Warning: H*lm*t content

"Bleve" writes:

David Trudgett wrote:

Option 1: Compulsory xyz
Option 2: Refuse healthcare

Unfortunately, both your options are unChristian.

I am not a christian.

You must have missed my replies to two others on this general subject;
in particular, this one:

http://groups.google.com.au/group/au...7b457d6f66d396

If violence against others is OK in your religion because the ends
justify the means, or if in your religion it is OK to withhold medical
care from those who need it, whether or not through their own
stupidity, then feel free to ignore my comments.

On the other hand, if this is not the case, then you have no grounds
for complaint.



This is aus.bicyles, religious argument really doesn't
belong, eh?


I've already replied to that, too:

"I don't think it appropriate to exclude religion from
life. Religion *is* life, you know."


If religion is something you do on Sunday mornings, then it is not a
religion, it's a hobby.

If a Christian goes to church on Sunday and professes to oppose all
evil and violence, but then goes to work on Monday and condemns a man
to death or imprisonment, then that Christian is a hypocrite. Christ had
a lot to say about such people; and so did Leo Tolstoy, by the by (see
sig).

On the other hand, if your religious beliefs include a belief in the
goodness of violence (which includes denying medical care to those who
need it), then just come right out and say it.


David


--

David Trudgett
http://www.zeta.org.au/~wpower/

Only let men cease to be hypocrites, and they would at once see that
this cruel social organization, which holds them in bondage, and is
represented to them as something stable, necessary, and ordained of
God, is already tottering and is only propped up by the falsehood of
hypocrisy, with which we, and others like us, support it.

-- Leo Tolstoy, "The Kingdom of God is Within You"

Resound wrote:
"Theo Bekkers" wrote

I think I said that. A bicycle helmet is only useful for an impact
with the ground. Light poles are a serious health hazard.

So anything that could mitigate the consequences of colliding with
one by absorbing kinetic energy would be a good thing, I'm thinking.
Yes, I said "mitigate" not "negate".

Let's consider overhanging branches. It would be painful to hit one with
your head and a helmet might mitigate the impact. Unfortunately the extra
height the helmet gives you will ensure you hit the branch.

Wearing of bicycle helmets in cars would certainly mitigate head injuries in
crashes, saving more lives every year than are lost on bicycles from all
injuries.

Why do airlines not put bicycle helmets under your seat in case of a crash.
Surely it will mitigate the impact with the ground.

I personally believe bicycle helmets are quite good for keeping your hair in
place. Unfortunately it is too late for that for me.

I'm happy to take responsibility for my own health and welfare. I don't want
any nanny laws.

Theo

David Trudgett Wrote:





This is aus.bicyles, religious argument really doesn'
belong, eh


I've already replied to that, too

"I don't think it appropriate to exclude religion fro
life. Religion *is* life, you know.



OK then, we are discussing the part of our lives involving bicycles
The religion of bicycles. With two sects, the helmet heads and the ai
heads, having healthy discourse about their beliefs. And without th
need to bring in alternate dimensions of our beliefs: Christianity
Bhuddism, Tooth Faireys, Apple vs Microsoft, the Earth is flat, etc

My definition of religion, apologies to Dictionary.com, i
LI type=aBelief in and reverence for a supernatural power or power
regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
- A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief an
worship
I don't think anyone here is arguing for or against your particula
religion. It is just a pity that you are using it to try and argue
particular point of view regarding helmets.
Which, by the way, may be a contrary view to others on this forum wh
have the same religious beliefs as you

--
sinus

"geoffs" wrote in message
...

She has seen numerous instances wear someone has completely smashed
their helmet but they are OK.

I have had one of those incidences. I put my helmet in my bag to go to the
track and when I got there I took it out and it was completly smashed.
Lucky I was OK eh!?
They're fragile things, helmets.

sinus Wrote:


...Apple vs Microsoft...



ah, now there's one thing that might out-run the common helmet-debate

PS: http://osx86project.org

--
flyingdutch

Euan wrote:

Just about every paper published has an axe to grind. A paper doesn't
get written unless someone's trying to prove something.

There's axes, and there's axes!


Bleve Interestingly, it cites stats that somewhere around 30-45% of
Bleve teenagers and adults stopped riding in the two years after
Bleve helmets were made compulsory - but also states that there was
Bleve a 35-70% reduction in head injurys reported.

Bleve Now, I didn't do super well at Uni when doing maths (I got to
Bleve do a few subjects rather more than once ), but I'd find it
Bleve difficult to draw any conclusions from that (and the author
Bleve admits, not very good quality research) that didn't suggest
Bleve that there was a significant improvement.

