Helmets in TdF

Just zis Guy said:

At 13 Jul 2005 09:56:58 -0700, message
<[email hidden]> was posted by
"gds" <[email hidden]>, including some, all or none of the
following:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

On the other hand, the number of pro rider fatalities in the first
five years of this decade is more than the total in any other decade
on record, as far as I can tell. But still a *tiny* number.

Quoted message said:

Are you talking about total fatalities or just those from crashes?

Crashes.

My mate Bob is working on this, but the data is very patchy. You need
collisions, numbers involved in collisions and other data, too, to
form a good picture.

Guy

Yep I would think that number of crash fatalities in the pro peloton is
so small that it will be hard to say anything with any sort of
statistical confidence. What is the order of magnitude? Is it single
digit per decade? I imagine that the (# of crash fataltities/# total
miles ridden) is a very small number.

Just a wild guess but I'd posit that the number of (premature)
fatalities related to drug use in the peloton is a larger number than
crash fatalaties. This goes back to my supposition of risk compensation
and its correlation to prize money.

Quoted message said:

Well, I certainly hope they apply that to full body armor for the next
Tour. It's just as logical.

No, it's not. The head is the most impact-intolerant part of the human
body. Protecting it makes sense.

Full body armor would be heavy and offer no benfit, as a body (aside
from the head) can easily survive a fall to the ground at even 30mph.

THe fact that you say "it's just as logical" proves only that you've
lost all ability to reason on the subject.

Rich

Well! I won't get into the helemt argument again. But Frank, if you are
right about how effective the helmet makers are in pushing their
product successfully despite no data showing they work; then Gee! we
should get them to run our government- especially our foreign policy.

Or maybe they already are!

gds said:

Well! I won't get into the helemt argument again. But Frank, if you are
right about how effective the helmet makers are in pushing their
product successfully despite no data showing they work; then Gee! we
should get them to run our government- especially our foreign policy.

Or maybe they already are!

:-) Let's see: selling by implication, not direct statements that can
be refuted; providing misleading information; hiring others (or paying
"volunteers"😉 to say what you dare not say in order to sell your agenda
....

Yep, there's definite similarity!

- Frank Krygowski

Rich said:

Quoted message said:

Well, I certainly hope they apply that to full body armor for the next
Tour. It's just as logical.

No, it's not. The head is the most impact-intolerant part of the human
body. Protecting it makes sense.

Full body armor would be heavy and offer no benfit, as a body (aside
from the head) can easily survive a fall to the ground at even 30mph.

Of course, there have been _thousands_ of cases of bareheaded Tour
riders surviving falls to the ground at "even 30 mph."

Quoted message said:

THe fact that you say "it's just as logical" proves only that you've
lost all ability to reason on the subject.

:-) Let's examine your ability to reason.

As I recall, you said "Perhaps they surmised that a 'helmet' rule
didn't have any downside, and might in fact save someone's life, so it
did have a potential postive" and that they therefore "acted
rationally."

IOW, you put it in terms of a _possible_ benefit (saving one life).
And you ignored the fact that there _must_ be detriments. After all,
if there were no detriments, the riders would use helmets voluntarily!

So for helmets, your criteria are low indeed: any potential benefit
suffices. But for other measures, you suddenly bring in _relative_
benefit.

A bit inconsistent, I'd say. If you used your ability to reason, you'd
see the inconsistency.

Personally, I tend to make decisions not just on hypothetical,
potential best-case benefit. I tend to evaluate actual probability of
benefit, versus magnitude and probability of detriment. Consciously or
unconsciously, this is what rational people do.

But you say "It _might_ save someone's life" when over 20 million miles
of racing have produced essentially zero head-injury-related
fatalities.

Well, it might. And so might body armor. Treat the two proposals
consistently.

- Frank Krygowski

Quoted message said:

Rich said:

Perhaps they surmised that a "helmet" rule didn't have any downside, and
might in fact save someone's life, so it did have a potential postive....

I think those that mandated helmets and refused to legalize bikes uner a
certain arbitrary wieght in fact acted very rationally.

You may think so. But without knowing their thought processes, you
can't really say.

It's most likely that helmets required, as a legal issue, not a
practical one, in other words, the TdF doesn't want to leave itself open
to liability. Say you have a crash with a helmetless rider, who then
dies, his/her heirs then say, well the tour didn't do all it could to
provide safety, because they were not wearing a helmet, we want
5,000,000,000 francs. French judges can be just as stupid as American
ones, so they might just win the case.

By mandating the helmets, it appears legally the tour is taking all
steps needed to prevent such an occurance, even if helmets themselves
make a difference in only 1 out of 100 crashes......

W

On Thu, 14 Jul 2005 14:09:47 -0400, The Wogster <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

It's most likely that helmets required, as a legal issue, not a
practical one, in other words, the TdF doesn't want to leave itself open
to liability.

Most unlikely - if this were the case the insurers would have
insisted, and there is no evidence that they did.

