#291
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Shimano Headset
On Fri, 19 May 2017 13:07:12 -0700 (PDT), Frank Krygowski
wrote: On Friday, May 19, 2017 at 3:25:49 PM UTC-4, Doug Landau wrote: On Thursday, May 18, 2017 at 8:30:34 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 5/18/2017 4:24 PM, jbeattie wrote: There are all sorts of these studies. Not surprisingly, they prove that if you hit your head on a hard object, you're better off if you're wearing a helmet. That's kind of why we have helmets, no? Not in the case of bike helmets. Because if it were really that simple, we would have helmets for walking, for jogging, for ladder climbing, for stair descending, for riding in cars, and for all the other normal activities that produce more TBI cases than riding bikes. We have bike helmets for a different reason: Bell Sports, then other companies, saw that it was possible to sell them by portraying bicycling as a big source of serious brain injury. And it worked because from their point of view, bicycling hit a sweet spot: Unpopular enough to be considered "not a normal activity" and thereby having few defenders; but popular enough to form a profitable market. -- - Frank Krygowski Clever marketers, they promoted "price: high to low" as the proper way to make purchasing decisions: "If you have a ten dollar head, buy a ten dollar helmet". Which is particularly dishonest, because not only do all helmets sold in the USA pass the same (minimal) impact test; but the more expensive helmets tend to barely pass it, or pass it by a smaller margin. I read an article written by a bloke who actually tests helmets for a living. He stated that test standards today are more lenient then they had been previously. http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1081.html More money gets you a helmet deemed to be more "stylish" (at least, in the opinion of those who manage to find beauty in this weird headgear). It gets you lighter weight and it gets you more holes (read "less helmet") for ventilation. Reducing mass and coverage while still barely passing the test requires more sophisticated and expensive design and prototyping work. The result is typically a helmet that's _less_ protective. It's the people with ten dollar heads who don't realize this and blow $200 on an even less protective helmet. - Frank Krygowski The author I mentioned above states that "After all the Snell B-90 standard called for four impacts on each test sample, two of which were tested against flat surfaces with an impact energy of 100 joules each. The tragedy is you cannot buy helmets to this standard any more. Manufacturers prefer the easier standard that they helped to write." -- Cheers, John B. |
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#292
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Shimano Headset
On 5/19/2017 4:30 PM, Radey Shouman wrote:
sms writes: On 5/19/2017 7:20 AM, Radey Shouman wrote: Given the low cost, I would call the idea a success even if it saved but one or two lives. But how many lives were lost because people refused to buy a refrigerator due to this law and ate food that was unsafe due to lack of refrigeration? Very few, I'd wager. The main cost was in publicity (initially I think a lot was private, but later done at public expense), and, as you surely know, passing laws isn't free. That's right. I'm now getting paid about 17ΒΆ an hour to pass laws. |
#294
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Shimano Headset
On 5/19/2017 7:36 PM, Radey Shouman wrote:
Frank Krygowski writes: On Friday, May 19, 2017 at 3:25:49 PM UTC-4, Doug Landau wrote: On Thursday, May 18, 2017 at 8:30:34 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 5/18/2017 4:24 PM, jbeattie wrote: There are all sorts of these studies. Not surprisingly, they prove that if you hit your head on a hard object, you're better off if you're wearing a helmet. That's kind of why we have helmets, no? Not in the case of bike helmets. Because if it were really that simple, we would have helmets for walking, for jogging, for ladder climbing, for stair descending, for riding in cars, and for all the other normal activities that produce more TBI cases than riding bikes. We have bike helmets for a different reason: Bell Sports, then other companies, saw that it was possible to sell them by portraying bicycling as a big source of serious brain injury. And it worked because from their point of view, bicycling hit a sweet spot: Unpopular enough to be considered "not a normal activity" and thereby having few defenders; but popular enough to form a profitable market. -- - Frank Krygowski Clever marketers, they promoted "price: high to low" as the proper way to make purchasing decisions: "If you have a ten dollar head, buy a ten dollar helmet". Which is particularly dishonest, because not only do all helmets sold in the USA pass the same (minimal) impact test; but the more expensive helmets tend to barely pass it, or pass it by a smaller margin. More money gets you a helmet deemed to be more "stylish" (at least, in the opinion of those who manage to find beauty in this weird headgear). It gets you lighter weight and it gets you more holes (read "less helmet") for ventilation. Reducing mass and coverage while still barely passing the test requires more sophisticated and expensive design and prototyping work. The result is typically a helmet that's _less_ protective. It's the people with ten dollar heads who don't realize this and blow $200 on an even less protective helmet. On the other hand, I read somewhere that those funny looking time-trial helmets actually give an aero advantage over an uncovered head. Particularly if not shaved. As a recovering aerodynamics freak, I agree with that. However, it has nothing to do with the vast majority of helmet promotion. -- - Frank Krygowski |
#295
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Shimano Headset
On Friday, May 19, 2017 at 4:38:44 PM UTC-7, Radey Shouman wrote:
