advisor wanted

I have the same problem. My wife solved hers by wearing a baseball
cap under her helmet. It looks a little funny but when we go into a
store she has her hat on and does not have messed up hair.

I bought a little visor--the plastic kind found in craft stores and
cheap places. This one has no crown but is just a head-band and
"bill." The visor is the same color as the helmet. I simply glued
the visor to the helmet. I experimented a little and found that any
of the super glues work fine. It might look a little strange, but it
doesn't seem very noticeable since everything is the same color.
Anyway, it tends
to work, but I still have to bring my chin to my chest at times to get
the sun out of my eyes.

I did send an email to helmet manufacturing companies, with just this
idea, suggesting a longer snap-in visor. I got an email back saying
the suggestion would be passed on to the design people. Perhaps if
you sent a similar email, along with others from this group, someone
might come up with something. Until then, I'll continue to glue cheap
plastic visors to my helmets.

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

Quoted message said:

So what set up do you use or suggest for helmets and visors with
recumbents. At the wrong time of day it can be a bit glaring riding

the

Quoted message said:

couch trike towards the sunny side of town. Most bike helmets are

made

Quoted message said:

for road and MTB, a different posture from that of the laid back

crowd.

Quoted message said:

The problem is more acute on my lowracer and it is impractical to

ride

Quoted message said:

in the early hours of the morning mostly one-handed, the other

shielding

Quoted message said:

the eyes from the sun. What fixes or good helmets do you recommend?

(and if Mr Sunset Lowracer pipes up to explain that he only got his

name

Quoted message said:

because at sunset he only rides his lowracer away from the sun that
ain't what I mean). Thanks for any advice on visors and whatnot.

DD said:

So what set up do you use or suggest for helmets and visors with
recumbents. At the wrong time of day it can be a bit glaring riding the
couch trike towards the sunny side of town.

Avoid/solve the problem with a traditional cycling cap. No need to snap
up the peak pro-racer style and it keeps a low sun out of your eyes very
effectively IME.

If you must wear a helmet it should fit underneath, but do be aware
there's no conclusive proof that helmets do anything to reduce your
chances of a serious injury, looking at the population level data from
everywhere they're in use, so just wear the cotton cap and be comparably
safe but much more comfortable.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email hidden] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

"DD" <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

So what set up do you use or suggest for helmets and
visors with recumbents.

I've used a visor extension made from thin closed-cell foam
(the sort available in hobby/art stores, about 1/8" thick). Simply
cut a crescent shape and hot glue or double-sided tape it
to the underside of the existing visor. Mine sticks out only
1/2 an inch or so beyond the original visor but improves
its usefulness dramatically.

Others have recommended using plastic or cloth sports visors
or ball caps.

On my newer Giro helmet, the visor seems a bit longer and
I haven't added an extension. YMMV.

Jon Meinecke

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

Quoted message said:

So what set up do you use or suggest for helmets and visors with
recumbents. At the wrong time of day it can be a bit glaring riding the
couch trike towards the sunny side of town. Most bike helmets are made
for road and MTB, a different posture from that of the laid back crowd.
The problem is more acute on my lowracer and it is impractical to ride
in the early hours of the morning mostly one-handed, the other shielding
the eyes from the sun. What fixes or good helmets do you recommend?

(and if Mr Sunset Lowracer pipes up to explain that he only got his name
because at sunset he only rides his lowracer away from the sun that
ain't what I mean). Thanks for any advice on visors and whatnot.

Mr Sunset Lowracer got his name from a low racer made by a now dead company,
you don't want to egg him on about it or he'll post that one picture over
and over again

Which reminds me, hey Tom don't you have any OTHER pictures of that bike?

Michael Plog said:

I have the same problem. My wife solved hers by wearing a baseball
cap under her helmet. It looks a little funny but when we go into a
store she has her hat on and does not have messed up hair.

