Helmets

Cully_J said:

Hello,

I'm new to this group.

After reading some of the posts, I realize that there are some here
that believe feeling the wind in your hair is much better/cooler than
wearing a helmet.

I think helmet wearing should be a personal decision. I'm a closet
anarchist, and I don't think the government has the right to tell
non-helmet wearers - even though they're naive - to wear helmets.

That said, I'm living proof that helmets save lives. On - of all
dates - April Fool's Day of 2004, some [censored] hit me on my bike
while l was riding to school. Luckily, I was wearing a helnet. The
thing saved my life. It didn't, however, prevent me from being
comatosed for weeks.

I've now made it my mission to get non-helmet wearers to - even tough
they're dorky and made for chldren - wear helmets.

It was the absolute cheapest piece of insurance I've ever bought.

That should settle it.

8-)

Cully_J said:

I've now made it my mission to get non-helmet wearers to - even tough
they're dorky and made for chldren - wear helmets.

Why don't you start with a mission to get smokers to stop smoking,
drinkers to stop drinking, and fat people to start exercising.

Quoted message said:

It was the absolute cheapest piece of insurance I've ever bought.

Wouldn't it have been cheaper to NOT buy the bike in the first place?
How much did the hospital stay set you back?

Also, you contradict yourself. You say that helmet wearing is a
personal choice, but then you say that you're going to try to convince
everyone to do what you think is best. So it's a personal choice, but
you believe your choice is the best?

Take your argument somewhere else. Helmet wars are pointless.

On Fri, 29 Jul 2005 21:10:04 -0500, Bill Henry <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Take your argument somewhere else. Helmet wars are pointless.

That's brilliant!

Life is Good!
Jeff

Cully_J said:

Hello,

I'm new to this group.

After reading some of the posts, I realize that there are some here that
believe feeling the wind in your hair is much better/cooler than wearing a
helmet.

I think helmet wearing should be a personal decision. I'm a closet
anarchist, and I don't think the government has the right to tell non-helmet
wearers - even though they're naive - to wear helmets.

That said, I'm living proof that helmets save lives. On - of all dates -
April Fool's Day of 2004, some [censored] hit me on my bike while l was riding
to school. Luckily, I was wearing a helnet. The thing saved my life. It
didn't, however, prevent me from being comatosed for weeks.

I've now made it my mission to get non-helmet wearers to - even tough
they're dorky and made for chldren - wear helmets.

It was the absolute cheapest piece of insurance I've ever bought.

Regards,
Cully

Unfortunately, there are far more "My helmet saved my life" stories than
ever there were people killed before helmet wearing became common. And
this despite the reduction seen in bicycle riding in recent years!
However, I do hope that you have recovered well from your accident.
Being "comatosed" for several weeks is no laughing matter. But
consider, you actually don't know what would have happened had you not
been wearing a flimsy 2cm layer of polystyrofoam which disintegrates at
impact speeds of over 23kph.

Peter

--
If you are careful enough in life, nothing bad -- or
good -- will ever happen to you.

Bill Henry said:

Take your argument somewhere else. Helmet wars are pointless.

So is playing Russian roulette with a semi-automatic pistol. What is the
point of your point? This is almost like feeding trolls.

Ken

I submit that on or about Sat, 30 Jul 2005 00:18:23 GMT, the person
known to the court as "Cully_J" <[email hidden]> made a statement
(<[email hidden]> in Your Honour's bundle)
to the following effect:

Quoted message said:

After reading some of the posts, I realize that there are some here that
believe feeling the wind in your hair is much better/cooler than wearing a
helmet.

And some who simply don't think cycling is that dangerous anyway :-)

You will also find that the membership of the group falls into four
broad categories:

- pro-helmet
- sceptics, often formerly pro-helmet
- the undecided, some of whom are occasionally persuaded one way or
the
other
- those who are heartily sick of helmet wars

Of these, the last is probably the largest.

I can't recall anyone being persuaded from non-wearing to wearing by a
helmet thread, although I don't deny it might have happened (I'm
pretty sure that another Helmet Saved My Life[tm] anecdote is not
going to persuade anybody here, though), and I know several who have
gone from pro-helmet to sceptical as a result of helmet threads. I am
one of them.

Quoted message said:

That said, I'm living proof that helmets save lives. On - of all dates -
April Fool's Day of 2004, some [censored] hit me on my bike while l was riding
to school. Luckily, I was wearing a helnet. The thing saved my life. It
didn't, however, prevent me from being comatosed for weeks.

