published helmet research - not troll

Frank Krygowski wrote:
Mark & Steven Bornfeld DDS wrote:


Krygowski (and perhaps you) can probably name some safety measures
that you would acknowledge will decrease death and morbidity from
bicycle accidents. Are there any that you would mandate? Or is this
more about personal freedom than safety?


Personally, I heartily agree with many already-mandated safety measures.
Examples are obedience to traffic signs and signals. Respecting right
of way, and other similar traffic laws. Use of lights at night.

There are some I disagree with. For example, many states require a
bicycle bell. To me, this is senseless - it adds nothing practical to
safety.

IOW, it's a mistake to paint me as a libertarian, as you did in another
post.

Having said that, I _do_ think personal freedom is very important. If
you disagree, post your diet for the past month, and we'll get started
on what, and how much, you should be allowed to eat!

Hey--my diet shouldn't concern you--only my wife and daughter who have
to smell me.

Steve

In article TQJAc.135474$Ly.96010@attbi_s01, "Shayne Wissler"
wrote:

"John Forrest Tomlinson" wrote in message
...

Now what evidence do you have about helmets protecting against dented
skulls or brain injuries?

I have an idea for an experiment. Go outside and have someone hold a brick
about 2 feet over your bare head and have him drop it. Observe the pain and
damage (assuming you're still conscious). Then try the same experiment on
your friend, but have him wear a cycling helmet. I


Dayum, Shane! No one ever came up with this before!


If you are unable to apply the knowledge gained from this experiment to
real-life, I would submit that it's not more experiments that you're
actually in need of.


Dayum, Shane! No one ever thought of this clever insult before!


Shayne Wissler


I can't believe you left out the part about "If you don't wear a helmet,
you have no brains to protect." How could you resist putting the cherry on
top of your sarcasm sundae?

--
Stella Hackell

She who succeeds in gaining the mastery of the bicycle will gain the
mastery of life.
--Frances E. Willard, _How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle_

"Frank Krygowski" wrote

Like the vast, overwhelming majority of cyclists throughout history,
I've escaped serious injury perfectly, both as an adult (30+ years) or
as a kid (about 20 years). The same is true of my wife, and our
now-grown kids.

And until helmets became a commercial item, this was known to be normal.
Now we're faced with fear mongering.


I am pleased to have some uphold reason about bicycle safety.

When I started riding bicycles (It was in 1948.), no one had ever heard of
using a helmet on a bicycle. And all kids had bicycles and rode them
everywhere. My brother and I delivered newspapers every morning on them. And
in the dark in the winter. I don't remember my parents, or anyone else,
expressing concern about safety.

I have been riding ever since and have never gotten hurt. And rode a little
over 5,000 miles last year.

Today, I see only two types of riders. Grownups with time and money who ride
for exercise and sport. And Hispanic men going to and from work. No kids. In
fact, the government or someone is pushing something called a "Safe Routes
to School" program which never seems to be funded. But the clear and loud
message from this title is, if I can over-state a little, "Don't let your
kids ride their bicycle to school. It is not safe. Wait until we can put in
bike paths that are separate from the dangerous roads."

Again, thanks to Frank for his tireless defense of reason.

"VC" wrote in message
om...
"Shayne Wissler" wrote in message
news:TQJAc.135474$Ly.96010@attbi_s01...

snip of implication that helmets may increase risk of rotational brain
injury

Not everything is what it seems to be. A helmet may indeed not be so
good for your health.

Nice imagination, but do you have any actual reason to believe that helmets
increase the rotational forces involved?

Casual observation would imply the opposite. Helmets are more slippery than
skin, and they have a larger radius than the skull. Also, the helmet is not
as tightly coupled to the head as the skin is, and if the helmet got a large
impulse of rotational force from a localized postion on the helmet, it would
tend to be ripped apart, damping the force.

All of thse would tend to reduce the rotational forces involved. What reason
do you have to think that the opposite would happen?


Shayne Wissler

"Stella Hackell" wrote in message
...

Dayum, Shane! No one ever came up with this before!

snip

Dayum, Shane! No one ever thought of this clever insult before!

snip

Gee, I guess when someone had thought of something before, then it must not
be worth saying, eh?