Frank Krygowski writes: On Friday, May 19, 2017 at 10:20:27 AM UTC-4, Radey Shouman wrote: John B. writes: On Thu, 18 May 2017 23:45:29 -0400, wrote: On Thu, 18 May 2017 11:49:16 -0400, Radey Shouman wrote: Frank Krygowski writes: On 5/18/2017 9:43 AM, Radey Shouman wrote: Frank Krygowski writes: On 5/17/2017 9:50 PM, Radey Shouman wrote: Emanuel Berg writes: Radey Shouman wrote: By requiring a head injury, you exclude the cases where helmets actually prevented head injury (or where helmets caused a head injury that would otherwise not have happened). By requiring an accident, you exclude the cases where a helmeted rider took more risk than she otherwise would have, and had a crash she would have avoided without a helmet. By comparing bikers with and without helmets, you risk comparing two populations that are quite different, in ability, in age, in their tendency to follow traffic rules or to seek medical attention, in economic status, and many other factors. Still, it is bikes, helmets, accidents, and head injuries, as opposed to pedestrians, MCs, etc. All of us are pedestrians at some point, so head injuries to pedestrians should have some personal interest. Similarly most of us are drivers, and almost all are passengers in motor vehicles at least some of the time. And who never uses a ladder? It's reasonable to ask whether wearing a bike helmet reduces ones chances of suffering a brain injury, today, this year, or over a lifetime. But it's also reasonable to ask, if you're a health researcher, what the best way of minimizing brain injuries over a whole population, many of whom may not ever ride a bicycle. Frank seems to think it was purely mercenary, but I suspect that the original question in the minds of those who started the bike helmet thing was: In what activity with a non-trivial risk of brain injury can we actually change human behavior, to use the protective equipment that surely will fix the problem? That might be a possible explanation if the promotions weren't kick started almost entirely by Bell Inc. The very first article I read touting bike helmets was talking about Bell Biker helmets, when they first arrived on the market. (There was one tiny manufacturer, Skid-Lid, before Bell. I don't recall anything but its own ads promoting it.) Bell soon became a sponsor of Safe Kids Inc. Safe Kids began lobbying for mandatory helmets, and we were off to the races, as they say. Also, note that the entire industry started in the U.S., a country where bicycling has always been comparatively rare, thus easy to portray as dangerous. If public health people were really at the root of the promotion, why would it not have happened in those European countries where there is lots of cycling, so lots more (purported) benefit? Because such a promotion would have succeeded just like driving helmets would in the US. Extra hassle for activities seen as ordinary and obligatory is hard to sell. Precisely. And the word "sell" is very appropriate. Ideas are sold, not just products. Like, say, the idea that refrigerator doors should be removed before putting them on the curb. You got a problem with that??? A kid creawls into s frig to hide as part of a game, and the door , with a magnetic seal ispretty easy to open. No problem, right? Untill the frig gets knocked over or the door gets blocked. Too many kids died in refrigerators and fweezers beforwe the law was changed requiring the doors to be removed. It's only a couple bolts - not a problem at all for ANYONE who can move a fridge to remove. Out of curiosity how common was this problem? Did hordes of kids get trapped in fridges? Or is this another of these laws that are passed primarily to demonstrate that "Your government really does care about you?" I don't know. There were at least a few fatalities. The laws definitely followed the publicity campaign, they did not lead. Given the low cost, I would call the idea a success even if it saved but one or two lives. That's fine, but it's very different from the history and motives of bike helmet promotion. That's true. The point is that there was an ad-style campaign to sell the idea that the doors should be removed from junk refrigerators. The idea sold, although it did not turn into a merchandizing opportunity like bike helmets. You have to think of this - the refrigerator locks on all of those old refrigerators was on the outside and really easy to remove and yet it was demanded that the doors be removed. |
#296
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Shimano Headset
On Friday, May 19, 2017 at 6:16:56 PM UTC-7, Doug Landau wrote:
On Friday, May 19, 2017 at 1:07:14 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote: On Friday, May 19, 2017 at 3:25:49 PM UTC-4, Doug Landau wrote: On Thursday, May 18, 2017 at 8:30:34 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 5/18/2017 4:24 PM, jbeattie wrote: There are all sorts of these studies. Not surprisingly, they prove that if you hit your head on a hard object, you're better off if you're wearing a helmet. That's kind of why we have helmets, no? Not in the case of bike helmets. Because if it were really that simple, we would have helmets for walking, for jogging, for ladder climbing, for stair descending, for riding in cars, and for all the other normal activities that produce more TBI cases than riding bikes. We have bike helmets for a different reason: Bell Sports, then other companies, saw that it was possible to sell them by portraying bicycling as a big source of serious brain injury. And it worked because from their point of view, bicycling hit a sweet spot: Unpopular enough to be considered "not a normal activity" and thereby having few defenders; but popular enough to form a profitable market. -- - Frank Krygowski Clever marketers, they promoted "price: high to low" as the proper way to make purchasing decisions: "If you have a ten dollar head, buy a ten dollar helmet". Which is particularly dishonest, because not only do all helmets sold in the USA pass the same (minimal) impact test; but the more expensive helmets tend to barely pass it, or pass it by a smaller margin. More money gets you a helmet deemed to be more "stylish" (at least, in the opinion of those who manage to find beauty in this weird headgear). It gets you lighter weight and it gets you more holes (read "less helmet") for ventilation. Reducing mass and coverage while still barely passing the test requires more sophisticated and expensive design and prototyping work. The result is typically a helmet that's _less_ protective. On the motorcycle side it is a similar story - the more expensive helmets are made more with high speed impacts in mind (uh.. so to speak), egged-on by the pressure to have a "Such-and-such Approved" sticker on it, than with the 35-55 mph crash that most riders are infinitely more likely to experience, and the result is that the cheapest helmet on the market - the $55 Chinese noname - is not only the cheapest and the softest but also the one that works the best at legal speeds. The impact resistance of a motorcycle helmet is almost exactly the same as a bicycle helmet. Remember I said that the limit is what a person will wear on his head. The hard shell adds the protection where it is necessary - in a fall a motorcycle normally does a "fall over" and a rider tries to keep inside the heavy metal parts to protect most of his body. His head usually drags on the ground and the hard shell protects his head from abrasions and bouncing along the pavement. Remember that I was the safety director for the American Federation of Motorcyclists and this was something I was required to know. Including a tour of Bell's test facilities and a complete explanation of why helmets can't work any better than they do. |
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