My wife also used the cap-under-the-helmet kludge, but then I got her a
"Carbon Spider" visor: http://www.lobosolo.com/visor/ . I applied it so
it comes down to the same height as the cap's bill, and she likes it
lots. It's sold by JW Stephens, a SoCal recumbenteer.

Jeff

I have added a simple extension to my existing Visor using a product
called Darico Foamies, a kind of stiff foam rubber, I use black. It is
available in any craft or hobby store and I think at Wal Mart. I
suggest making it large and then cutting it back if you find it to
large. It is easy to use cuts with sisors? I simply glue it in place
using Goop or the Wal Mart equivalent Welder (sold in paint
department). I have no problem with it in the wind. Oh yes a sheet of
this Foamies big enough for 2 visors is $1 to $2 dollars depending on
the thickness you decide to use.
For Mr. Peter Clinch, I wish you the best in your riding, but using a
Helmet is a lot like smoking you don't need an expert or statistics to
show you what to do only common sense. FYI I was riding a Century here
in Florida a few years ago, my recumbent group rides normally over 6000
miles a year, when I thought maybe I will stop wearing a helmet, quite
by chance I am sure my buddy a experienced Gold Rush rider started
fooling with his water bottles and went off the trail, he made the
fatal mistake of putting his right foot down (yes he had good clips), I
was right behind him and watched as he pivoted about his planted foot
breaking his leg in two places and landed on his forehead on the side
of the rocky R to T Wilthalacooche Trail. His helmet visor was split
and his helmet cracked but he did not hurt his head. If that is not
enough I was riding my Rans V2 in slightly slippery conditions going to
fast and I fell in front of my buddy on a Rans Vrex, I can show you the
helmet with the impression of his chain ring in it if you want. To put
it in simple terms "[censored] Happens", its your life, you know what it is
worth.

Happy Trails Butch

Butch said:

For Mr. Peter Clinch, I wish you the best in your riding, but using a
Helmet is a lot like smoking you don't need an expert or statistics to
show you what to do only common sense.

Then why doesn't the "common sense" factor into any improvement
whatsoever in serious injury rates anywhere helmet wearing rates
increase? It's common sense that that would surely happen if they
improved matters, but they have a track record of doing *nothing*.

Quoted message said:

To put
it in simple terms "[censored] Happens", its your life, you know what it is
worth.

It certainly does. And it continues to happen wearing helmets, and
there is no national population anywhere who have shown an improvement
in their serious head injury rate from wearing cycle helmets.

All of your anecdotes, and all of everyone else's anecdotes, go into
full population data. And that data has serious head injury rates
unaffected by helmet wearing. So either your anecdotes of being /sure/
helmets must make things much better are balanced by incidents where
they make things worse, or you're assuming a much worse incident would
have transpired without a helmet than would have actually been the case.

The population figures don't tell us what we think /might/ happen, but
what *has* happened. And what has happened from increased helmet
wearing is no real change to serious head injury rates. That's what
*has* happened, common sense or not.

Here's a quote from Brian Walker, who runs Head Protection Evaluation,
the company that test helmets meet standards in the UK. He's an
accredited expert witness too, I believe:

"the very eminent QC under whose instruction I was privileged to work,
tried repeatedly to persuade the equally eminent neurosurgeons acting
for either side, and the technical expert, to state that one must be
safer wearing a helmet than without. All three refused to so do, stating
that they had seen severe brain damage and fatal injury both with and
without cycle helmets being worn. In their view, the performance of
cycle helmets is much too complex a subject for such a sweeping claim to
be made"

There is very much more to it than "common sense". I used to always
wear a helmet for reasons of "common sense", but the more you
investigate the reality the more you find you're unlikely to save
yourself a serious injury, and /exactly/ the same logic of "[censored]
happens" applies to being a pedestrian. Hundreds of people in the UK
are killed in simple trips and falls every year, so since "[censored] happens"
and it's common sense to guard against it and you feel a cycle helmet
can save significant injury, do you wear one as a pedestrian, or around
the house, especially using stairs? Your logical argument for helmet
use on a cycle suggests you should, so if not, *why* not?