How could you resist putting the cherry on
top of your sarcasm sundae?

Evidently, your hill-billy expressions above match your metaphorical wit.


Shayne Wissler

Shayne Wissler wrote:
"VC" wrote in message
om...

"Shayne Wissler" wrote in message

news:TQJAc.135474$Ly.96010@attbi_s01...

snip of implication that helmets may increase risk of rotational brain
injury

Not everything is what it seems to be. A helmet may indeed not be so
good for your health.


Nice imagination, but do you have any actual reason to believe that helmets
increase the rotational forces involved?

Casual observation would imply the opposite. Helmets are more slippery than
skin, and they have a larger radius than the skull. Also, the helmet is not
as tightly coupled to the head as the skin is, and if the helmet got a large
impulse of rotational force from a localized postion on the helmet, it would
tend to be ripped apart, damping the force.

All of thse would tend to reduce the rotational forces involved. What reason
do you have to think that the opposite would happen?


Shayne Wissler

This is probably harder to demonstrate. That's why the standard is
designed for a direct blow. The problem (inexact as my understanding
may be) is that there need not be rotation of the skull to induce
rotational forces on the brain. A tangential blow might very well do
the same. IMO this is not a reason to discount the efficacy of helmets,
but it does point out the difficulty of predicting real-life
implications for a given traumatic event.

Steve

Steven Bornfeld wrote:
S o r n i wrote:
Mark & Steven Bornfeld DDS wrote:

JT, I'm really flattered that you consider me a master of

anything--that's high praise indeed!


Hard to consider your positions when you can't even fix your user
name.

Bill "multiple personalities? OK then" S.

Name's Steve Bornfeld. I sometimes post from my home computer, and
sometimes at the office.

Still takes about 13 seconds to change your Usenet account info.

Bill "nothing to do with what computer you're on" S.

In article ,
Steven Bornfeld writes:

As long as this is not libertarian, and allowing that proper bicycle
maintenance and effective cycling are more important to cyclist safety,
what would your feelings be about:
1) Mandatory licensing of cyclists (as per motor vehicles)
2) Mandatory minimum age for cyclists on public streets and roads
3) Mandatory registration of bicycles and periodic bicycle inspections

Aw, bloody hell.

At least stick to one agendum at a time, please.


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"Steven Bornfeld" wrote

As long as this is not libertarian, and allowing that proper bicycle
maintenance and effective cycling are more important to cyclist safety,
what would your feelings be about:
1) Mandatory licensing of cyclists (as per motor vehicles)
2) Mandatory minimum age for cyclists on public streets and roads
3) Mandatory registration of bicycles and periodic bicycle inspections


This list is a perfectly good way of eliminating cycling injuries completely
within one generation.

Of course, it would also eliminate cycling in general. If you don't cycle as
a kid, it is highly unlikely you would ever do it as an adult.

Pete

Mark & Steven Bornfeld DDS writes:

Bill Z. wrote:
Steven Bornfeld writes:

Steve
This was also beaten to death a decade ago, and is being trotted out
again. The guy didn't say that helmets were ineffective. He suggested
that the health benefits of cycling regularly, even for "commuter" or
"utility" cyclists riding short distances at low speeds, exceeded the
risks whether helmets were used or not. That has zero to do with
whether helmets are effective or not. It may be a good argment
against mandatory helmet laws (depending on how much of a disencentive
a helmet requirement actually is.)

snip
As for actually calculating the quantitative saving of lives,
this is always more complicated than it seems.
snip

Except that "saving lives" isn't the issue - the number of accidents
per year is low enough that a useful reduction in fatalities (say,
10% or so) would be lost in the noise. The real question is the
extent to which helmets reduce injuries. If they reduce them enough
to pay for the cost of the helmet through reductions in the cost of
treating an injury, the thing will pay for itself.

BTW, in terms of mandating them, the real argument against doing that
is the wide spread in annual mileage. I know people who ride many
thousands of miles each year and others whose yearly mileage rarely
exceeds 5 or 10 miles. Do you require a helmet for a person who
rides such short distances? We are talking, after all about a
factor of a 1000 in annual mileage.


In any case, this has all been beaten to death in previous discussions.
Nothing new is being brought up.

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