Cycle helmet wearers are reckless

[flecc]

Please try the test mentioned in the post you replied to regarding get hit on the head by heavy concrete both with and without a helmet. You'll soon get the point.

Have a look at what Barnowl said right after your post, a simple fact that many others have posted previously, that the head is rarely at risk when coming off a bike.

Have a look at how the stats show things.

Then have a look at my thread proposition which was that the proselytizing helmet wearers are more reckless.

It's not me who's not getting the point Caph. The point is that, as you've so admirably shown, it's those who through their proneness to accidents prefer helmet wearing who do this head banging on the concrete, as shown by the accounts of their accidents.

We non-helmet wearers seem to be a different breed, who as I've shown are much less prone to indulging in head banging on concrete.
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[JohnInStockie]

There are always alternatives, sometimes organic ones SEE..

 

[Footie]

I hate wearing a cycle helmet. My main dislike is they are so uncomfortable and they make one look like a dork
My favoured headgear is a baseball cap and sunglasses. Protection from falling on my head – nil. However, it’s ideal for keeping the rain and (occasionally) the sun out of my eyes
My personal theory is head injuries are all down to excessive speed in the end. The faster you go the more likely you are to smack the tarmac too hard.
In the past I’ve worn a helmet and I believe it’s true that helmet wearers are more reckless. I know I felt the influence of the helmet.
I actually think a good pair of gloves are more important – ripping one’s palms to shreds on the tarmac hurts – I know I’ve done it.
As already pointed out, the ironic thing about cycle helmets is they are poor at protecting against high-speed impacts. So those wearing helmets who go extra fast or take unnecessary risks (thinking the helmet will save them) are in fact deluding themselves.
Another thing I’ve noticed is fatal cycling accidents seem to be when a faster moving vehicle hits the cyclist. In such cases the laws of motion come into effect and if something hits you at 60mph then you are accelerated to 60mph in seconds. At that speed a cycle helmet is next to useless if your catapulted into something solid, like a wall or lamp post. Likewise if one ends up under a speeding or impacting vehicle, again a helmet will do nothing to stop you being crushed
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[rog_london]

I digress....

I kept out of this thread (so far) as I suspected that Flecc started it as a deliberate can of worms to stimulate some discussion, daft ideas, gentle abuse, etc. I wasn't disappointed either!

I've only recently taken to wearing a cycle helmet. I'm prepared to accept that sometimes they can offer a modicum of protection provided you have the 'right' kind of accident. Sounds a bit like having the 'right kind of leaves on the line' doesn't it?

I wouldn't go near a cycle helmet for many years though, as I felt they looked decidedly daft and it's only that they've become more common that made me relent. I do ride a motorbike, and of course a helmet is a necessity, and yes, I have had the odd accident in 45 years of motorbike riding, and yes again, I know for sure a helmet has saved me from more serious injury on more than one occasion.

Many don't realize that the technology of tyres has changed out of all recognition over the past 20 or so years, and if that seems irrelevant, as a long-time 'biker' I have fond memories of tyres which left you feeling like you were riding on two pieces of soap (early Japanese Dunlops spring to mind), and then there were steel studs to mark stop lines, and the white parts of pedestrian crossings were VERY slippery when wet, and there was more oil and grease on roads than there is now. Basically, it was much easier to fall off a motorbike or a pushbike 'way back then' than it is now.

I suspect that a greater proportion of accidents these days involve other vehicles or pedestrians, whereas in the past traffic might have been slower but you might hit the brakes just a bit too hard or slide away on a corner - you can still do that, but the chances are somewhat less.

Finally, I ride a motorbike in my 'second home' which is Ghana, and although I wear a helmet I'm very much more careful than I might be here. For one thing it's too damn hot to wear heavy protective clothing, and for another the standard of driving in general leaves a good deal to be desired (a Ghanaian man tends to feel that he instinctively can drive, and driving tuition, tests, licences and insurance are needless encumbrances as of course he'll never have an accident). There's also the consideration that it's as well not to fall into the hands of the Ghanaian medical profession, as facilities are basic and expensive.

The only saving grace is that most Ghanaian drivers would not want to knock a 'tourist' off his bike as the police tend to regard that as rather more serious than running over three or four 'locals'. Strange, isn't it?

Rog.

 

[carigada]

I kept out of this thread (so far) as I suspected that Flecc started it as a deliberate can of worms to stimulate some discussion, daft ideas, gentle abuse, etc. I wasn't disappointed either!
Rog.