Ah, so your helmet failed to prevent a brain injury, and that's proof
that it worked. Er, right.

http://www.cyclehelmets.org/mf.html#1019

It's incredible, isn't it, how all bike accidents would invariably
have been fatal if a helmet had not been worn? Well, once upon a time
I crashed, was knocked unconscious, lived. There is no possible doubt
that my knitted acrylic balaclava saved my life. I am going to make
it my mission to get non-balaclava wearers to - even though they're
dorky and made for trainspotters - wear balaclavas.

Quoted message said:

I've now made it my mission to get non-helmet wearers to - even tough
they're dorky and made for chldren - wear helmets.

Oh good. And presumably the documented fact that there is no known
case where cyclist safety has improved with increasing helmet use will
not shake your belief.

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

Cully_J said:

Hello,

I'm new to this group.

After reading some of the posts, I realize that there are some here that
believe feeling the wind in your hair is much better/cooler than wearing a
helmet.

Obviously you didn't realise that there are TWO helmet war threads,
already in existance, and felt a need that we needed to start hashing
through it all, yet again......

Quoted message said:

I think helmet wearing should be a personal decision. I'm a closet
anarchist, and I don't think the government has the right to tell non-helmet
wearers - even though they're naive - to wear helmets.

That said, I'm living proof that helmets save lives. On - of all dates -
April Fool's Day of 2004, some [censored] hit me on my bike while l was riding
to school. Luckily, I was wearing a helnet. The thing saved my life. It
didn't, however, prevent me from being comatosed for weeks.

Fact, your helmet DID NOT PREVENT A BRAIN INJURY!!!!! Being in a coma
for several weeks is a serious brain injury, whether that injury would
have been worse, or not, is up for debate. This is the crux of the
debate. You have the pro - MMFHL crowd (new acronym Mandatory Magical
Foam Hat Law), who say, the helmet saved your life. You have the
anti-MMFHL crowd saying prove it. So far they are still waiting...

Folks could we try and wind up the Helmet debates, it's getting tiresome.

W

"Bill Henry" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Cully_J said:

I've now made it my mission to get non-helmet wearers to - even tough
they're dorky and made for chldren - wear helmets.

Why don't you start with a mission to get smokers to stop smoking,
drinkers to stop drinking, and fat people to start exercising.

Am I the only one who gets really perplexed looks from morbidly obese
people? When I'm on my bike in town, I'm a vehicular cyclist, so I'm in the
appropriate lane at stoplights. Seems like every time a carload of morbidly
obese people pulls up next to me they look at me like I'm a space alien. Is
riding a bike so hard for them to comprehend?

"Bill Henry" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Why don't you start with a mission to get smokers to stop smoking,
drinkers to stop drinking, and fat people to start exercising.

Too late. There already "missions" that do that.

Quoted message said:

Also, you contradict yourself. You say that helmet wearing is a
personal choice, but then you say that you're going to try to convince
everyone to do what you think is best. So it's a personal choice, but
you believe your choice is the best?

Yeah, so? That doesn't make it less of a personal choice. I'd be an idiot if
I made choices that, I thought, *weren't* the best ones.

And how is that contradictory? I'm not in favor of *forcing* people to wear
helmets (i.e. making more laws). But if my words convince people that
wearing a helmet is a smart thing to do, fine.

Quoted message said:

Take your argument somewhere else. Helmet wars are pointless.

This newsgroup is the optimal place to talk about helmets, unless, of
course, there's, maybe, a news group called "alt.helmets".

Regards,
C.

Cully_J said:

Hello,

I'm new to this group.

After reading some of the posts, I realize that there are some here that
believe feeling the wind in your hair is much better/cooler than wearing a
helmet.

I think helmet wearing should be a personal decision. I'm a closet
anarchist, and I don't think the government has the right to tell non-helmet
wearers - even though they're naive - to wear helmets.

.... but you think you do??

Quoted message said:

That said, I'm living proof that helmets save lives. On - of all dates -
April Fool's Day of 2004, some [censored] hit me on my bike while l was riding
to school. Luckily, I was wearing a helnet. The thing saved my life. It
didn't, however, prevent me from being comatosed for weeks.

Since you're new, I'll write once again about an incident I witnessed.