Quoted message said:

By mandating the helmets, it appears legally the tour is taking all
steps needed to prevent such an occurance, even if helmets themselves
make a difference in only 1 out of 100 crashes......

Heh! I think you might have overstated that by anything up to 1 ;-)

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

"Let’s have a moment of silence for all those Americans who are stuck
in traffic on their way to the gym to ride the stationary bicycle."
- Earl Blumenauer

Rich said:

No, it's not. The head is the most impact-intolerant part of the
human body.

Actually not, besides being optimized to withstand an occasional
fall to the ground for millions of years...

Quoted message said:

Protecting it makes sense.

If that protection makes a relevant difference and mitigates a
relevant risk. Both is unproven for helmets.

--
MfG/Best regards
helmut springer

The Wogster said:

It's most likely that helmets required, as a legal issue, not a
practical one, in other words, the TdF doesn't want to leave
itself open to liability.

That is a professional event.

Quoted message said:

By mandating the helmets, it appears legally the tour is taking
all steps needed to prevent such an occurance, even if helmets
themselves make a difference in only 1 out of 100 crashes......

It's not proven that they make any relevant difference to the
better, neither that they don't make one to the worse...

--
MfG/Best regards
helmut springer

The Wogster said:

It's most likely that helmets required, as a legal issue, not a
practical one, in other words, the TdF doesn't want to leave itself open
to liability. Say you have a crash with a helmetless rider, who then
dies, his/her heirs then say, well the tour didn't do all it could to
provide safety, because they were not wearing a helmet, we want
5,000,000,000 francs. French judges can be just as stupid as American
ones, so they might just win the case.

By mandating the helmets, it appears legally the tour is taking all
steps needed to prevent such an occurance, even if helmets themselves
make a difference in only 1 out of 100 crashes......

I doubt this is the case. Here's why.

In other helmet discussions on Usenet, it was frequently claimed that
all the countless century rides require helmets because it's an
insurance company rule. This was claimed specifically for League of
American Bicyclists sanctioned centuries.

Eventually, I tracked down the insurance requirements for LAB events on
the web. Turns out there is NO requirement for a helmet, or a helmet
rule. The idea was apparently spread, like most helmet mythology, by
implication, by mistake - or perhaps by misrepresentation. And once
one organization does it, others copy.

Getting back to the tour: I'm sure the Tour is also insured. The
Tour's insurance company would bear the expense of any lawsuit. If the
insurance company had instituted a new helmet rule, we'd know. It
would have been stated that way.

And apparently insurance companies have _not_ made this requirement.
And insurance companies are all about data and statistics. Whatever
company is doing the insuring must have realized there would be a risk
in making the requirement, because a competing company could look at
the data, say "Hmm. Negligible chance of fatality or long-term
disability" and offer the policy without the requirement, thereby
getting the business. So my bet is the current insurer made no such
requirement.

They may have lobbied unofficially for the rule (in the same way your
homeowner's insurance company tells you it's a good idea to have
deadbolt locks, an alarm system, smoke alarms, fire extinguishers,
non-slip steps... anything YOU will spend for that reduces THEIR risk.
But requirement? And liability fears? Very, very doubtful.

- Frank Krygowski

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

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Getting back to the tour: I'm sure the Tour is also insured. The
Tour's insurance company would bear the expense of any lawsuit. If the
insurance company had instituted a new helmet rule, we'd know. It
would have been stated that way.

As far as the riders themselves, wouldn't it be the sanctioning body -- the
UCI -- rather than the event organizers who would be liable? I would think
that the event's insurance is intended to cover their own employees and
volunteers, and things like damage to the towns the race passes through.

Or, more likely, if a professional racer is hurt during a race, wouldn't
that be covered by worker's comp? He's employed by his team, not the UCI or
the event organizers.

RichC

Rich Clark said:

As far as the riders themselves, wouldn't it be the sanctioning body -- the
UCI -- rather than the event organizers who would be liable? I would think
that the event's insurance is intended to cover their own employees and
volunteers, and things like damage to the towns the race passes through.

No. Organisers of events are typically liable for the whole shooting
match, and insure accordingly.

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

"Let’s have a moment of silence for all those Americans who are stuck
in traffic on their way to the gym to ride the stationary bicycle."
- Earl Blumenauer

Rich Clark said:

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

Quoted message said:

Getting back to the tour: I'm sure the Tour is also insured. The
Tour's insurance company would bear the expense of any lawsuit. If the
insurance company had instituted a new helmet rule, we'd know. It
would have been stated that way.

As far as the riders themselves, wouldn't it be the sanctioning body -- the
UCI -- rather than the event organizers who would be liable? I would think
that the event's insurance is intended to cover their own employees and
volunteers, and things like damage to the towns the race passes through.

Or, more likely, if a professional racer is hurt during a race, wouldn't
that be covered by worker's comp? He's employed by his team, not the UCI or
the event organizers.