This description sounds strangely familiar!

 

[rog_london]

This description sounds strangely familiar!

Haha! Well, yes indeed, although I don't have the slightest problem with Flecc's 'trolling' (they can't touch you for it).

He works pretty damn hard to keep things on the boil in here. I know he's a gentleman of leisure and has the time for such things, but there's not much room for apathy while he's around. I soon got the message when I joined the Forum that it would not be such a lively place without him, especially at this cold and miserable and bike-unfriendly time of year.

Anyway, one of the consolations of advancing years is that you're allowed to get crabby, argumentative and downright disruptive. In fact, as I'm catching him up, I'd say it was essential.

Rog.

 

[lectureral]

I am in agreement with Flecc here - never wear a helmet but ride (and drive) defensively.

So many accidents can be avoided, eg how many car drivers pull up a car's length away from a queue of traffic and keep an eye on their rearview mirror for a late braker so giving themselves some freedom of movement or keep an eye on their bike mirror and wobble out when a car approaches from behind and then move sharply back to the kerb as it passes?

I have come off the bike once at speed (a silly little kerb taken too obliquely) falling forwards onto my hands. That stung but my head didn't take a knock.

 

[Caph]

Have a look at what Barnowl said right after your post, a simple fact that many others have posted previously, that the head is rarely at risk when coming off a bike.

Have a look at how the stats show things.

Then have a look at my thread proposition which was that the proselytizing helmet wearers are more reckless.

It's not me who's not getting the point Caph. The point is that, as you've so admirably shown, it's those who through their proneness to accidents prefer helmet wearing who do this head banging on the concrete, as shown by the accounts of their accidents.

We non-helmet wearers seem to be a different breed, who as I've shown are much less prone to indulging in head banging on concrete.
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I have stuck up for you recently to other forum members when you appear to have been going through a bad patch, but this is going a bit far now, you are consistently ignoring the majority of what I say and only picking out the parts that you can continue an argument with. I now don't believe you started this thread to be mischievious, I believe you started this thread as a direct result of a throw away comment in another thread about the Darwin award and were looking for retribution.

For that reason I'm not feeding you any more and am walking away.

 

[flecc]

I believe you started this thread as a direct result of a throw away comment in another thread about the Darwin award and were looking for retribution.

For that reason I'm not feeding you any more and am walking away.

I'm sorry you've got the hump, but this certainly isn't true. Why on earth would I want retribution for that?

This thread has a subject and I've tried to keep to answering on that, but you have constantly diverted into the helmet wearing promotion through accounts of your own experiences. I've responded courteously as I first did to your inquiry on why some of us don't like wearing helmets, but I don't see why I should repeatedly answer on the diversion to your agenda.

Members can look back through your responses and judge for themselves how much they relate to my thread subject and how much they relate to your helmet wearing promotion.

P.S. I was so puzzled by your Darwin reference that I searched for it to have a look. It wasn't even in an answer to me, but in your answer to Maestro in another thread, so again I say, why on earth would I want retribution?
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[rooel]

Increased boldness on the part of helmet wearing cyclists is the least of my worries (but should be no problem for them as they can choose to take more care): what concerns me is the increased recklessness of motorists in the vicinity of such cyclists.

Here is one I prepared earlier which elaborates the point:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well said, flecc.

I have no objection to others choosing to wear a helmet, but do object to the incessant propaganda from government and safety agencies, which persuades

• some motorists, seeing a helmet-wearing cyclist, that the latter is as well protected as they are in their metal boxes, and others, sometimes to pass even closer to those who are not wearing one to "teach them a lesson" for not obeying the government advice.
  
• cyclists, that wearing a helmet protects them sufficiently to share busy roads safely with motor traffic, rather than seek out off-road, or very quiet back street routes - or persuade the government to provide a national cycleway system in the same way as they have provided motorways (ie in the hands of a properly funded agency, with compulsory purchase powers, and not left to a charity which has to take what it can from local authorities, usually disconnected waste land).

One other point: regardless of the uncertainty about the degree of protection provided by cycle helmets, one thing is certain: they cover only about 5% of the human frame. The rest of the body is vulnerable to broken bones (deformity and arthritis), cracked pelvis (catheter for life, infertility, impotence), crushed spleen (bleed to death in twenty minutes), etc etc, a list long enough, I hope, to persuade even those CTC diehards who insist on their "right to ride the road", that mixing pedestrian and cycle traffic with motor powered is about as sensible as it would have been to require the new motor cars a century ago to share the railways rather than invade our streets.​

http://www.pedelecs.co.uk/forum/electric-bicycles/1651-cycle-helmets-debate.html

 

[Tiberius]

Have a look at what Barnowl said right after your post, a simple fact that many others have posted previously, that the head is rarely at risk when coming off a bike.