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email hidden] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

Peter Clinch said:

Butch said:

For Mr. Peter Clinch, I wish you the best in your riding, but using a
Helmet is a lot like smoking you don't need an expert or statistics to
show you what to do only common sense.

Then why doesn't the "common sense" factor into any improvement
whatsoever in serious injury rates anywhere helmet wearing rates
increase? It's common sense that that would surely happen if they
improved matters, but they have a track record of doing *nothing*.

Quoted message said:

To put
it in simple terms "[censored] Happens", its your life, you know what it is
worth.

It certainly does. And it continues to happen wearing helmets, and
there is no national population anywhere who have shown an improvement
in their serious head injury rate from wearing cycle helmets.

You know, stats are very interesting, sorta like facts, one man's is
another's lies.

Can you say for certain that if no one were to wear helmets, the
situation would not be worse than it is?

What I know for a fact is that a helmet kept me from making a trip to
an ER for stitches at a minimum. Why can I say that? A pointed rock
PENETRATED the helmet deep enough to scratch my scalp. That helmet is
certainly tougher than my skin. The jury is out on the denisty of my
skull, however. So, figure a $70 helmet versus an ER bill for wound
cleaning and stitching.

Makes economic sense to me.

Quoted message said:

All of your anecdotes, and all of everyone else's anecdotes, go into
full population data. And that data has serious head injury rates
unaffected by helmet wearing. So either your anecdotes of being /sure/
helmets must make things much better are balanced by incidents where
they make things worse, or you're assuming a much worse incident would
have transpired without a helmet than would have actually been the case.

The population figures don't tell us what we think /might/ happen, but
what *has* happened. And what has happened from increased helmet
wearing is no real change to serious head injury rates. That's what
*has* happened, common sense or not.

Did he allow for the increased population that are riding bikes today,
the advent of downhilling at breakneck speeds, increased (and more
hostile) traffic on the roads?

If not, he only taken a snap shot in time looking at the past - not
into what is coming.

Any research can be skewed in any direction the researcher wants. And
merely forgetting to look at one variable can have the same effect -
skewing.

Quoted message said:

Here's a quote from Brian Walker, who runs Head Protection Evaluation,
the company that test helmets meet standards in the UK. He's an
accredited expert witness too, I believe:

"the very eminent QC under whose instruction I was privileged to work,
tried repeatedly to persuade the equally eminent neurosurgeons acting
for either side, and the technical expert, to state that one must be
safer wearing a helmet than without. All three refused to so do, stating
that they had seen severe brain damage and fatal injury both with and
without cycle helmets being worn. In their view, the performance of
cycle helmets is much too complex a subject for such a sweeping claim to
be made"

This is an interesting bit. No helmet can protect all users from every
possible accident. I know someone who headered into a concrete
lamppost base and broke his neck. Dead with or without helmet, in this
case.

So, in terms of "serious" accident, the jury may be out.

In terms of lesser cuts and bruises? Doesn't look like anyone is
addressing that specifically. Sure, my accident might not have killed
me or brooken my skull (serious) were I without a helmet, but I do
know that I did not have to go to the ER and based on the helmet
damage and its relative strength compared to my scalp, I probably
would have had to without a helmet.

And there is the rub of a shortsightedness in the research - it cannot
allow for lesser accidents that do not require hospital reports
(serious). It cannot track or effectively report the impacts of
accidents (with or without helmets) where the injury did not require a
hospital visit. How many of them would have gone from a banged head
with a helmet to an ER visit without a helmet? That data is totally
missing. And that is some very pertinent data.

BTW, don't ever denigrate anecdotal evidence. It means little in
isolation, but in aggregate, points to areas where deeper research is
needed. It is like that fleeting warning that lets you know there are
more serious matters coming.

