Biros out, chaps



James Hodson posted ...

> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> They seem to work for me, and I tend crash far more on
>> the cycle than on the motorcycle, despite the greater
>> padding and 'safety kit' I wear while riding the
>> motorbike.
>
> As SMIDSY is often given excuse for a near miss between
> cars and cycles, I believe the enforcement of existing
> laws regarding lights would be a better way to go.

It's been said on this newsgroup many times that even a
darkly clothed rider without lights should still be seen by
an aware and correctly functioning driver, whatever the
state of lighting. Smidsy is simply _not_ an excuse. I do
think that if someone uses smidsy as an excuse for a
collision, then IMHO they are driving without due care and
attention, and should be treated as such .. Why enforce the
laws on (presumably you mean cycle) lighting ? When lights
are not the only issue, and are, I believe, a rare issue
with regard to smidsy accidents. Or do you suggest that all
smidsy accidents occur outside daylight hours ?

Rather than any more laws, or further enforcement of
existing laws, I'd much prefer an improvement to the driver
training and educational facilities available. Granted, most
drivers I know already think they're good, safe drivers when
in reality some, including myself in this, are possibly not
quite as good as they think they are .. ;)

I believe more road-user education, better training, and
more other road-user awareness, and I _do_ mean all road-
user groups including cyclists themselves, would reap much
more beneficial and long-term improvements to road safety
than any new laws or enforcement of existing laws.

--
Paul

(8(|) Homer rocks .. ;)
 
Ambrose Nankivell <[email protected]> wrote:
> In news:[email protected], Trevor
> Barton <[email protected]> typed:
>> On Thu, 11 Mar 2004 16:05:08 GMT, Simon Brooke wrote: On
>> the other hand again, if the helmet doesn't shatter, the
>> coefficient of friction between the shiny covering
>> plastic and the road surface is lower, and I'd think it
>> was substantially lower at least till the point when the
>> plastic broke, or conversly when the skin broke and blood
>> and stuff started to lubricate the interface.
>
> Not in my case, or the majority of men under 40, or the
> vast majority of women, who have an incredibly low
> friction covering over the scalp with built in thermal
> control and sun protection.
>
> Seriously, see how easy it is to slide your finger over a
> hair covered head as compared to a nice shiny plastic
> helmet. I think you'll find it's easy to make the finger
> stick on the plastic and hard to stop it sliding around on
> the hair.

That would be find if you were impacting your finger, but
you're not. The question is more relevantly stated: "See how
easy it is to slide your finger (or any other bit of flesh,
like your head) over the surface of the road compared with
sliding the smooth plastic of your helmet over the same
surface". I think you'll agree that the answer to that
question is that the smooth plastic skids over the surface
far more easily, especially if you apply a few kilograms
downward force to both.

--
Trevor Barton
 
In news:[email protected],
Trevor Barton <[email protected]> typed:
> Ambrose Nankivell
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>> In news:[email protected], Trevor
>> Barton <[email protected]> typed:
>>> On Thu, 11 Mar 2004 16:05:08 GMT, Simon Brooke wrote: On
>>> the other hand again, if the helmet doesn't shatter, the
>>> coefficient of friction between the shiny covering
>>> plastic and the road surface is lower, and I'd think it
>>> was substantially lower at least till the point when the
>>> plastic broke, or conversly when the skin broke and
>>> blood and stuff started to lubricate the interface.
>>
>> Not in my case, or the majority of men under 40, or the
>> vast majority of women, who have an incredibly low
>> friction covering over the scalp with built in thermal
>> control and sun protection.
>>
>> Seriously, see how easy it is to slide your finger over a
>> hair covered head as compared to a nice shiny plastic
>> helmet. I think you'll find it's easy to make the finger
>> stick on the plastic and hard to stop it sliding around
>> on the hair.
>
> That would be find if you were impacting your finger, but
> you're not. The question is more relevantly stated: "See
> how easy it is to slide your finger (or any other bit of
> flesh, like your head) over the surface of the road
> compared with sliding the smooth plastic of your helmet
> over the same surface". I think you'll agree that the
> answer to that question is that the smooth plastic skids
> over the surface far more easily, especially if you apply
> a few kilograms downward force to both.

