Helmet saved my life? Or attracted attack?



Paul Boyd wrote:
>
> Nothing to do with cycling, but there was a story on the BBC website
> yesterday about a lorry driver who was 2.5 times over the drink drive
> limit. He killed a family of four, who were burned alive trapped in
> their car. I hope they were at least unconscious. The punishment was a
> six year jail sentence


Compare that with the 8 weeks jail sentence given to the owner of a dog,
known to have bitten people before, that killed a child.

> and a five year driving ban - it didn't say if
> the ban was concurrent with the jail sentence or consecutive. The jail
> sentence I suppose is what can be expected - this was a driver
> deliberately putting others at risk by drinking - but why should he ever
> be allowed to drive again?


A very good question. The same question could be asked about those
convicted of violent street crimes being allowed to ever walk the
streets again. A driving ban is an example of a certain category of
road user being treated very differently to all others.

Wouldn't you rather a "road use ban" be given to anyone who abused their
use of the roads - than the current obsession only with those who commit
their offence whilst at the wheel of a car?

--
Matt B
 
Andrew Price <[email protected]> wrote:

> On Wed, 16 May 2007 20:32:27 +0100, Tom Crispin
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> >>I found that out last year, when my house was struck by lightening.
> >>Fried my ADSL modem, PC motherboard and stereo system, even though
> >>they were all switched off at the time.

> >
> >Hmmm. I guess the power surge protectors have their limitations.

>
> As someone else pointed out, lightening which had crossed thousands of
> metres of sky wasn't going to be held up by a few measly millimetres
> of switch.
>

not in this case as it was a direct hit, but people allways forget phone
lines, good way of getting into eletronics.

my folks have lost a number of phones and asdl equipment from that.
though the house has seriously heavy duty banks of switchs and befits
it's location which has ment it's never had anything fryed that route,
though it's never had a direct hit. which probably would jump though
that lot.

> >Were you able to recover your PC's memory? Or were you one of the 1%
> >of home users who have a back up?

>
> I did have backups on external hard drives - but to my astonishment,
> the two drives inside the PC survived. Maybe the motherboard served
> as an upstream "fuse" for them?


very possibly it rerouted the surge.

roger
 
Tom Crispin wrote on 16/05/2007 13:20 +0100:
> On Wed, 16 May 2007 11:47:30 +0100, Peter Clinch
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> I imagine /some/ cyclists have been struck by lightning over the
>> fullness of time.

>
> Unlikely as pneumatic tyres are an excellent insulator, and even in
> the wet, with wet tyres, and on open flat moorland, there are far
> better targets for lightning. (Though I'm sure we'll hear about it
> happening to David Chase in the fullness of time.)


The classic error. The lightning has just crossed an air gap of several
hundred or thousand meters. An inch gap created by a bicycle tyre is
not going to make a practical difference.

--
Tony

"The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there
is no good evidence either way."
- Bertrand Russell
 
The other view point, there is one you know... wrote on 16/05/2007 17:06
+0100:

So which nym morph are you then?

--
Tony

"The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there
is no good evidence either way."
- Bertrand Russell
 
John Kane wrote on 16/05/2007 23:55 +0100:
> On May 16, 11:22 am, Paul Boyd <usenet.dont.work@plusnet> wrote:
>> Simon Brooke said the following on 16/05/2007 15:24:
>>
>>> Helmets definitely kill people. Not very many, true; but definitely more
>>> people than the number of people whose lives are saved by helmets. We know
>>> this, because wherever helmet use has increased, the number of fatalities
>>> per billion cyclist kilometers had gone /up/, not down.

>> I could be pedantic here, so I will :) Are those additional fatalities
>> helmet-wearing cyclists?
>>
>> --
>> Paul Boydhttp://www.paul-boyd.co.uk/

>
> I don't know although Coté et al, [1] in a paper lauding helmet
> wearing actually shows that more of their helmet wearing riders have
> crashes than do the un-helmented. Of course, they didn't know realise
> this but you can do the Chi-squared test yourself :) Dorre Robinson
> has done if for one of her papers.
>


And Brent Hagel, a avid helmet compulsion proponent and disbeliever of
risk compensation reported that children wearing helmets rode faster and
had more damage to their bikes than their unhelmeted counterparts. He
still denies risk compensation though because that would go against his
religion.
Mok D, Gore G, Hagel B, Mok E, Magdalinos H, Pless B., Risk compensation
in children’s activities: A pilot study; Paediatr Child Health.
2004;9(5):327-330.




--
Tony

"The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there
is no good evidence either way."
- Bertrand Russell
 
Simon Brooke wrote:

> I think what you look like is a minor issue. If there really was a danger,
> and the helmets really addressed it, then we'd use them.


