Definitive proof ;-)

Tony Raven said:

The definitive proof that lack of a helmet saves your life:

(starts just after 1min50s in)

It just makes me glad I don't live in the states.

--
Don Whybrow

Sequi Bonum Non Time

"This seems like a case where we need to shoot the messenger."
(Charlie Kaufman on Cypherpunks list)

Don Whybrow said:

Tony Raven said:

The definitive proof that lack of a helmet saves your life:

(starts just after 1min50s in)

It just makes me glad I don't live in the states.

Is that because they have so many MHL's, or because the video of the
car hitting the cyclist was from there?

In article <[email hidden]>, Tony Raven
[email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

The definitive proof that lack of a helmet saves your life:

(starts just after 1min50s in)

I'm totally impressed by the cop's coolness and multi-tasking, and the
response time of the paramedic unit. Why are people posting "dumb cop"
comments?
Unfortunately we don't get to know how the broken guy gets on.

Rob Morley said:

In article <[email hidden]>, Tony Raven
[email hidden] says...> The definitive proof that lack of a helmet saves your life:

Quoted message said:

(starts just after 1min50s in)

I'm totally impressed by the cop's coolness and multi-tasking, and the
response time of the paramedic unit. Why are people posting "dumb cop"
comments?
Unfortunately we don't get to know how the broken guy gets on.

I disagree. The vehicle which impacted the cyclist should have been
left where it stopped for a collision investigation team and to
protect the casualty.

By moving the vehicle the officer exposed the casualty and himself to
further danger from moving traffic.

It's occupants should have been removed to the side of the roadway
where had they chosen to run off they would have left all the evidence
of their identity behind in the vehicle .

As it was they could have driven off and he would not have been in a
position to do anything about it.

Not an easy situation with one job running.

Good response for back up, very impressive.

Sniper8052

Rob Morley said:

In article <[email hidden]>, Tony Raven
[email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

The definitive proof that lack of a helmet saves your life:

(starts just after 1min50s in)

I'm totally impressed by the cop's coolness and multi-tasking, and the
response time of the paramedic unit. Why are people posting "dumb cop"
comments?

I think the following cartoon may provide part of your answer:
http://xkcd.com/c202.html

And obviously sniper's said the rest of it.

A

Tony Raven said:

The definitive proof that lack of a helmet saves your life:

(starts just after 1min50s in)

Nah, he would have walked away from it if he was wearing a helmet.
--
Three wheels good, two wheels ok

www.catrike.co.uk

Buck wrote on 17/03/2007 20:07 +0100:

Quoted message said:

Tony Raven said:

The definitive proof that lack of a helmet saves your life:

(starts just after 1min50s in)

Nah, he would have walked away from it if he was wearing a helmet.

Yeah, sorry, I forgot helmets protect against 75% of leg injuries
according to Thompson, Rivara & Thompson ;-)

--
Tony

"...has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least
wildly inaccurate..."
Douglas Adams; The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Tony Raven said:

Buck wrote on 17/03/2007 20:07 +0100:

Quoted message said:

On 2007-03-15 21:16:15 +0000, Tony Raven <[email hidden]> said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

The definitive proof that lack of a helmet saves your life:

(starts just after 1min50s in)

Quoted message said:

Nah, he would have walked away from it if he was wearing a helmet.

Yeah, sorry, I forgot helmets protect against 75% of leg injuries
according to Thompson, Rivara & Thompson ;-)

Legs heal beter than brains, according to my medical training.

Quoted message said:

Tony Raven said:

Yeah, sorry, I forgot helmets protect against 75% of leg injuries
according to Thompson, Rivara & Thompson ;-)

Legs heal beter than brains, according to my medical training.

Does your training explain how putting something on your head prevents
injuries to your legs?

regards, Ian SMith
--
|\ /| no .sig
|o o|
|/ \|

Quoted message said:

Does your training explain how putting something on your head prevents
injuries to your legs?

