more helmet lies

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

Quoted message said:

http://tinyurl.com/a4q8a

Fromm the Nottingham Evening Post:

"The Evening Post's Use Your Head campaign encourages people to wear
cycling helmets. It was launched earlier this year to help reduce the
number of injuries and deaths on bikes.

"Latest figures showed that 100,000 children are injured on bicycles
each year. About 70% of those who die suffer head injuries. Helmets
reduce the risk of such injury by 85% and the risk of brain injury by
almost 90%."

It also says:-

"Save your skull" is being run by Mountain Bike UK (MBUK) to ensure all
off-road cyclists wear proper head gear.

Many people here have said in the past that they wear a helmet off road (by
which I think we mean something a little more extreme than a Sustrans route
or the local towpath).

The paper -- perhaps with the connivance of those issuing the press release
are allowing a confusion as to the definition of 'off-road' and are
promoting BsHiT's discredited propaganda figures which, even if true, elide
from 100,000 injuries (mostly grazed knees) to 70% of (a vastly smaller
number of) deaths involve (but may not be the primary cause of death) a head
injury (which might be superficial lacerations of no significant risk to
life while what killed you was the multiple internal injuries elsewhere).

Clarity, honesty and journalism are, sadly, not closely related arts.

T

I submit that on or about 02 Sep 2005 19:01:28 GMT, the person known
to the court as Ian Smith <[email hidden]> made a statement
(<[email hidden]> in Your Honour's bundle) to
the following effect:

Quoted message said:

"Latest figures showed that 100,000 children are injured on bicycles
each year. About 70% of those who die suffer head injuries. Helmets
reduce the risk of such injury by 85% and the risk of brain injury by
almost 90%."

Those "latest figures" have been traced to a report about *American*
cycling injuries, and have zero relevance to the UK. The other claims
are, of course, standard [censored].

Guy
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

"To every complex problem there is a solution which is
simple, neat and wrong" - HL Mencken

Tony W said:

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

Quoted message said:

http://tinyurl.com/a4q8a

Fromm the Nottingham Evening Post:

"The Evening Post's Use Your Head campaign encourages people to wear
cycling helmets.

snip

Quoted message said:

The paper -- perhaps with the connivance of those issuing the press release
are allowing a confusion as to the definition of 'off-road' and are
promoting BsHiT's discredited propaganda figures

encore du snip

Quoted message said:

Clarity, honesty and journalism are, sadly, not closely related arts.

Many years ago, when I was growing up in Nottingham, the Evening Post
was [censored].

It appears that little has changed.

in message <[email hidden]>, Tony W

(') said:

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

Quoted message said:

http://tinyurl.com/a4q8a

Fromm the Nottingham Evening Post:

"The Evening Post's Use Your Head campaign encourages people to wear
cycling helmets. It was launched earlier this year to help reduce the
number of injuries and deaths on bikes.

"Latest figures showed that 100,000 children are injured on bicycles
each year. About 70% of those who die suffer head injuries. Helmets
reduce the risk of such injury by 85% and the risk of brain injury by
almost 90%."

It also says:-

"Save your skull" is being run by Mountain Bike UK (MBUK) to ensure all
off-road cyclists wear proper head gear.

Many people here have said in the past that they wear a helmet off road
(by which I think we mean something a little more extreme than a
Sustrans route or the local towpath).

The paper -- perhaps with the connivance of those issuing the press
release are allowing a confusion as to the definition of 'off-road' and
are promoting BsHiT's discredited propaganda figures

I think there's also the point that many in the Mountain Bike community
genuinely believe that polystyrene foam deflector beanies are magic and
will save your life in all incidents. Fortunately, the vast majority of
mountain bike falls have much lower closing speed than road traffic
crashes, and in an off-road environment there are a lot of things to
fall on which aren't very hard. But nevertheless, if you come off hard
enough onto a rock or a tree, it's pretty easy to achieve the sorts of
energies which make a helmet irrelevant.

Helmets /are/ more relevant of-road. But they still aren't magic.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/
There's nae Gods, an there's precious few heroes
but there's plenty on the dole in th Land o th Leal;
And it's time now, tae sweep the future clear o
th lies o a past that we know wis never real.

Quoted message said:

Many years ago, when I was growing up in Nottingham, the Evening Post
was [censored].

It appears that little has changed.

I was once pictured in the NEP

Simon Brooke said:

I think there's also the point that many in the Mountain Bike community
genuinely believe that polystyrene foam deflector beanies are magic and
will save your life in all incidents. Fortunately, the vast majority of
mountain bike falls have much lower closing speed than road traffic
crashes, and in an off-road environment there are a lot of things to
fall on which aren't very hard. But nevertheless, if you come off hard
enough onto a rock or a tree, it's pretty easy to achieve the sorts of
energies which make a helmet irrelevant.

Helmets /are/ more relevant of-road. But they still aren't magic.

Its the one time I still wear a helmet. Its because mountain biking
involves a lot of falling off (if you are trying properly) and a lot of
that falling off happens at low speeds onto ground that can be quite
lumpy with rocky bits pointing out of it (which negates the usual
protection where you tend to be able to hold your head off the road
using your shoulders in a slow fall). But I agree that it won't help
you in a high speed fall on a rocky descent or into a tree except for
the usual scratches and grazes proviso.

--
Tony

"I did make a mistake once - I thought I'd made a mistake but I hadn't"
Anon

MSeries said:

Quoted message said:

Many years ago, when I was growing up in Nottingham, the Evening Post
was [censored].

It appears that little has changed.

I was once pictured in the NEP

So was I. We had a presentation by the mayor for all the cubs getting
their Gold Arrow awards. I bet Mum's got the paper somewhere.