My family and some friends had just left a restaurant in a large city,
and were walking toward the car. Up ahead a tour bus was parked by the
side of the narrow street, facing away from us. A woman driving the
same direction was passing the bus.

At the instant she passed the front of the bus, a college-age kid came
zooming across the front of the bus into her path. She hit the kid,
HARD. We were something less than half a block behind. I heard the
sickening crash. I saw the kid's body tossed in the air higher than
the car's roof, upside down. The car screetched to a halt and the kid
came down in front of it. I later heard he landed on his head on the
road.

I knew I'd just seen a traffic fatality. I sprinted back to the
restaurant and had them call 911, then I reluctantly jogged back to the
scene to see the carnage.

The car's windshield and grille were destroyed, the hood was badly
dented, the windshield wiper badly bent - but there was no carnage. As
I had run back to the restaurant, the kid had picked himself up off the
road and walked to the sidewalk. An off-duty EMT had also witnessed
the crash, and was having him sit motionless on a low brick wall as he
held his neck immobile, but the kid was calm and conscious. (The
motorist was much more upset.) Cops came and took statements, the
ambulance came, they strapped him on a backboard and took him to the
ER. But he was fine, and back in classes the next day. We know because
we called to check.

His head had smashed the car's windshield and wiper. And he landed on
his head in the street. But except for a 1" scratch above the right
ear (Head injury!!!!!) he was fine.

Did his helmet save his life? Absolutely not. He wore no helmet.

But if he _had_ worn a helmet, there's no doubt that everyone -
off-duty EMT, policeman, ambulance driver, ER personell - would have
said it had. There's no doubt the helmet would have been badly
smashed, if not in pieces. But again, he had no head injury but a tiny
scratch.

What's even more odd is that nobody - no witnesses, no EMT, no cop, no
ambulance driver, no ER doctor (AFAIK) said he _should_ have been
wearing a helmet. Because he wasn't riding a bike. He had jogged
across that street in front of that bus. He was a pedestrian.

It's odd, because the numbers of fatalities and head injuries of
pedestrians in the US each year absolutely dwarf the numbers for
cyclists. And, BTW, the per-hour figures for peds are a bit worse than
the per-hour figures for cylcists, according to the only source I've
been able to find. But no busybodies go around telling peds to wear
helmets.

Anyway: Every time I hear a "My helmet saved my life" story I think
about that incident. If that ped had been wearing a helmet, everyone
would have been positive it saved his life. And everyone would have
been wrong.

Quoted message said:

I've now made it my mission to get non-helmet wearers to - even tough
they're dorky and made for chldren - wear helmets.

How do you feel about people accosting you, trying to change your
religion to save your soul? Surely you understand that your eternal
soul is much more valuable than your mortal head; so surely they are
much more justified in what they do, than you are in your obnoxious
campaign.

Yet most people feel there is nothing is so obnoxious as a true
believer trying to convert others.

- Frank Krygowski

BBC news has a sidebar in an article on increased bicycle use in London
after the subway bombings: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4719015.stm

It offers the following stats:
FATALITY RATES (per billion km)
Bus and coach 0.4
Rail and Tube 0.49
Car 3.1
Bicycle 42
Pedestrian 59
Motorcycle 106
SOURCE: Dept of Transport, Local Government and Regions 2001

So cycling is supposed to be about 14 times more risky than cars...

<[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Cully_J said:

Hello,

I'm new to this group.

After reading some of the posts, I realize that there are some here that
believe feeling the wind in your hair is much better/cooler than wearing
a
helmet.

I think helmet wearing should be a personal decision. I'm a closet
anarchist, and I don't think the government has the right to tell
non-helmet
wearers - even though they're naive - to wear helmets.

... but you think you do??

Quoted message said:

That said, I'm living proof that helmets save lives. On - of all dates -
April Fool's Day of 2004, some [censored] hit me on my bike while l was
riding
to school. Luckily, I was wearing a helnet. The thing saved my life. It
didn't, however, prevent me from being comatosed for weeks.

Since you're new, I'll write once again about an incident I witnessed.

My family and some friends had just left a restaurant in a large city,
and were walking toward the car. Up ahead a tour bus was parked by the
side of the narrow street, facing away from us. A woman driving the
same direction was passing the bus.