It doesn't. I'm quite happy to wait for a leg to heal though. The
brain is the most important organ in the body and whether a helmet
protects me when I fall or not, I want to give it every fighting
chance possible. Putting something on your head does not protect
anything but what is inside your head but it must be argued, what is
in your head is quite important.

I am quite happy for people not to wear helemts. Its really up to
them. Having attended so many cycle accedidents as a medic, I can see
first hand the difference between wearing one or not. Seeing head
injurys on cyclists on a daily basis, I know wearing a helmet doesn'
stop head injury, but the 'dampening' effect it has is often the
difference between recovery and perminant injury.

I'm fed up of the helmet debate anyway. If you don't want to give what
is in your head a fighting chance, there may not be much in it to
protect anyway. Go ahead an add your statistics and stuff now.

Quoted message said:

I know wearing a helmet doesn't
stop head injury

Correction: Doesn't stop all (most) head injuries.

The reduction in the decellerative force on the head will, inevitably, in a few
cases, make the difference between a head injury and no head injury. In other
cases it will make the difference between a serious head injury and a minor one,
and in yet others between life and death.

The fact that helmets are oversold does not mean they are never a lifesaver.

The problem is whether making helmets compulsary would have a net benefit since
it would, inevitabley, mean that some people would be put off riding bikes and
use less health and more polluting forms of transport.

Quoted message said:

Tony Raven said:

Buck wrote on 17/03/2007 20:07 +0100:

Quoted message said:

On 2007-03-15 21:16:15 +0000, Tony Raven <[email hidden]> said:

Quoted message said:

> The definitive proof that lack of a helmet saves your life:
>

> (starts just after 1min50s in)

Quoted message said:

Nah, he would have walked away from it if he was wearing a helmet.

Yeah, sorry, I forgot helmets protect against 75% of leg injuries
according to Thompson, Rivara & Thompson ;-)

Quoted message said:

Legs heal beter than brains, according to my medical training.

Your training may be a bit out of date. The latest research shows the
brain to be capable of much more injury recovery than most other parts
of the body, the liver being a notable exception.

--
Chris Malcolm [email hidden] DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]

On Mon, 19 Mar 2007 13:39:49 +0000 (UTC), Chris Malcolm <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Tony Raven said:

Buck wrote on 17/03/2007 20:07 +0100:

> On 2007-03-15 21:16:15 +0000, Tony Raven <[email hidden]> said:

>> The definitive proof that lack of a helmet saves your life:
>>

>> (starts just after 1min50s in)

> Nah, he would have walked away from it if he was wearing a helmet.

Yeah, sorry, I forgot helmets protect against 75% of leg injuries
according to Thompson, Rivara & Thompson ;-)

Quoted message said:

Legs heal beter than brains, according to my medical training.

Your training may be a bit out of date. The latest research shows the
brain to be capable of much more injury recovery than most other parts
of the body, the liver being a notable exception.

So if you had the choice of a fractured skull or a fractured femur, which would
you choose? ;-)

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Does your training explain how putting something on your head
prevents injuries to your legs?

It doesn't. I'm quite happy to wait for a leg to heal though. The
brain is the most important organ in the body and whether a helmet
protects me when I fall or not, I want to give it every fighting
chance possible.

I see. Presumably you also carry a lucky rabbits foot?

Quoted message said:

Putting something on your head does not protect
anything but what is inside your head but it must be argued, what is
in your head is quite important.

That's the whole question, though, isn't it - does putting something
on your head protect what's inside your head?

If it doesn't, if it in fact makes it worse, then you'd be better off
abandoning the hat and just trusting that rabbit's foot. It would
then be argued that trusting something that makes matters worse to do
some good is actually much much more crazy than trusting dead rodents

Quoted message said:

I am quite happy for people not to wear helemts. Its really up to
them. Having attended so many cycle accedidents as a medic, I can
see first hand the difference between wearing one or not.

Really? You attend so many accidents that there's a statistically
significant number identical in every respect except that in one the
victim was wearing a hat, and in other they weren't. You really ought
to write this up and publish it, because you've evidently got data
no-one else in the field has ever managed to accumulate.

Please, I beg you. I implore - publish your data.