I was using the finger to simulate the road. I'm sorry I
didn't make that clear. As the most accessible hairy surface
I have to test scrapability on a road surface is my head, I
won't try it, but using a wall as a test surface I find my
head moves quite easily, even when pressing hard, and my
helmet sticks, leaving a mark, as seen at
http://www.flimp.org/HelmetScratch.jpg . That was with a
very small amount of pressure.

It amazes me how ridiculed the idea that hair is slippier
than helmets is when it's very easy to test.

Ambrose
 
"Ambrose Nankivell" <[email protected]> wrote in
message news:[email protected]...

> I was using the finger to simulate the road. I'm sorry I
> didn't make that clear. As the most accessible hairy
> surface I have to test scrapability on
a
> road surface is my head, I won't try it, but using a wall
> as a test
surface
> I find my head moves quite easily, even when pressing
> hard, and my helmet sticks, leaving a mark, as seen at
> http://www.flimp.org/HelmetScratch.jpg
.
> That was with a very small amount of pressure.
>
> It amazes me how ridiculed the idea that hair is slippier
> than helmets is when it's very easy to test.

Try it against anything like a real road surface with
realistic forces, and the hair goes quite quickly.

Obviously not wanting to do the experiment, but I have done
the hard part of a knee-road experiment without much hair
on. I slid fairly well, but perhaps this would have stopped
after I had got all the way through the subcuteanous layer.

So, someone can do it with a plastic kneepad, and someone
can sellotape a wig to their knee.
 
Simon Brooke <[email protected]> writes:

> ... do 'safety devices' increase safety anyway? I have to
> confess that this argument is a new one on me and I'm
> still thinking about it.

I was once one of a number of young students who joined a
barrel-handling team in a bonded warehouse as a holiday job.
We spent all day rolling barrels around. We were supplied
with safety gear of heavy leather gloves re-inforced with
lots of big steel staples, because the spinning wood and
iron hoops could rip your hands horribly. We were told we
were supposed to buy our own boots with steel-re-inforced
toe-caps, to guard against crushed toes.

I decided to argue, as an experiment, that we would be
better off wearing lightweight shoes in which we would be
much more agile, and using bare hands cautiously, in a
different barrel control method than used by the glove
wearers. The other students agreed to give my idea a try.

During the three months we were there our accident rate was
lower than the accident rate of the experienced guys
wearning the safety gear. We all had a few minor accidents,
cuts which needed bandaging. We suffered no major accidents,
those requiring a visit to A&E for stitches or X-rays. They
had a few, two which could have been very serious, trappings
and crushings. During the experiment we did become convinced
that the safety gear actually made them sufficiently more
clumsy that it caused accidents. It also encouraged them to
use what I regarded as a dangerous method of barrel control,
involving a lot of slipping, whereas to protect naked hands
I devised a non-slipping method of barrel control. It was a
bit more strenuous, but I thought much safer.

H'ever, the management were very stern about all the
research which showed the benefits of the safety gear,
insisted the men wore it, and only tolerated our not using
it because we weren't union labour, just casual short-term
contract, and they could pretend they didn't know we
weren't using it.
--
Chris Malcolm [email protected] +44 (0)131 651 3445 DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]
 
Trevor Barton <[email protected]> writes:

>If the helmet is bigger, for the same lateral velocity of
>impact, the angular acceleration will probably be lower for
>a helmeted head all else being equal. That's because the
>helmet has a larger radius, and therfore for the same
>linear velocity at the edge needs a smaller angular
>velocity, therefore the shock loading on the brain is
>likely to be lower. That assumes the same coefficient of
>friction between a head and the road as between a helmet
>and the road.

You're making false assumptions. It's not linear velocity at
the edge which matters, it's the accelerating force imparted
by combination of loading and friction. If friction and load
are the same, the force produced has a greater lever arm.

>On the other hand, the helmet is larger, and you therefore
>need less torque to angularly accelerate (?) the head if
>the mass and rotational inertia is the same.

Wrong use of "torque" concept.

>However, the mass isn't the same, although the mass of
>the helmet is light and most of the mass is concentrated
>in the centre so the rotational inertia is probably
>pretty similar.

Again false assumptions. Rotational inertia relates to
torque about the turning centre. Here we're accelerating the
mass by applying a force at the end of a radius, so there is
greater torque produced *if* load and friction are equal
(thus producing equal force).

>As for the more likely to hit things argument, I don't
>think that that bears much inspection, either. Strictly
>speaking, of course, it's true. However I'd be surprised if
>it was that significant and effect.