Quoted message said:

There is very much more to it than "common sense". I used to always
wear a helmet for reasons of "common sense", but the more you
investigate the reality the more you find you're unlikely to save
yourself a serious injury, and /exactly/ the same logic of "[censored]
happens" applies to being a pedestrian. Hundreds of people in the UK
are killed in simple trips and falls every year, so since "[censored] happens"
and it's common sense to guard against it and you feel a cycle helmet
can save significant injury, do you wear one as a pedestrian, or around
the house, especially using stairs? Your logical argument for helmet
use on a cycle suggests you should, so if not, *why* not?

Irrelevant. Walking, or taking a shower for that matter, is not
considered as being a hazardous activity; riding in traffic or
downhilling are. You are mixing apples and oranges to make your case.

jim

Ah yes statistics! I worked as an engineer for more than 30 years
and I can tell you what we used to say about statistics. Figures lie
and liars figure. Meaning of course that statistics are great if the
data is great but that almost never happens. No one ever took data
when my friend flipped his Gold Rush, no one ever got data when I fell
in front of the VREX and no one took data when I watched an older man
riding a diamond frame pull his handle bars off the bike and split his
skull(no helmet). You're right many people get hurt in many ways, I
just spent $45.00 for two bath mats (and I am cheap) cause I know how
easy it is to fall in a bath tub or shower and I also know how easy it
is to fall on a bike or recumbent, (I have seen a top rated trike flip
as well), that is why I wear a helmet, I don't care what you do but I
do care when you try to give a novice cyclist misguided advice. I know
helmets are not perfect, but in my opinion they are a lot better than
nothing. Oh yes now I remember another time when I think my helmet
saved me from injury, I fell when I was crossing a slippery section of
black top (in humid weather here it sometimes collects some sort of
slimy allgae or what ever) I slid for a long time fortunately my
fairing took much of the skid my head first went up and I remember
trying to stop it from coming down so I wouldn't hit the pavement, I
could not do it, I did tuck my chin just a bit and hit the side of the
helmet cracking it slightly. I lost a lot of skin and rode the rest of
the way home with my bloody butt hanging out but I didn't hurt my head.
Funny I couldn't find a single statistical data taker on the entire 46
mile trail that day. I can tell you one thing its to late to put it on
when you are sliding down that black top at 18 mph.

Happy Trails Butch

Mark Leuck said:

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

Quoted message said:

So what set up do you use or suggest for helmets and visors with
recumbents. At the wrong time of day it can be a bit glaring riding the
couch trike towards the sunny side of town. Most bike helmets are made
for road and MTB, a different posture from that of the laid back crowd.
The problem is more acute on my lowracer and it is impractical to ride
in the early hours of the morning mostly one-handed, the other shielding
the eyes from the sun. What fixes or good helmets do you recommend?

(and if Mr Sunset Lowracer pipes up to explain that he only got his name
because at sunset he only rides his lowracer away from the sun that
ain't what I mean). Thanks for any advice on visors and whatnot.

Mr Sunset Lowracer got his name from a low racer made by a now dead company,
you don't want to egg him on about it or he'll post that one picture over
and over again

Which reminds me, hey Tom don't you have any OTHER pictures of that bike?

I have a few pictures of my LIGHT PURPLE Earth Cycles Sunset Lowracer
[TM] that I could post, but no convenient place to post them.

--
Tom Sherman - Fox River Valley
"Twisting may help if yawl can chew gum and walk." - G. Daniels

Peter Clinch said:

Butch said:

For Mr. Peter Clinch, I wish you the best in your riding, but using a
Helmet is a lot like smoking you don't need an expert or statistics to
show you what to do only common sense.

Then why doesn't the "common sense" factor into any improvement
whatsoever in serious injury rates anywhere helmet wearing rates
increase? It's common sense that that would surely happen if they
improved matters, but they have a track record of doing *nothing*.