At the instant she passed the front of the bus, a college-age kid came
zooming across the front of the bus into her path. She hit the kid,
HARD. We were something less than half a block behind. I heard the
sickening crash. I saw the kid's body tossed in the air higher than
the car's roof, upside down. The car screetched to a halt and the kid
came down in front of it. I later heard he landed on his head on the
road.

I knew I'd just seen a traffic fatality. I sprinted back to the
restaurant and had them call 911, then I reluctantly jogged back to the
scene to see the carnage.

The car's windshield and grille were destroyed, the hood was badly
dented, the windshield wiper badly bent - but there was no carnage. As
I had run back to the restaurant, the kid had picked himself up off the
road and walked to the sidewalk. An off-duty EMT had also witnessed
the crash, and was having him sit motionless on a low brick wall as he
held his neck immobile, but the kid was calm and conscious. (The
motorist was much more upset.) Cops came and took statements, the
ambulance came, they strapped him on a backboard and took him to the
ER. But he was fine, and back in classes the next day. We know because
we called to check.

His head had smashed the car's windshield and wiper. And he landed on
his head in the street. But except for a 1" scratch above the right
ear (Head injury!!!!!) he was fine.

Did his helmet save his life? Absolutely not. He wore no helmet.

But if he _had_ worn a helmet, there's no doubt that everyone -
off-duty EMT, policeman, ambulance driver, ER personell - would have
said it had. There's no doubt the helmet would have been badly
smashed, if not in pieces. But again, he had no head injury but a tiny
scratch.

What's even more odd is that nobody - no witnesses, no EMT, no cop, no
ambulance driver, no ER doctor (AFAIK) said he _should_ have been
wearing a helmet. Because he wasn't riding a bike. He had jogged
across that street in front of that bus. He was a pedestrian.

It's odd, because the numbers of fatalities and head injuries of
pedestrians in the US each year absolutely dwarf the numbers for
cyclists. And, BTW, the per-hour figures for peds are a bit worse than
the per-hour figures for cylcists, according to the only source I've
been able to find. But no busybodies go around telling peds to wear
helmets.

Anyway: Every time I hear a "My helmet saved my life" story I think
about that incident. If that ped had been wearing a helmet, everyone
would have been positive it saved his life. And everyone would have
been wrong.

Quoted message said:

I've now made it my mission to get non-helmet wearers to - even tough
they're dorky and made for chldren - wear helmets.

How do you feel about people accosting you, trying to change your
religion to save your soul? Surely you understand that your eternal
soul is much more valuable than your mortal head; so surely they are
much more justified in what they do, than you are in your obnoxious
campaign.

Yet most people feel there is nothing is so obnoxious as a true
believer trying to convert others.

- Frank Krygowski

I submit that on or about Sat, 30 Jul 2005 18:40:55 GMT, the person
known to the court as "George Farnsworth" <[email hidden]> made
a statement (<XQPGe.11996$W%5.7153@trnddc05> in Your Honour's bundle)
to the following effect:

Quoted message said:

BBC news has a sidebar in an article on increased bicycle use in London
after the subway bombings: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4719015.stm

It offers the following stats:
FATALITY RATES (per billion km)
Bus and coach 0.4
Rail and Tube 0.49
Car 3.1
Bicycle 42
Pedestrian 59
Motorcycle 106
SOURCE: Dept of Transport, Local Government and Regions 2001

So cycling is supposed to be about 14 times more risky than cars...

What that misses out is that almost all the cyclist and pedestrian
fatalities are actually car fatalities - the ped or cyclist is hit by
a car driver, usually the car driver's fault.

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

Quoted message said:

Since you're new, I'll write once again about an incident I witnessed.

"Witnessed" is a curious word, according to your own account.

Quoted message said:

My family and some friends had just left a restaurant in a large city,
and were walking toward the car. Up ahead a tour bus was parked by
the side of the narrow street, facing away from us. A woman driving
the same direction was passing the bus.

At the instant she passed the front of the bus, a college-age kid came
zooming across the front of the bus into her path. She hit the kid,
HARD. We were something less than half a block behind. I heard the
sickening crash. I saw the kid's body tossed in the air higher than
the car's roof, upside down. The car screetched to a halt and the kid
came down in front of it. I later heard he landed on his head on the
road.

You didn't see it, though. (You didn't see the impact, either, apparently;
you "heard the sickening crash".)

Quoted message said:

I knew I'd just seen a traffic fatality. I sprinted back to the
restaurant and had them call 911, then I reluctantly jogged back to
the scene to see the carnage.