Have you ever worn a helmet in conditions in which your head
often came close to bumping into things? I once wore a
helmet to shut some woman up while doing some tree surgery,
clambering around in a tree with ropes and saws. I was
startled to find how annoyingly frequently I clouted my
head, sometimes quite nastily, although normally in such a
situation I'd rarely if ever hit it. I soon decided it was a
very definite hazard, and threw it away.

The same goes for falling over backwards and tensing your
neck so your head doesn't hit the floor. Put a helmet on and
your head probably *will* hit the floor. "Gosh, that saved
my head a nasty knock!" you might suppose.

--
Chris Malcolm [email protected] +44 (0)131 651 3445 DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]
 
In news:[email protected],
W K <[email protected]> typed:
> "Ambrose Nankivell"
> <[email protected]> wrote in
> message news:[email protected]
> berlin.de...
>
>> I was using the finger to simulate the road. I'm sorry I
>> didn't make that clear. As the most accessible hairy
>> surface I have to test scrapability on a road surface is
>> my head, I won't try it, but using a wall as a test
>> surface I find my head moves quite easily, even when
>> pressing hard, and my helmet sticks, leaving a mark, as
>> seen at http://www.flimp.org/HelmetScratch.jpg . That was
>> with a very small amount of pressure.
>>
>> It amazes me how ridiculed the idea that hair is slippier
>> than helmets is when it's very easy to test.
>
> Try it against anything like a real road surface with
> realistic forces, and the hair goes quite quickly.
>
> Obviously not wanting to do the experiment, but I have
> done the hard part of a knee-road experiment without much
> hair on. I slid fairly well, but perhaps this would have
> stopped after I had got all the way through the
> subcuteanous layer.
>
> So, someone can do it with a plastic kneepad, and someone
> can sellotape a wig to their knee.

Yes, but we were talking about whether helmets increase the
angular velocity of impacts to the head, and the claim was
that a nice plastic helmet would slide away whereas hair
would grip. I did a simple experiment which I thinkshowed me
that hair is slippier than shiny plastic helmet cover, and I
think is applicable enough to slippiness in the kind of
impacts that may occur in a crash that it holds some weight.

As to whether or not helmets or hair are better at holding
up when a head is sliding along a roadway, well, I won't
make any assumptions, but like Chris Malcolm mentions, I
can be fairly sure that at cycling speeds the unhelmetted
head will be the one that gets instinctively pulled away
from harm more quickly, whether by curling up or rolling
onto a shoulder.

Ambrose
 
On Thu, 11 Mar 2004 16:53:52 GMT, Trevor Barton <[email protected]>
wrote (more or less):

>Take these 4 possibilities of the outcome of the *same*
>accident but with or without a helmet:
>
> 1) Not injured with / not injured without
> 2) Seriously injured with / seriously injured without
> 3) Not injured with / seriously injured without
> 4) Seriously injured with / not injured without.
>
>All accidents would fall into one of those categories. I
>don't know what the relative proportions of them are, but I
>guess the anti-helmet lobby says most are in 1 and 2, and
>the pro says most are in 3, but I'd bet most people would
>say very very few fit into 4.

But are 'most people' right? is an important question.

Cheers, Euan Gawnsoft: http://www.gawnsoft.co.sr
Symbian/Epoc wiki: http://html.dnsalias.net:1122 Smalltalk
links (harvested from comp.lang.smalltalk)
http://html.dnsalias.net/gawnsoft/smalltalk
 
On Thu, 11 Mar 2004 16:53:52 GMT, Trevor Barton <[email protected]> wrote:

> If the helmet is bigger, for the same lateral velocity of
> impact, the angular acceleration will probably be lower
> for a helmeted head all else being equal. That's because
> the helmet has a larger radius, and therfore for the same
> linear velocity at the edge needs a smaller angular
> velocity, therefore the shock loading on the brain is
> likely to be lower. That assumes the same coefficient of
> friction between a head and the road as between a helmet
> and the road.

You're also assuming a constant torque, rather than a
constant force. If the radius is larger, the lever arm is
increased while the force is left the same, so more torque
is applied. In fact, the force is more likely to increase
than decrease, because impact happens fractionally sooner.

While torque has increased proportionate to teh increase
in teh radius, the angular inertia has not increased by
as great an amount, because the helmet is less dense
than teh head.