Quoted message said:

To put
it in simple terms "[censored] Happens", its your life, you know what it is
worth.

It certainly does. And it continues to happen wearing helmets, and
there is no national population anywhere who have shown an improvement
in their serious head injury rate from wearing cycle helmets.

Speaking of [censored] and h*lm*ts, a h*lm*t with no vents could be a life
saver:
<http://groups.google.com/group/alt.rec.bicycles.recumbent/msg/ae7f8b09b374d758?dmode=source&hl=en>.
😉

--
Tom Sherman - Fox River Valley
"Twisting may help if yawl can chew gum and walk." - G. Daniels

"Sunset Lowracer [TM] Fanatic" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Mark Leuck said:

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

Quoted message said:

So what set up do you use or suggest for helmets and visors with
recumbents. At the wrong time of day it can be a bit glaring riding

the

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

couch trike towards the sunny side of town. Most bike helmets are made
for road and MTB, a different posture from that of the laid back

crowd.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

The problem is more acute on my lowracer and it is impractical to

ride

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

in the early hours of the morning mostly one-handed, the other

shielding

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

the eyes from the sun. What fixes or good helmets do you recommend?

(and if Mr Sunset Lowracer pipes up to explain that he only got his

name

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

because at sunset he only rides his lowracer away from the sun that
ain't what I mean). Thanks for any advice on visors and whatnot.

Mr Sunset Lowracer got his name from a low racer made by a now dead

company,

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

you don't want to egg him on about it or he'll post that one picture

over

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

and over again

Which reminds me, hey Tom don't you have any OTHER pictures of that

bike?

Quoted message said:

I have a few pictures of my LIGHT PURPLE Earth Cycles Sunset Lowracer
[TM] that I could post, but no convenient place to post them.

--
Tom Sherman - Fox River Valley
"Twisting may help if yawl can chew gum and walk." - G. Daniels

You could create a blog on Blogger and use a program called Hello to upload
images, it's all free [1]

[1] With some advertising somewhere I'm sure

Sunset Lowracer TM Fanatic said:

I have a few pictures of my LIGHT PURPLE Earth Cycles Sunset Lowracer
[TM] that I could post, but no convenient place to post them.

www.flickr.com is free site on which you can post photos. Also very
easy to use.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I have a few pictures of my LIGHT PURPLE Earth Cycles Sunset Lowracer [TM] that I could post, but no convenient place to post them.

Good advice from others on the photos. If you don't want to open new
accounts, the easiest way to post the odd photo or two on the web (IMO)
is http://tinypic.com/

You don't need to register or do anything special--just upload it from
your desktop.

Quoted message said:

It is misguided because it concerns only "serious" accidents and I'm
betting you agree that far more less than "serious" accidents happen
than serious.

Certainly "less than serious" accidents happen, but by their very
nature they aren't serious. I've banged my head a few times and
drawn blood doing housework, I'm not alone in that. I don't feel
the need for a hlemt doing it though, and I doubt you do either.

Quoted message said:

Where are the stats for those, the ones that without a
helmet might have called for an ER visit and stitching?

If there were a significant number of those then there would be a
drop in the overall figures of serious injuries, but there aren't.

Quoted message said:

Put -'em up if you gottem, but I'm lookin' forward to your sounds of
silence.

They don't exist because they don't get to ER rooms. But they
don't get into the serious figures which they would have done
otherwise, and the serious head injury rates would have gone down
accordingly. But they haven't.

Quoted message said:

Where is your data on non-serious injuries? Without any on your part,
anecdotal evidence is better than your lack of information.

See above. For non-serious injuries they amount to basically
discomfort, /if/ I have one. A helmet means discomfort on 100% of
trips.

Quoted message said:

Well, if it is that easy, why haven't you done it?

Why haven't I done what?

Quoted message said:

Really, how do you propose that be measured? They only measure srious
injuries and have no data at all on those that walk away without a
report being filed.