The car's windshield and grille were destroyed, the hood was badly
dented, the windshield wiper badly bent - but there was no carnage.
As I had run back to the restaurant, the kid had picked himself up
off the road and walked to the sidewalk. An off-duty EMT had also
witnessed the crash, and was having him sit motionless on a low brick
wall as he held his neck immobile, but the kid was calm and
conscious. (The motorist was much more upset.) Cops came and took
statements, the ambulance came, they strapped him on a backboard and
took him to the ER. But he was fine, and back in classes the next
day. We know because we called to check.

His head had smashed the car's windshield and wiper. And he landed on
his head in the street. But except for a 1" scratch above the right
ear (Head injury!!!!!) he was fine.

You THINK his head smashed the car's windshield and wiper. You HEARD he
landed on his head. Might well have been his shoulder and/or hip.

Quoted message said:

Did his helmet save his life? Absolutely not. He wore no helmet.

But if he _had_ worn a helmet, there's no doubt that everyone -
off-duty EMT, policeman, ambulance driver, ER personell - would have
said it had. There's no doubt the helmet would have been badly
smashed, if not in pieces. But again, he had no head injury but a
tiny scratch.

Lots of assumptions there.

Quoted message said:

What's even more odd is that nobody - no witnesses, no EMT, no cop, no
ambulance driver, no ER doctor (AFAIK) said he _should_ have been
wearing a helmet. Because he wasn't riding a bike. He had jogged
across that street in front of that bus. He was a pedestrian.

It's odd, because the numbers of fatalities and head injuries of
pedestrians in the US each year absolutely dwarf the numbers for
cyclists. And, BTW, the per-hour figures for peds are a bit worse
than the per-hour figures for cylcists, according to the only source
I've been able to find. But no busybodies go around telling peds to
wear helmets.

Anyway: Every time I hear a "My helmet saved my life" story I think
about that incident. If that ped had been wearing a helmet, everyone
would have been positive it saved his life. And everyone would have
been wrong.

Still more assumptions.

{snip}

Quoted message said:

Yet most people feel there is nothing is so obnoxious as a true
believer trying to convert others.

Right. So cut it out. <eg>

BS

"Bill Sornson" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

[email hidden] wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Anyway: Every time I hear a "My helmet saved my life" story I think

.... not hardly.

Quoted message said:

Still more assumptions.

Yup.

"George Farnsworth" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:XQPGe.11996$W%5.7153@trnddc05...

Quoted message said:

BBC news has a sidebar in an article on increased bicycle use in London
after the subway bombings: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4719015.stm

It offers the following stats:
FATALITY RATES (per billion km)
Bus and coach 0.4
Rail and Tube 0.49
Car 3.1
Bicycle 42
Pedestrian 59
Motorcycle 106
SOURCE: Dept of Transport, Local Government and Regions 2001

So cycling is supposed to be about 14 times more risky than cars...

And, if I did the math right, my statistical chance of being killed during
my 26-mile commute is 1 in about 5.6 million (or would be if I lived in
England).

RichC

Cully_J said:

I'm a closet
anarchist

Good one!

now please stop spamming this group.

"maxo" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Cully_J said:

I'm a closet
anarchist

Good one!

now please stop spamming this group.

Quoted message said:

now please stop spamming this group.

Sure. BUt I'll do it immediately after you explain *how* I'm spamming RBM. I
didn't know that posting [censored] that certain people disagreed with was
considered "spamming". If that's so, you're a spammer yourself.

So, in your words ,"now please stop spamming this group."

Regards,
Cully_J

Gooserider said:

Am I the only one who gets really perplexed looks from morbidly obese
people? When I'm on my bike in town, I'm a vehicular cyclist, so I'm in the
appropriate lane at stoplights. Seems like every time a carload of morbidly
obese people pulls up next to me they look at me like I'm a space alien. Is
riding a bike so hard for them to comprehend?

Maybe it's the shaved legs or the fancy jersey?

Quoted message said:

Similar situation:

I crashed my bike into the back of a car that stopped suddenly when I
was about 13 years old. I was going maybe 15-20 mph.

I smashed into the back of this SUV, and actually made a dent in the
metal with my head and fell to the ground.

The whole front of the bike was smashed. The headset, the front fork,
the handlebars - everything.

I tossed my bike in the ditch and walked home, a little dazed but
otherwise unhurt.

No helmet.

-Bill H.