Have a look at how the stats show things.

Then have a look at my thread proposition which was that the proselytizing helmet wearers are more reckless.

It's not me who's not getting the point Caph. The point is that, as you've so admirably shown, it's those who through their proneness to accidents prefer helmet wearing who do this head banging on the concrete, as shown by the accounts of their accidents.

We non-helmet wearers seem to be a different breed, who as I've shown are much less prone to indulging in head banging on concrete.
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Tony,

You're being mischievous. Each time you restate your proposition slightly differently. And the general proposition has been shown to be not supported by the evidence. It may or may not be true, but it can't be shown to be true or untrue.

Actually, compared to the rest of the debate and analysis of helmet wearing, Caph's proposed experiment of banging the subject's head with concrete is remarkably valid and useful. Caph, it would be better to hold the concrete still and bang the head against that - the dynamics are different, and more representative of hitting the road or a lamppost.

Now suppose we did this experiment many times in order to get statistically valid results, with different heads at different velocities and angles. It would be a very strange world indeed if we didn't conclude that, on average, having a helmet on when banging your head was a good idea.

Later, I will explain how both sides of the debate are being disingenuous, how they each take this piece of common sense and warp it, with the use of statistics, to their own ends.

Nick

 

[flecc]

Tony,

You're being mischievous. Each time you restate your proposition slightly differently. And the general proposition has been shown to be not supported by the evidence. It may or may not be true, but it can't be shown to be true or untrue.

Nick

This is not so Nick. The thread title was clear, and the closing statement in it's body equally so:

"I therefore conclude that those who wear helmets and post their lurid survival accounts are reckless since they have so many serious accidents."

The thread was about the safety of the proselytising helmet wearers, and I haven't been altering that. Others have been changing the subject to whether one should wear a helmet or not, but you can hardly blame me for that.

The general proposition is demonstrated to be true in the last three paragraphs here and that answered your challenge:

"You make a claim and then propose an explanation. First of all you haven't established the claim - you haven't actually shown that non helmet wearers are having more or worse accidents. You have produced an anecdote that suggests that may be the case, but you haven't demonstrated it."

In your challenge to the methodology your best and only viable scenario was:

"Here's another (and better) example. I sometimes wear one and sometimes I don't; I base the decision on the estimated risk of having an accident during the journey."

You then claimed:

Your essential claim was that if these things we were hearing were true, then a certain section of the population must be behaving irrationally. I showed that the outcome could be the result of rational decisions about when to wear a helmet.

but you hadn't shown anything since this is completely irrelevant to the helmet wearers of my thread subject. As ardent promoters of helmet wearing they wouldn't be making such a choice, so I'm quite happy with my proposition and the soundness of my conclusions which are not statistically quantified other than stating the direction of the outcome.
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[Tiberius]

In your challenge to the methodology your best and only viable scenario was:

Let's leave aside whether it was "the best and only". It only requires one plausible scenario. The claim was phrased as "it must be so", so merely producing another explanation refutes it.

As for that being irrelevant to the actual claim because of some specific phrasing on your part, as I said, you kept changing the words, so I took the trouble to quote the claim in the response I posted. The post demolishing the claim stands on its own merits; its no use saying now that that's not what you meant.

I'd always had you down as a rational bystander in the crazy debate, but you seem to now have thrown your lot in with one of the camps and started to adopt the whole religion.

Nick

 

[flecc]

Let's leave aside whether it was "the best and only". It only requires one plausible scenario. The claim was phrased as "it must be so", so merely producing another explanation refutes it.

As for that being irrelevant to the actual claim because of some specific phrasing on your part, as I said, you kept changing the words, so I took the trouble to quote the claim in the response I posted. The post demolishing the claim stands on its own merits; its no use saying now that that's not what you meant.

I'd always had you down as a rational bystander in the crazy debate, but you seem to now have thrown your lot in with one of the camps and started to adopt the whole religion.

Nick

Now you are the one who is warping things Nick, nowhere have I said my words were not what I meant. I posted what I meant at the outset and have doggedly stuck to it.

And this is wrong and disingenuous:

The claim was phrased as "it must be so", so merely producing another explanation refutes it.