Consequently, teh helmet is likely to increase angular
acceleration in a tangential impact situation.

I don't believe helmet shell has a significantly lower
coefficient of friction than hair does - hair is
pretty slippery.

> As for the more likely to hit things argument, I don't
> think that that bears much inspection, either. Strictly
> speaking, of course, it's true. However I'd be surprised
> if it was that significant and effect.

Again, I think you're missing an efect, namely x thousands
years of evolved reflexes and x years of learnt reflexes.
Things frequently brush past my head - because my brain
knows where my head ends. In a crash situation, my brain
is much more likley to work on the basis of where my head
ends 96% of teh time than where it ends teh 4% of teh time
I'm on my bike. In fact, I think tehre's a good case for
saying lots of reflexes are learnt very young - when
you're learning to walk and run, before you've ever worn
any helmet.

The observation that supports this idea is that I spend a
moderate amount of my working life in hard-hat areas. My hard-
hat gets hit lots more often than my head does, and a hard-
hat is less bigger than my head than a cycle helmet is.

regards, Ian SMith
--
|\ /| no .sig
|o o|
|/ \|
 
On Thu, 11 Mar 2004, Trevor Barton <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> That would be find if you were impacting your finger, but
> you're not. The question is more relevantly stated: "See
> how easy it is to slide your finger (or any other bit of
> flesh, like your head) over the surface of the road
> compared with sliding the smooth plastic of your helmet
> over the same surface". I think you'll agree that the
> answer to that question is that the smooth plastic skids
> over the surface far more easily, especially if you apply
> a few kilograms downward force to both.

No, I don't agree.

I thought I might, so I've just tried it. I've just gone
outside, stood beside a brick wall and leant my head into it
while having my legs slightly bent. I've then stood up,
sliding my head up the wall.

Without helmet, it slides easily.

With helmet, it locks up - the helmet seems to dig into teh
surface texture of teh wall (or vice versa). While my bare
head slides up very easily, I can't slide my helmeted head
up without choking myself on the straps - the helmet jams
and wrenches round.

Did you actually try this experiment? Can you explain why
I get such dramatically different results to those that
you claim?

Incidently, on an indoor wall (with wallpaper) I can't
detect a difference in retarding force between head
and helmet.

regards, Ian SMith
--
|\ /| no .sig
|o o|
|/ \|
 
In news:[email protected],
Trevor Barton <[email protected]> typed:
> Filesystem check me, don't any of you actually just enjoy
> riding anymore???

Still not using ext3, eh? Can save a lot of time after
unplanned reboots.

Actually, I'm getting a lot more riding in nowadays, and
enjoying it quite a lot. Still doesn't stop me getting
into these discussions when I'm on this side of a
computer, I'm afraid.

A
 
"Ambrose Nankivell" <[email protected]> wrote in
message news:[email protected]...
> In news:[email protected], W K
> <[email protected]> typed:
> > "Ambrose Nankivell"
> > <[email protected]> wrote in
> > message news:[email protected]
> > berlin.de...
> >
> >> I was using the finger to simulate the road. I'm sorry
> >> I didn't make that clear. As the most accessible hairy
> >> surface I have to test scrapability on a road surface
> >> is my head, I won't try it, but using a wall as a test
> >> surface I find my head moves quite easily, even when
> >> pressing hard, and my helmet sticks, leaving a mark, as
> >> seen at http://www.flimp.org/HelmetScratch.jpg . That
> >> was with a very small amount of pressure.
> >>
> >> It amazes me how ridiculed the idea that hair is
> >> slippier than helmets is when it's very easy to test.
> >
> > Try it against anything like a real road surface with
> > realistic forces, and the hair goes quite quickly.
> >
> > Obviously not wanting to do the experiment, but I have
> > done the hard part of a knee-road experiment without
> > much hair on. I slid fairly well, but perhaps this would
> > have stopped after I had got all the way through the
> > subcuteanous layer.
> >
> > So, someone can do it with a plastic kneepad, and
> > someone can sellotape a wig to their knee.
>
> Yes, but we were talking about whether helmets increase
> the angular
velocity
> of impacts to the head, and the claim was that a nice
> plastic helmet would slide away whereas hair would grip. I
> did a simple experiment which I thinkshowed me that hair
> is slippier than shiny plastic helmet cover, and
I
> think is applicable enough to slippiness in the kind
> of impacts that may occur in a crash that it holds
> some weight.
>
> As to whether or not helmets or hair are better at holding
> up when a head
is
> sliding along a roadway, well, I won't make any
> assumptions

SO, basically - You ignore all my points. (and frankly you
have already made some **** assumptions to support your own
supposition). So I'll try them again.