Quoted message said:

I'm fed up of the helmet debate anyway. If you don't want to give
what is in your head a fighting chance, there may not be much in it
to protect anyway. Go ahead an add your statistics and stuff now.

"Statistics and stuff"?

I am reminded that it is very difficult to logically argue someone
out of a position they weren't logically argued into.

The "not much in it anyway" argument is crass, by the way. Did your
medical training extend to telling you people that disagree with you
must be stupid? Did it explain how stupid people, who have no brain,
manage to operate a computer ? Has it ever occurred to you that you
personally are not omniscient? No?

When people resort to stupid, crass, throw-away comments such as that,
it normally means they do actually recognise they have no sound basis
for their opinion, so maybe there's hope for you yet.

regards, Ian SMith
--
|\ /| no .sig
|o o|
|/ \|

On Mon, 19 Mar 2007 13:07:19 GMT, [email hidden] (Ziggy)

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I know wearing a helmet doesn't
stop head injury

Correction: Doesn't stop all (most) head injuries.

Correction: has no effect, or possibly increases head injury rates.

www.cyclehelmets.org

Ziggy said:

The fact that helmets are oversold does not mean they are never a
lifesaver.

Which is true.

But no more true than that it's possible for a lucky rabbit's foot to
save your life.

regards, Ian SMith
--
|\ /| no .sig
|o o|
|/ \|

Quoted message said:

I'm fed up of the helmet debate anyway.

As are most of us I think.

Quoted message said:

If you don't want to give what
is in your head a fighting chance, there may not be much in it to
protect anyway.

So, you're fed up with the helmet debate, but you're implying that those who
don't wear helmets are idiots? Well done.

Quoted message said:

Go ahead an add your statistics and stuff now.

I'm guessing your 'medical training' didn't involve much in the way
of 'statistics and stuff' and this is why you'd rather rely on meaningless
anecdotal evidence instead.

Anthony

Quoted message said:

On Mon, 19 Mar 2007 13:07:19 GMT, [email hidden] (Ziggy)

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I know wearing a helmet doesn't stop head injury

Correction: Doesn't stop all (most) head injuries.

Correction: has no effect, or possibly increases head injury rates.

Actually, ziggy is closer to true than you are, I think.

Quite apart from the logical incoherency of "has no effect ..
increases head injury rate", there are certainly injuries that
cycle-helmets prevent - lightly scratched upper forehead when pushing
through undergrowth, for example. I am certain that a helmet protects
the underlying parts of scalp from light abrasion by twigs and so on.
As such, "has no effect" is actually wrong.

"Possibly increases..." appears to be correct, however, so one third
of your correction is wrong, and two thirds is right.

I can't actually see anything factually wrong with ziggy's - helmets
don't stop all head injuries. I'm assuming you actually completely
agree with that statement, so wonder why you see the need to
'correct' something you are in complete agreement with?

regards, Ian SMith
--
|\ /| no .sig
|o o|
|/ \|

On Mon, 19 Mar 2007 13:53:23 +0000, Anthony Jones <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I'm fed up of the helmet debate anyway.

As are most of us I think.

Quoted message said:

If you don't want to give what
is in your head a fighting chance, there may not be much in it to
protect anyway.

So, you're fed up with the helmet debate, but you're implying that those who
don't wear helmets are idiots? Well done.

Quoted message said:

Go ahead an add your statistics and stuff now.

I'm guessing your 'medical training' didn't involve much in the way
of 'statistics and stuff' and this is why you'd rather rely on meaningless
anecdotal evidence instead.

The 'statistics and stuff', on both sides of the debate, are pretty meaningless
because of the impossibility of doing like for like studies over meaningful
populations.

So we have to fall back to simple physics.

Any structure will, upon impact, be affected to a degree determined by the
accelerative force on that structure.

Anything that decreases that accellerative force will reduce the potential
damage.

If you don't believe me, try banging your head firmly against a brick wall faced
with a polystyrene ceiling tile and then against an unfaced brick wall. Come
back and report your findings 😉