But if they meant a serious injury was /avoided/ then the annual
rate of serious injuries would be coming down, and would show a
better trend than that for pedestrians who have historically
matched cyclist trends for years since before helmets were
introduced. This hasn't happened.

Quoted message said:

Again, you are using apples to make statements about oranges and are
clueless that you are doing it.

No I'm not. You read through the work at www.cyclehelmets.org and
pick the real holes in it. It's fully referenced so you can get
back to the sources.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email hidden] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

Quoted message said:

Well, you seem to want to be able to take all kinds of poetic license.
Are you opposed to my doing the same?

So what poetic license have I taken?

It's like the scene in Jerry Maguire where Tom Cruise's client
isn't interested in Nice Words, he wants Tom's character to "show
me the money!". The change is I'm asking you to show me the
casualty savings. The data is there for you to look at,
governments with a vested interest in showing their mandatory
helmet laws have produced a beneficial effect haven't been able to
find those savings though. In the UK the government is pro-helmet
and seeks to encourage their use, yet in a written reply to a
parliamentray question the responsible minister had to admit there
was no known case of helmets being preoven to improve safety, and
he had a whole department of civil service statisticians to help him.

So:
"Show me the casualty savings!"

Quoted message said:

BS, and you know it.

Actually, I know it's true. Again, the data and research is out
there for several countries, so you show me the data that tells us
the extent to which compulsory seatbelt laws have improved things.

"Show me the casualty savings!"

Quoted message said:

Nice that you have socialized medicine. We don't. But were you to go
to the ER what do you figure it costs you in terms of paying yourself?
If you are not aware of this factor, it means figuring out what the
time in the hospital cost you in terms of how much an hour you get
paid. The same principle can be applied to driving across town to save
a dime a galloin on gas, FWIW.

But this assumes I'd be spending more time there. As the
neurosurgeon expert witnesses observed by Brian Walker pointed out,
it isn't actually as straightforward as a helmet makes you safer,
period, and as David Jamieson, UK Government Minister, had to
admit, the [UK] Government knows of no case where cyclist safety
has improved with increasing helmet use (and again I emphasize that
this man is *pro* helmet).

"Show me the casualty savings!"

Quoted message said:

Again, where is your ddata on the non-reported accidnets?

Again, the non-serious accidents don't get reported, because they
are by definition not very serious. However, again I point out to
you that if serious accidents are being downgraded then there
should be a drop in the rate for serious injuries. There isn't.

"Show me the casualty savings!"

Quoted message said:

The only trend visible here is that you are using apples to make a
case about oranges and are remarkably without any data concerning less
than serious accidents. That is what is patently visible.

I'll tell you again.
The non-serious accidents don't get reported, because they are by
definition not very serious. However, again I point out to you
that if serious accidents are being downgraded then there should be
a drop in the rate for serious injuries. There isn't.

"Show me the casualty savings!"

Quoted message said:

Tell it to the MIT researcher who was just fired for manupulating data
and using false data. He got caught, but now everyone ois wondering
about all the previous stuff that went through this process without
detection. Tell it to the cold fusion gang, too.

The national figures for several different nations are widely
available in raw form to be used and interpreted by anyone as they
see fit. Bogus use tends to be found out in time, as this chap at
MIT has discovered, but since one is working with openly available
data and there are lots of folks who know what they're on about
such cases don't remain at large indefinitely. And we've been
looking at these figures for a *long* time now, and even with a
vested interest in showing that the helmets they've mandated are
working well, governments who have introduced an MHL have been
conspicuous in their inability to show any clear casualty savings.

"Show me the casualty savings!"

Quoted message said:

See above. Even those folks you are waxing poetic about can be fooled.
Happens all the time.

Why do you assume that it must be me that's been fooled, and it
can't be you. You seem to be working on nothing but assumptions.

"Show me the casualty savings!"

