Helment Damage.

There's nothing like a helmet debate to turn us all into doctors,
physics experts, statisticians and otherwise wishful thinkers!

brian.slater said:

*Whether or not a law will protect me or not is not the point, there
is a saying about giving up some personal freedom for any amount of
security and, by letting the government dictate our actions, when it
does not directly affect the safety of others, is letting the
government remove the -possibility- of choice for -the governments
perception- of safety.*

Yup. So I recommend civil disobedience. Flaunt your bare head! But you
may find most of your fellow cyclists (pedal, not motor) won't join you.
Though I realize government can be complex, I thing the majority has
spoken on this one. Eventually we should get more conclusive studies on
whether the laws are doing any good.

Quoted message said:

*Remember, big government is where the backwards motorcycle was
conceived as safer, it steered at the back and was driven in the
front. They actually spent hundreds of thousands of our dollars to
build it before they asked -any- motorcyclists what they thought. *

Do you have any links to stories about this one? Sounds very funny. And
not hard to believe. Buckminster Fuller came up with a great
rear-steering car back in the 30s (there's one in the National Auto
Museum in Reno). Stupid! Rear steering is an accident waiting to happen,
unless *maybe* if you have a computer to damp your steering inputs,
similar to an aircraft. But what's the point? Parking?

Quoted message said:

*Helmet -laws*- have been shown to be counterproductive – areas
that have instituted helmet laws have had the effect of reducing the
number of cyclists by as much as 60%,

Do you have any specifics for this? I have neither noticed, nor heard
of such a trend.

Quoted message said:

*which means instead of extending lives by 19 years (by cycling
without a helmet) in exchange for one year (by wearing a helmet),
people choose to not cycle thereby losing the health benefits that
would get them the 19 years.*

Are you saying that being "saved" by a helmet adds a theoretical *1*
year to your lifespan? I don't get it. Mostly the times you really want
your helmet is in crashes where you would otherwise die, or suffer
irreversible brain injuries. In the case of brain injuries you might be
alive but you have failed in the helmet department. I am not aware of
helmets adding 1 year to your life.

Casual, occasional riders may have reduced their amount of riding
because they don't want to go out and buy, and wear, a helmet. These are
not people whose lives would be extended by their handful of rides per
year. Such life extension only comes with regular logging of serious
miles.

Tom Holub was basically right about his head stuff, he just said it in a
way that seemed intended to ignite this discussion. Yes your head is
bigger with a helmet on it. Yes the weight of the helmet makes your head
a tiny bit harder to keep of the ground in a fall. I recall my last bike
crash, where my helmet bounced off the ground. Without a helmet, I may
well have stopped my head from hitting the ground in that last inch (in
the temple area) between helmet-hitting and head-hitting. But then
again, my helmet didn't have more than a little scratch on it afterward.
The guy who started this discussion would appear to be almost guaranteed
to have hit his head pretty hard to do the damage he did to his. But we
can't be sure. In the end, it's a good thing both of us were wearing
ours.

If you don't like to wear a helmet, don't. People do it with seatbelts
all the time. (BTW, being thown from a car in an accident, based on
numbers from 15 years ago, increases your odds of being killed by a
factor of 25. That's 2500%)

--
johnfoss - The wilder Wilder

John Foss, the Uni-Cyclone
"jfoss" at "unicycling.com" -- www.unicycling.com

"Read the rules!" -- 'IUF Rulebook'
(http://www.unicycling.org/iuf/rulebook/) -- 'USA Rulebook'
(http://www.unicycling.org/usa/competition/)
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That's a good story. Though the guy could have been a kook, I get the
feeling he was just doing his public service as he passed through the
city.

There is a famous juggler that had a brain injury resulting in a similar
condition. Kit Summers? His picture is in Jack Wiley's Bicycle Builder's
Bible, and possibly in The Unicycle Book. In 1981 or so he was hit by a
truck, and hospitalized for a long time. At first it was said he might
never walk again. But I saw him at the 1983 IJA Festival where he was
not only walking and talking (slurred; drool), but also riding a
unicycle and juggling a little. He had just been crossing the street,
but a brain injury's a brain injury.

Another story:

Them rollerblades are dangerous! Once upon a time I went with a small
group of people for a ride on the Nassau/Suffolk (NY) Greenbelt trail. 4
or 5 of us were on unicycles, one on a bike, and one on her brand new
rollerblades. We rode about two miles down the trail, then stopped to
let everyone catch up. We waited an waited for "Denise" and her
boyfriend. Finally they came slowly up and joined us. Denise had dirt
and grass stains on her, scrapes on her elbows, a little inspection door
in her bike shorts, and massive scratches in the copper rivets on her
kneepads! Those were good kneepads.

Seems she wasn't ready to cope with the little downhill along the way.
Them rollerblades are hard to stop! So, the one blader was all scraped
up, but our little group of unicycle riders were fine.

--
johnfoss - The wilder Wilder

John Foss, the Uni-Cyclone
"jfoss" at "unicycling.com" -- www.unicycling.com

"Read the rules!" -- 'IUF Rulebook'
(http://www.unicycling.org/iuf/rulebook/) -- 'USA Rulebook'
(http://www.unicycling.org/usa/competition/)
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Yeah, despite the fact that I now ALWAYS wear a helmet/wrist guards when
on a unicycle (and insist that anyone I'm teaching does too)- I do feel
that unicycling is a lot safer than blading/skateboarding.

I find it sad that 99% of skaters where I am don't wear any protective
gear/helmet; especially as,

1. however good you get, IMO you just can't have the same level of
control on a board as on a unicycle

2. So much of skating takes place in exactly the right conditions for
head injury ie hard concrete with corners

I think one of the good things about muni-ists wearing helmets etc, is
that, on some level, most skateboarders do have some kind of
respect/curiousity about harcore looking unicycles, and I think it helps
to remove the tainted image of helmets that many skaters seem to have.

(I believe that, for many skaters, their decision to not wear helmets is
more due to peer pressure/fear of looking 'wussy', than objective
choice).

--
onewheeldave - Semi Skilled Unicyclist

"You can't outrun Death forever.
But you can make the [censored] work for it."

--MAJOR KORGO KORGAR,
"Last of The Lancers"
AFC 32
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