The explanation produced must be viable to refute it, and you did not produce a viable explanation. You are the one asking for accuracy after all.

Finally, how have I thrown my hat into one camp, when the very subject of the thread and my argument does not take any position on whether helmet wearing is desirable or not. During the thread I tried to answer those diverting the subject as a matter of courtesy, but as I've already observed, you cannot blame me for those diversions.

This comment on my joining one camp shows just how badly you've misread my thread introduction.
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[Danny-K]

I kept out of this thread (so far) as I suspected that Flecc started it as a deliberate can of worms to stimulate some discussion, daft ideas, gentle abuse, etc. I wasn't disappointed either!

Did someone order a can of worms?

Anyway, why aren't you all watching the Obama thing on TV?

 

[flecc]

Anyway, why aren't you all watching the Obama thing on TV?

You have to be kidding Danny!

That has been so done to death by the media that the next time it's mentioned the TV could go out of the window.
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[Danny-K]

You have to be kidding Danny!

That has been so done to death by the media that the next time it's mentioned the TV could go out of the window.
.

Hee hee hee!

 

[Tiberius]

Now you are the one who is warping things Nick, nowhere have I said my words were not what I meant. I posted what I meant at the outset and have doggedly stuck to it.

And this is wrong and disingenuous:

The claim was phrased as "it must be so", so merely producing another explanation refutes it.

The explanation produced must be viable to refute it, and you did not produce a viable explanation. You are the one asking for accuracy after all.

Tony, am I missing something here? You introduced the word "viable". First you say this:

In your challenge to the methodology your best and only viable scenario was:


Then you say this:

The explanation produced must be viable to refute it, and you did not produce a viable explanation. You are the one asking for accuracy after all.

Each time you are talking about the same thing: how a scenario of people wearing helmets for higher risk journeys but not for lower risk explains the statistics you are seeing.

As for you being in one or other camp, I'm glad to hear its not so. Its just that I'm in the middle and all your missiles seem to be going in one direction.

Nick

 

[flecc]

Tony, am I missing something here? You introduced the word "viable". First you say this:

Each time you are talking about the same thing: how a scenario of people wearing helmets for higher risk journeys but not for lower risk explains the statistics you are seeing.

Nick

Yes, I think this must be a misunderstanding Nick. You spoke of the scenario of people wearing helmets for higher risk journeys but not for lower risk, illustrated by your saying "I sometimes wear one and sometimes I don't".

You followed with: "Your essential claim was that if these things we were hearing were true, then a certain section of the population must be behaving irrationally. I showed that the outcome could be the result of rational decisions about when to wear a helmet."

It was that last sentence which I say is not a viable way to refute when the subject of the thread concerned people who would always wear a helmet. They would not be making variable decisions on helmet wearing.

To explain the thread, my overall position is that if the proselytising helmet wearers are right in their claims about the death or brain damage outcome of their accident if they hadn't worn a helmet, it leaves these conclusions:

1) Since this proselytising group are so numerous, one would expect a comparable and substantial incidence of actual death/brain damage in the substantial non-helmet wearing group.

2) The actual cyclist deaths and by implication, brain damage, are very low and cannot be enough to satisfy (1) above, especially since a proportion of those deaths are of helmet wearers.

3) Therefore the helmet wearing proselytisers are not as safe as the non-helmet wearers, since they are suffering the higher ratio of potentially death/brain damage threatening incidents they report.

There is no accurate quantification in this proposal, nor is one necessary, since I'm only showing a direction of trend, not it's degree.

Of course, it is probably true that the accounts of death/brain damage etc are an exaggeration and the outcomes would not have been as claimed.

Either way I don't mind, since both discredit the annoying proselytisers, they are either inaccurate in their claims or less safe on the road, and showing this was my objective with this thread.

Unfortunately it was turned into a thread about the pros and cons of helmet wearing, well off subject.
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[musicbooks]

Baby on Board syndrome

There is substantial evidence to indicate that people who stick repulsive "baby on board" stickers on the back windows of their cars are more likely to be rear-ended (for want of a better expression) than those reckless and irresponsible so-called parents who throw caution to the wind and risk their child's certain demise..

( Am I alone in harbouring a not so secret desire to accelerate violently at the very sight of one?)

Thus, if we apply the same Darwinian principle to helmet- wearing, multi-light flashing, luminated, banana clothed, hysterically reflectivised eejits like me...


Then, I'm in deep dark poo poo..

bw
musicbooks