And to illustrate that point, I wore one on every cycle trip I made over
the whole of the 90s, thinking they really addressed a real danger. I'm
long past worrying what I look like on a bike: you ride past the Harris
Academy at chucking out time on a Brompton or a 'bent and much laughter
at your expense is the order of the day.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email protected] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/
 
Response to Tony Raven:
> The other view point, there is one you know... wrote on 16/05/2007 17:06
> +0100:
>
> So which nym morph are you then?


Gravity tells me it's

From: "The other view point, there is one you know..."
<[email protected]>


To be fair, there's *always* another view point. There appear to be at
least two different Flat Earth Societys, for instance - ;-)

http://www.theflatearthsociety.org/
http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djublonskopf/FlatHome.htm


--
Mark, UK
"If you follow reason far enough it always leads to conclusions that are
contrary to reason."
 
Simon Brooke said the following on 17/05/2007 11:09:

> They're worn for periods of under five minutes.


....apart from the bloke I used to see on my commute wearing one,
complete with normal working clothes. A little odd, I thought!

> I think what you look like is a minor issue. If there really was a danger,
> and the helmets really addressed it, then we'd use them.


Ah, but helmets don't address the perceived danger. Therefore the only
factor is what they look like so as to avoid davidchasisms :)

--
Paul Boyd
http://www.paul-boyd.co.uk/
 
Mark McNeill said the following on 17/05/2007 12:52:

> To be fair, there's *always* another view point. There appear to be at
> least two different Flat Earth Societys, for instance - ;-)


Wow! I hope their 'scientific arguments' are written with tongue firmly
in cheek!

--
Paul Boyd
http://www.paul-boyd.co.uk/
 
Mark McNeill wrote on 17/05/2007 12:52 +0100:
> Response to Tony Raven:
>> The other view point, there is one you know... wrote on 16/05/2007 17:06
>> +0100:
>>
>> So which nym morph are you then?

>
> Gravity tells me it's
>
> From: "The other view point, there is one you know..."
> <[email protected]>
>


Ah yes, Dewi, the poster of such gems as:

"Indeed, so let's; test, tax, insure and number plate the cyclists.
As soon as they are accountable, I'm sure they will conform more."
<[email protected]>

and

"The risk to the drivers head is not significant to justify wearing a
helmet, where's as all cyclist should wear a helmet."
<[email protected]>

Nuff said.

Pretty incompetent nym morpher though to leave his name visible behind
his new alias. Wonder what woke him up from his not posting here since
2005 slumber.

--
Tony

"The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there
is no good evidence either way."
- Bertrand Russell
 
On 17 May 2007 01:33:29 -0700, The other view point, there is one you
know... wrote:

> On 16 May, 19:03, Ian Smith <[email protected]> wrote:
>> On 16 May 2007, <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> On 16 May, 11:47, Peter Clinch <[email protected]> wrote:

>>
>>> > I imagine some pedestrians have been attacked with bats over the
>>> > fullness of time. Is that a good reason to make sure you've got a
>>> > helmet any time you go out on foot?

>>
>>> The scene you painted are poor examples, those are extreme situations.
>>> What about the numerous low speed incidents where you might be knocked
>>> off/fall off your bike

>>
>> FWIW, I agree, if you're so clumsy and uncoordinated that you have
>> numerous incidents of falling off your bike at slow speed, a helmet is
>> quite possibly a good idea. You probably also want knee, elbow and
>> wrist-guards, possibly a mouthguard, and make sure that you wear the
>> same when walking (especially on stairs, ramps, uneven or loose
>> ground).
>>
>> Anyone that doesn't have such difficulties remaining upright, however,
>> may want to make a reasoned assessment of the chances of a helmet
>> mitigating minor injury against apparently having no discernible
>> affect versus serious injury, consider the arguments for and against,
>> and decide whether a helmet is worth the aggravation.
>>
>>> I find it a very poor show for people to say a helmet is not a good
>>> thing to wear...

>>
>> A helmet is not a good thing to wear for the majority of cycling I do.
>> Why is this a poor show?
>>
>> regards, Ian SMith
>> --
>> |\ /| no .sig
>> |o o|
>> |/ \|

>
> Expand on the type of cycling you do please...


Well, it probably does not matter what kind of cycling he does.

The death rate, for instance, from ALL forms of cycling is something like 1
per 450 years of cycling 24 hours a day non-stop.

Safer that life itself, in other words, by a factor of about six.

So even if the type of cycling he did was an order of magnitude more likely
to result in death it would _still_ be so unlikely that it's not even worth
consideration compared to death by other source.

And then there is the problem (for the pro-helmet zealots) that no
beneficial effect has been shown by the wearing of cycle helmets.
 