Its to do with the amount of force and especially the
surfaces. When you rub your head hard on tarmac, the
friction is between your scalp and the tips of the pebbles.
Nothing like gently rubbing flesh on hair.

<snip wiggle into another area that had nothing to do with
my point uhoh
 
In news:[email protected],
W K <[email protected]> typed:
> "Ambrose Nankivell"
> <[email protected]> wrote in
> message news:[email protected]
> berlin.de...
>> In news:[email protected], W K
>> <[email protected]> typed:
>>> "Ambrose Nankivell"
>>> <[email protected]> wrote in
>>> message news:[email protected]
>>> berlin.de...
>>>
>>>> I was using the finger to simulate the road. I'm sorry
>>>> I didn't make that clear. As the most accessible hairy
>>>> surface I have to test scrapability on a road surface
>>>> is my head, I won't try it, but using a wall as a test
>>>> surface I find my head moves quite easily, even when
>>>> pressing hard, and my helmet sticks, leaving a mark, as
>>>> seen at http://www.flimp.org/HelmetScratch.jpg . That
>>>> was with a very small amount of pressure.
>>>>
>>>> It amazes me how ridiculed the idea that hair is
>>>> slippier than helmets is when it's very easy to test.
>>>
>>> Try it against anything like a real road surface with
>>> realistic forces, and the hair goes quite quickly.
>>>
>>> Obviously not wanting to do the experiment, but I have
>>> done the hard part of a knee-road experiment without
>>> much hair on. I slid fairly well, but perhaps this would
>>> have stopped after I had got all the way through the
>>> subcuteanous layer.
>>>
>>> So, someone can do it with a plastic kneepad, and
>>> someone can sellotape a wig to their knee.
>>
>> Yes, but we were talking about whether helmets increase
>> the angular velocity of impacts to the head, and the
>> claim was that a nice plastic helmet would slide away
>> whereas hair would grip. I did a simple experiment which
>> I thinkshowed me that hair is slippier than shiny plastic
>> helmet cover, and I think is applicable enough to
>> slippiness in the kind of impacts that may occur in a
>> crash that it holds some weight.
>>
>> As to whether or not helmets or hair are better at
>> holding up when a head is sliding along a roadway, well,
>> I won't make any assumptions
>
> SO, basically - You ignore all my points. (and frankly you
> have already made some **** assumptions to support your
> own supposition). So I'll try them again.

No I didn't ignore your points. I just said that I was going
to ignore the one point which I didn't think relevant: That
of whether a helmet protects better when the head is sliding
along the tarmac. And I said why: Because I don't think
heads slide along tarmac in bike crashes.

> Its to do with the amount of force and especially the
> surfaces. When you rub your head hard on tarmac, the
> friction is between your scalp and the tips of the
> pebbles. Nothing like gently rubbing flesh on hair.
>
I wasn't rubbing gently. And there's always hair lubricating
the interface between the skin and the gravel.

I don't think you tried the experiment, as I did and teh Ian
Smith did.

Ambrose.
 
in message <[email protected]>, W K
('[email protected]') wrote:
>
> SO, basically - You ignore all my points. (and frankly you
> have already made some **** assumptions to support your
> own supposition). So I'll try them again.

... and you ignore all his (and his experiment) and make a
whole lot of unsupported assumptions of your own, without an
experiment.

Without experiments this is all noise and handwaving. We
don't know, and the answer isn't clear.

--
[email protected] (Simon Brooke)
http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

Age equals angst multiplied by the speed of fright squared.
;; the Worlock
 
Ambrose Nankivell <[email protected]> wrote:
> In news:[email protected], Trevor
> Barton <[email protected]> typed:
>> Filesystem check me, don't any of you actually just enjoy
>> riding anymore???
>
> Still not using ext3, eh? Can save a lot of time after
> unplanned reboots.

Been using it for years. It's like wearing a helmet -
it won't save you all the time, but it's better than
being dumped into single user mode and having to do a
manual fsck ;-)

--
Trevor Barton
 
in message <[email protected]>, Trevor Barton
('[email protected]') wrote:

> The real point I was trying to make, perhaps in too
> convoluted a manner, is that arguing from the point of
> view of your theoretical understanding of the physics of
> the problem is flawed. Unless you have actually made
> measurements that characterise the system it's pretty
> pointless arguing about the physics.