Bleve I'm intrigued as to the use of pedestrians as a control
Bleve group, and the reduction of head injuries there that seem to
Bleve match. There's no attempt to suggest why peds were showing
Bleve up less at hospitals with serious head injuries. Did
Bleve something change in the water in 1985?

Indeed, so if pedestrians head injury rate is going down in sympathy
with that of cyclists, how does that prove that helmets have been
effective in reducing the incidence of head injury?

I suspect the pedestrian data is orthogonal, or if it is related,
maybe it's related to a decline in the number of bicycles
crashing into pedestrians (ie: maybe a cause of the decrease
in injuries to peds is/was because of a reduction in bikes).
In either case, it proves nothing.

Bleve Now, Euan, read the second last paragraph. I'll save you the
Bleve effort of finding it : "helmets undoutably prevent wounds to
Bleve the head". My take on that paper is that it's desperatly
Bleve looking for ways to show that helmets don't work, and even
Bleve then, it has to admit it in the end, where no-one will look,
Bleve after muddying up a lot of already very muddy statistics, and
Bleve somehow claiming that white, educated people have less
Bleve prangs, not that they're more likely to wear a lid. I didn't
Bleve see anything in the paper that matched if people presenting
Bleve with HI's were actually *wearing* their lids, but I may have
Bleve missed that bit, if it's in there somewhere?

Fair point, however it would be a long bow to suppose that all the
admissions were not wearing helmets when compliance with the law has
gone up to 85%. It's also possible that that data isn't available.

It's highly likey that the data is not available.
Here's a funny one by way of misleading stats. Riding a motorbike
is statistically a very dangerous activity - but did you know
that some very significant (greater than 70%, from memory)
number of MB accidents invololving serious injury occur on Friday
nights when the rider has detectable levels of alcohol or other
drugs in their blood? Now, is that number (the idiots!) skewing
the overall statistic? In the case of motorbikes, yes, I'd say it
was. For pushbikes and wearing helmets or not? Do we know?

I do know that when helmets were made compulsory, I had one of those
awful stackhats, and I wore it either undone, or on my handlebars. so
while
I *had* a helmet, I didn't wear it properly. A lot of my friends did
the
same.

It's only recently in the UK that those statistics have started to be
collected, can't speak for here.

I'm not disputing that helmets offer some protection in some cases.

*phew* I'm glad we have that sorted out!


I'm stating two things:

1) Helmets effectiveness is vastly over-rated by the majority of
practicing cyclists.

2) Compulsion reduced the number cycling and may still be a barrier to
cycling.

So let's stop batting the ``helmet saved my life'' stories. I've
proved that I believe I've had significant head accidents and walked
away relatively scot free, you've proved that you believe wearing a
helmet saved you from significant head trauma, so let's move on and
debate 1) and 2).

Agreed.

Bleve It also harps on about decining numbers of riders as a safety
Bleve concern. I say that in the long term numbers of people
Bleve riding bikes has probably not changed significantly because
Bleve of helmet law, but *may* have changed becase now joe average
Bleve can afford two cars. Or maybe not. But you don't know either
Bleve way.

It's one of these things that's hard to pin down. I know my
mother-in-law won't consider cycling because a helmet will muss up here
hair. I'd have thought the wind would have done that quite adequately
but there you go.

Over the years I've encouraged a lot of my friends to do things,
the point is, that after I've removed a lot of their excuses,
they just don't want to do them anyway. "I can't come ski-ing,
got no jacket", "here, I have a spare", "I don't have any ..."
etc etc. Excuses are just excuses. Take one away and you'll find
another. It's turtles all the way down.

It's one of those imponderables that we'll never know. I suspect if
compulsion were lifted we'd see more people cycling. You believe
otherwise.

I suspect otherwise too. Certainly not enough evidence to support a
belief!
Then again, someone tried to introduce religion into this debate ...
hrm...

Bleve At the end of the day, that paper is all guesswork.

Which bits are guesswork? The time-series data regarding head injury
pre and post compulsion compared with that of random breath testing
being introduced seems quite significant to me.

Conclusions drawn from very poor quality data.

Bleve add bugger-all weight (mine's 200-odd grams and isn't
Bleve sticking out like a pendulum, my hair, when wet and long,
Bleve probably weighed more ...) compared to motorbike helmets
Bleve which are very heavy and may well increase the injury rate
Bleve for rotational force crashes. I reckon the tradeoff is so
Bleve minor that the inconvenience of a helmet (worrying about
Bleve helmet-head? That wind will blow your hair all over the shop
Bleve anyway ....

Hmm, guess who's replying to the post as he's reading it ;-) See
earlier.



Bleve you'll still have to brush it if it's an issue) is far
Bleve outweighed by the (even if it's very slim) reduction in the
Bleve severity of some classes of head injury.