Quoted message said:

Precisely, and what about that helmet in those situations? Did they
prevent a serious injury to the point it bacame non-reportable? What
would the cost have been had the lack of a helmet elevated that injury
to a reportable one? ThatIS the problem with using one category of
data to make a categorical statement about bike injuries.

Again I have to point out that if helmets are degrading serious
injuries to being non serious then that will have an affect on the
serious figures. That you don't catch them elsewhere doesn't
affect a drop in the serious figures, but there is no such drop.

"Show me the casualty savings!"

Quoted message said:

Hold it, now you seem to be on the other side. Either they work or
they don't.

Don't be simplistic. A good thick leather jacket will protect
against stray duckshot quite effectively, but that doesn't mean
it's worth a damn against targeted high velocity rifle fire.

With regard to helmet efficacy (or not) I have been stating the
point that they are no proven use against serious head injuries.
That is very different to saving you a nasty graze and a headache.
I've had those doing housework, yet in common with almost the
whole population I don't feel the need for a helmet doing my housework.

Quoted message said:

Not true. That is an ASSumption.

"Show me the casualty savings!"

Quoted message said:

But, one or two or three at some point become those hundreds or
thousands do they not?

They should, yes. So why do those thousands not add up to any
improvement? Perhaps the anecdotes aren't as clear as the reports
assume them to be?

"Show me the casualty savings!"

Quoted message said:

Aggregate data is like a generalization. There are always exceptions.
Anecdotal evidence is that one and two and three. . .

And since the aggregate is no change, that suggests that there are
2 or 3 the other way where they made things worse...

"Show me the casualty savings!"

Quoted message said:

Getting up out of bed is far more hazardous. So what? Neither compare
to cycling in any form.

But they do compare very well. Pedestrian serious injury rates
from RTAs have closely mirrored cyclist serious injury rates over
the time we've got figures for, and this happens in different
countries too. Where one jumps, the other jumps (as happened after
compulsory seatbelt legislation has been passed). So they do
compare, because they act the same way over time. One is an
excellent control for the other.

Quoted message said:

walked far more miles than I have cycled over the last 14-15. Walking
has only resulted in a tweaked ankle or two.

You might tell people on ventilators after being run over when they
were crossing the road that your anecdote is more meaningful than
theirs.

One last thought, and you really should address this with real data
rather than on-the-fly assumptions, because the data is out there:

"Show me the casualty savings!"

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email hidden] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Again, you are using apples to make statements about oranges and are clueless that you are doing it.

I'm agnostic on this issue and generally stay out of these discussions
but I wish you would stop writing this over and over. It is perfectly
legitimate to ask: Why has society deemed it appropriate / necessary /
mandatory to wear a helmet while cycling but not while walking,
driving, running, descending staircases, etc, etc...)?

rBOB said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

>I have a few pictures of my LIGHT PURPLE Earth Cycles Sunset Lowracer [TM] that I could post, but no convenient place to post them.

Good advice from others on the photos. If you don't want to open new
accounts, the easiest way to post the odd photo or two on the web (IMO)
is http://tinypic.com/

You don't need to register or do anything special--just upload it from
your desktop.

also, imageshack.us is an excellent free image hosting service.

--
Michael J. Klein & Asian Castings Consortium
[email hidden]
Yangmei Jen (Hukou), Taoyuan Hsien, Taiwan, ROC
Please replace mousepotato with asiancastings
Mozilla Thunderbird

rBOB said:

It is perfectly
legitimate to ask: Why has society deemed it appropriate / necessary /
mandatory to wear a helmet while cycling but not while walking,
driving, running, descending staircases, etc, etc...)?

Possible answers:
We're moving much slower while walking
We have seatbelts and airbags for driving
We also moving slower runnning then biking
We have banisters to hold onto while descending staircases

The U.S. is a safety consious country when it comes to personal
activities. Right or wrong, helments are the safety item of choice for
any activity involving moving at a speed greater then running (roller
skating, skateboards, skiiing, etc..). It's an easy sell.

Rich