This is true, but it's not an argument for wearing helmets.
We know, statistically, that helmet wearers are slightly
more likely to be injured than non-helmet-wearers, but we
don't know why. In that situation, until we do know why, it
seems better to be cautious about the whole matter, and
certainly not to encourage otherwise undecided people to
adopt devices which appear on the available evidence to
cause more injuries than they prevent.

--
[email protected] (Simon Brooke)
http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

Anagram: I'm soon broke.
 
"Simon Brooke" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> in message <[email protected]>, W K
> ('[email protected]') wrote:
> >
> > SO, basically - You ignore all my points. (and frankly
> > you have already made some **** assumptions to support
> > your own supposition). So I'll try them again.
>
> ... and you ignore all his (and his experiment) and make a
> whole lot of unsupported assumptions of your own, without
> an experiment.

I did not ignore his "experiment" - I made comparisons to
point out how and why the original one was not valid.

> Without experiments this is all noise and handwaving. We
> don't know, and the answer isn't clear.

He had been making claims based on his flawed "experiment".
The answer is not clear,
 
"Ambrose Nankivell" <[email protected]> wrote in
message news:[email protected]...
> W K <[email protected]> typed:
> >>> "Ambrose Nankivell"
> >>> <[email protected]>

> >>>> It amazes me how ridiculed the idea that hair is
> >>>> slippier than helmets is when it's very easy to test.

> No I didn't ignore your points. I just said that I was
> going to ignore the one point which I didn't think
> relevant: That of whether a helmet protects better
> when the head is sliding along the tarmac. And I said
> why: Because
I
> don't think heads slide along tarmac in bike crashes.

The whole thing was about rotation. This relates to
tangential forces, so we are talking about friction, and
whether the impact is a skidding one or one that sticks.

> > Its to do with the amount of force and especially the
> > surfaces. When you rub your head hard on tarmac, the
> > friction is between your scalp and the tips of the
> > pebbles. Nothing like gently rubbing flesh on hair.
> >
> I wasn't rubbing gently. And there's always hair
> lubricating the interface between the skin and the gravel.

That doesn't sound like the way a head/floor interaction
happens. Did you ever see a break dancer on tarmac?
"hair lubrication" is an unlikely effect on common
outside surfaces.

> I don't think you tried the experiment, as I did and teh
> Ian Smith did.

Which one? rubbing my head? Rubbing a bony part of my body
along tarmac?
 
Simon Brooke <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...

> No-one, rationally, would choose to abandon their yacht
> and climb into a child's blow-up paddling pool in the
> middle of a storm at sea. But call that paddling pool a
> 'liferaft' and some (usually the inexperienced) will.
> Similarly, no-one, rationally, would believe that a
> polystyrene hat would automatically make them safe in
> modern traffic. But if you call it a 'safety helmet' or
> 'protective headgear' many people, again particularly the
> inexperienced, will.

This recent artless posting from another thread would seem
to lend weight to the risk compensation theory. At least it
implies that the poster would be prepared to take more
chances when helmeted.

http://makeashorterlink.com/?H219522B7

Long version:google.co.uk/groups?q=g:thl1324836078d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-
8&selm=c2mdlj%241tu1d2%241%40ID-169681.news.uni-berlin.de

--
Dave...
 
Ian Smith <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...

> The observation that supports this idea is that I spend a
> moderate amount of my working life in hard-hat areas. My
> hard-hat gets hit lots more often than my head does, and
> a hard-hat is less bigger than my head than a cycle
> helmet is.

I was in the bunch sprint at the finish of a criterium a
couple of years ago when, out of the corner of my eye, I
noticed a rider and his bike tumbling along on the grass on
the right. I was chatting to him in the dressing room
afterwards and he was complaining of a sore neck. He
couldn't understand it as he thought he had managed to turn
perfect somersaults and was not aware of having struck his
head. I asked to have a look at his helmet and sure enough
the tail part was broken. In this case at least it's pretty
clear that the injury though apparently slight was caused
entirely by the helmet.

Having said that though, in a mass pile-up of bikes I'd much
sooner be wearing a helmet than not.

--
Dave...
 
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