car and drive in heavy traffic with no seatbelt
and no airbag.

Oh, and considering that the lack of seatbelts as a safety device will
stop me driving (or that I will not cycle if I've forgotten my helmet on
a ride)


Then you pretty clearly risk compensate. Lacking a seatbelt, you reduce
the chance of being in a motor accident to zero; given a seatbelt, you
increase it to some higher figure.

Only as a driver or passenger. But most of you anti-helmet crowd

There is no "anti-helmet crowd." It is all in your head.

[...]

--
Michael Press

In article ,
Steven Bornfeld
wrote:

Context is everything. Anti-helmet folks using risk compensation seem

There are no "anti-helmet folks." It is all in your mind.

--
Michael Press

Michael Press wrote:
In article ,
Steven Bornfeld
wrote:

Context is everything. Anti-helmet folks using risk compensation
seem

There are no "anti-helmet folks." It is all in your mind.

That's funny, I could have sworn it's been on my computer screen!

Bob the Cow wrote:

That, and they have jobs which feature virtually limitless and unsupervised
access to computers.

Virtually or morally?

--
IT Management. Tel: +64 3 479 5478
Web and database hosting, Co-location. Web: http://www.wic.co.nz
Software development. Email:

I submit that on or about Thu, 18 Aug 2005 09:38:19 -0400, the person
known to the court as The Wogster made a
statement in Your
Honour's bundle) to the following effect:

I doubt it would take much to feed the output of a hub generator into a
trickle type charger that charges a small battery, then have the battery
power the lamps, giving you the best of both worlds.

No need: modern dynamo lights are available with built-in standlights.
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