It's not the injury reduction I'm arguing, it's the reduction in the
number of cyclists. I believe helmet compulsion is a barrier and I've
yet to be convinced otherwise.

Fair enough, and we'll just have to agree to disagree

For what it's worth, I don't like legislation to enforce personal
safety/risk decisions, I'd much prefer that the state keep out
of my risk decisions, but I also understand about compromise for the
greater good. Seatbelts are compulsory too. My parents remember the
furore about that one! I own an EPIRB that I take bushwalking, ski
touring etc, but I don't think it should be compulsory to do so etc,
even when things like EPIRBs make rescue efforts enormously more
effective (if used correctly, just like helmets )

flyingdutch wrote:
sinus Wrote:


...Apple vs Microsoft...




ah, now there's one thing that might out-run the common helmet-debate

PS: http://osx86project.org/



Hmmm I am at home.. on my linux box... logged into a machine on a
fairly secured firewalled network at work That machine also running (a
different linux) Looking at an amazingly convincing windows desktop

COs if we do it this way.. no one cuts up. It doesnt have to be
windows.. in fact its better (cheaper more relaible and faster) if it
aint.. But it has to look like it or they all get nervous..

Apple.. dont talk to me about apples. I gave up on finding a smart
apple person in Oz.. went to england. Hi Sa

Euan Wrote:
"Claes" == Claes
writes:

Claes Euan Wrote:
"Theo" == Theo Bekkers writes:

Theo Resound wrote:
And, importantly, it's only recently that we've been moving at
greater than running speed. Hit the ground at 20kph and you're
okelydokely. Hit the ground at 40kph and you're much more
likely to break something important. Not always of course, but
doubling impact speed is always going to skew your results
more than a touch.

Theo Err, if you fall off your bike you will hit the ground at
Theo approx 20km/h regardless of the speed at which you are
Theo travelling. This is the design spec of bike helmets. Should
Theo you have a horizontal velocity of 40 km/h you will still hit
Theo the ground at 20km/h.
I don't think that's correct.

When there are two or more velocities what we have a vectors. We
have the horizontal component (40km/h) and the vertical
component. The vector simplistically is the root of the sum of
the horizontal squared and the vertical squared.

For the cited figures that gives a velocity of 44km/h on point of
impact.

A combination of kinetic absorption and friction dissipates the
velocity.

Claes Why do you get in to vectors when you do not know what they
Claes mean? The vertical component of it, is what give you impact
Claes against the ground, that is what the helmet should
Claes absorb. The horizontal component gives rotation, you could
Claes argue that the helmet makes that worse, since the radius of
Claes the helmet is bigger than the head. You could also argue that
Claes the friction of the helmet against the road is lower, and
Claes that helps to minimise the rotation. It also gives road rash,
Claes where the helmet does help. Again, if your horizontal
Claes component is 50 km/h and you hit a boulder straight on, well,
Claes helmet or not, you die.

I do know what vectors mean. I've demonstrated that perfectly well.
If I've erred with vectors you've not demonstrated where I've erred.

You're under the mistaken impression that only the vertica
contributes
to the impact speed. You are wrong.
--
Cheers | ~~ __@
Euan | ~~ _-\,
Melbourne, Australia | ~ (*)/ (*)
Listen, it is not just me saying that you are cocking up your vectors
many others are saying that too. If you create a resultant, like yo
do, it has a direction, usually described with a starting point and th
lenght or resultant and an angle, this is where you fail. When you hi
flat ground from a cycle, not saying you hit a boulder dead on, onl
the vertical component matters. Or, if you want to use your resultant
F{vertical}=F{resultant}*sin(angle)
If you do not believe me, or other people, read this:
http://em-ntserver.unl.edu/Math/math...s/vectors.html
and check section called: Rectangular components in 2-D

Again, I am just saying this is true if you hit flat ground from th
bike, if you fall and hit a brick wall, then your horisontal spee
makes a huge difference

--
Claes

flyingdutch wrote:

By FAR THE BIGGEST input to stopping kids
riding to school was the increase in congestion and
fear-of-danger-to-little-johnny. nothing to do with helmets.

When I was a kid bicycling wasn't dangerous. It remained not dangerous
untill we needed a helmet to ride one. Now we have a public perception of
danger. I think helmet compulsion helped give the the public a perception
that cycling is a dangerous pastime.

Theo
Who thinks it's not.

Bleve wrote:

I'm intrigued as to the use of pedestrians as a control
group, and the reduction of head injuries there that
seem to match. There's no attempt to suggest why peds
were showing up less at hospitals with serious head injuries. Did
something change in the water in 1985?

I think these stats were mostly from Vic. At that time the Vic Police got
very heavy with speeding, red light running, and concentrated quite heavily
on traffic offences. The death rate for car occupants dropped dramatically
as well.

Theo