It's not uncommon, for law suits to name everybody else that could be
remotely involved, so that if one can't pay the other can. So a a
former racer or their heirs you would name at least, the UCI, TdF
organizers, the town, the Republic of France, every other racer within
the general geographic areas, etc. So the TdF needs to make sure that
it has enough insurance, that if they are named in a suit, that the
insurance company lawyers get to fight it.

What may have happened, we don't know because it's between the TdF and
their insurance carrier(s). The insurance company may have offered
cheaper coverage if they added helmets to the rules, without stating as
much in the policy. The policy is a public document, the contract
behind it, isn't, the insurance companies don't want one event to know
what another paid.

W

Rich said:

Perhaps they surmised that a "helmet" rule didn't have any downside, and
might in fact save someone's life, so it did have a potential postive.

Perhaps. But the reason that they were allowing the riders to remove
their helmets during climbs is because historically the crashes where
helmets have been shown to make a difference didn't occur during the
relatively low speed climbs. The mandating of helmets during other times
made sense, since there have been enough instances where a helmet has
made, or would have made a difference, that it isn't fair to penalize
the riders that are concerned more about their safety, than just winning
the race.

Quoted message said:

Legaliseing bikes under a certain arbirtrary weight benifits those that
have the money to get those bikes. It basically increases the cost of
the sport for everyone.

The cost of the bicycle is lost in the noise, considering the other
expenses incurred in entering a race such as the TDF.

I think that the helmet mandate may have been an effort to set an
example to the general cycling population. With all the studies showing
how much better helmet-wearing cyclists fare in a crash, compared to
non-helmet wearing cyclists, they didn't want people to think that there
are times when helmets aren't really necessary.

gds said:

Well! I won't get into the helemt argument again. But Frank, if you are
right about how effective the helmet makers are in pushing their
product successfully despite no data showing they work; then Gee! we
should get them to run our government- especially our foreign policy.

There are massive amounts of data showing that they work. But the data
is always a comparison of how non-helmeted cyclists fared in crashes
versus helmeted cyclists. What this says is that in the event of a crash
involving an impact to the head, the helmeted cyclist is much less
likely to suffer severe injury. But what the anti-helmet people focus on
is the fact that such crashes are sufficiently rare, that statistically
there will not be a difference in injury/death rates if helmets are
mandatory. Unfortunately, statistics are not good at protecting you in a
crash.

SMS said:

There are massive amounts of data showing that they work.

Happen to have evi...wait, I just asked that already.

--
MfG/Best regards
helmut springer

SMS said:

gds said:

Well! I won't get into the helemt argument again. But Frank, if you are
right about how effective the helmet makers are in pushing their
product successfully despite no data showing they work; then Gee! we
should get them to run our government- especially our foreign policy.

There are massive amounts of data showing that they work. But the data
is always a comparison of how non-helmeted cyclists fared in crashes
versus helmeted cyclists. What this says is that in the event of a crash
involving an impact to the head, the helmeted cyclist is much less
likely to suffer severe injury. But what the anti-helmet people focus on
is the fact that such crashes are sufficiently rare, that statistically
there will not be a difference in injury/death rates if helmets are
mandatory. Unfortunately, statistics are not good at protecting you in a
crash.

I tend to agree with your interpretation. But I have learned that to
debate the point in this ng is pretty much a waste of time.

So, I just vote with my head- I wear a helmet.

The Wogster said:

By mandating the helmets, it appears legally the tour is taking all
steps needed to prevent such an occurance, even if helmets themselves
make a difference in only 1 out of 100 crashes......

It's also possible that their insurers required this. I remember when in
my own bike club, many of the ride leaders, including me, were fighting
the do-gooders attempts to mandate helmets on all club rides. Well we
succeeded for many years, until the club switched insurance carriers to
LAW's insurance, which required helmets as a condition of insurance.
Since LAW's rates were much less than what we being gouged for, we
relented and the helmet requirement went through.

The Wogster said:

It's not uncommon, for law suits to name everybody else that could be
remotely involved, so that if one can't pay the other can.

This could be just a U.S. thing. Are the liabilty laws in France
different? I'm assuming so, as I think it's only in the US that we are
so litigious. But I really don't know.

Rich

On Fri, 15 Jul 2005 17:56:44 GMT, SMS <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

It's also possible that their insurers required this. I remember when in
my own bike club, many of the ride leaders, including me, were fighting
the do-gooders attempts to mandate helmets on all club rides. Well we
succeeded for many years, until the club switched insurance carriers to
LAW's insurance, which required helmets as a condition of insurance.

Did they really? Frank has said before now that this was investigated
and turned out not to be the case.

Certainly in the UK the CTCs insurers make no such stipulation. Nor
would they get the business if they did.

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

"Let’s have a moment of silence for all those Americans who are stuck
in traffic on their way to the gym to ride the stationary bicycle."
- Earl Blumenauer