On May 17, 12:22 pm, Tony Raven <[email protected]> wrote:
> John Kane wrote on 16/05/2007 23:55 +0100:
>
>
>
> > On May 16, 11:22 am, Paul Boyd <usenet.dont.work@plusnet> wrote:
> >> Simon Brooke said the following on 16/05/2007 15:24:

>
> >>> Helmets definitely kill people. Not very many, true; but definitely more
> >>> people than the number of people whose lives are saved by helmets. Weknow
> >>> this, because wherever helmet use has increased, the number of fatalities
> >>> per billion cyclist kilometers had gone /up/, not down.
> >> I could be pedantic here, so I will :) Are those additional fatalities
> >> helmet-wearing cyclists?

>
> >> --
> >> Paul Boydhttp://www.paul-boyd.co.uk/

>
> > I don't know although Coté et al, [1] in a paper lauding helmet
> > wearing actually shows that more of their helmet wearing riders have
> > crashes than do the un-helmented. Of course, they didn't know realise
> > this but you can do the Chi-squared test yourself :) Dorre Robinson
> > has done if for one of her papers.

>
> And Brent Hagel, a avid helmet compulsion proponent and disbeliever of
> risk compensation reported that children wearing helmets rode faster and
> had more damage to their bikes than their unhelmeted counterparts. He
> still denies risk compensation though because that would go against his
> religion.
> Mok D, Gore G, Hagel B, Mok E, Magdalinos H, Pless B., Risk compensation
> in children's activities: A pilot study; Paediatr Child Health.
> 2004;9(5):327-330.
>

Slightly off topic but I've just seen this on Slashdot and it made me
laugh:

As the publisher of J. Anec. Evid., I deplore the myth that anecdotal
evidence is worse than your so-called "peer reviewed" evidence. We
peer at each claim for quite a while, and only publish it if it meets
our stringent two-pronged criteria:

1. It sounds good to us.
2. It makes some point that needs to be made.

Both Science and Nature have only ONE prong: repeatability. So
citations from the Journal of Anecdotal Evidence are twice as sciency.

Tim.
 
On 17 May, 09:08, Chris Malcolm <[email protected]> wrote:
> The other view point, there is one you know... <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > IF your cycling over 15MPH then you should consider looking at a
> > better helmet.

>
> I'd be very interested in that! Having looked into it in some detail,
> I find that the problem is that as far as helmets licensed for bicycle
> use are concerned, AFAIK there aren't better helmets. There may well
> be better helmets for cycling in existence currently disguised as
> helmets used for other purposes, such as horse riding, rock climbing,
> etc., but if so, I'm not aware of any research validating such helmets
> being better for cycling protection than the existing inadequate
> helmets.
>
> Do you know of any such better helmets?
>
> --
> Chris Malcolm [email protected] DoD #205
> IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
> [http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]


Maybe, take your pick, climbing, kayaking, both are to protect the
head in knocks

Of course if there is a market for a 'better' helmet than currently
available, maybe a manufacturer will pop along and 'supply the demand'
 
On 17 May, 09:39, _ <[email protected]>
wrote:
> On 17 May 2007 01:30:25 -0700, The other view point, there is one you
>
>
>
>
>
> know... wrote:
> > On 16 May, 17:26, Alistair Gunn <[email protected]> wrote:
> >> The other view point, there is one you know... twisted the electrons to say:

>
> >>> What about the numerous low speed incidents where you might be knocked
> >>> off/fall off your bike and with the helmet it would prevent anything
> >>> other than a headache, rather than a cracked skull from the road/curb
> >>> etc...

>
> >> Alternatively, switch to riding something like this :-
> >> http://www.ice.hpv.co.uk/standard_trikes/q.htm

>
> >> ... and your chances of falling off at low speed will, I'd suggest,
> >> be *significantly* reduced! Of course, I don't remember having any great
> >> tendency to fall off the various bikes (recumbent or not) I've ridden
> >> over the years.
> >> --
> >> These opinions might not even be mine ...
> >> Let alone connected with my employer ...

>
> > Indeed, motor trikes as road vehicles, the riders don't need to wear a
> > helmet. so a tricycles would prevent topples and falling off as such...

>
> The major danger to cyclists is not falling off, but motorcars.
>
> The best way to reduce the already miniscule risk to which cyclists are
> exposed would be to increase the penalties assessed against drivers of
> motor vehicles involved in such collisions; permanently revoking their
> permission to drive would certainly get their attention.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -


And what of the cyclists who flout the rules on the road?
 
The other view point, there is one you know... wrote:

> And what of the cyclists who flout the rules on the road?


What aboutt them? I have no problem with them being nicked, though
I imagine it would make sense to take their chances of killing
people other than themselves into account.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email protected] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/
 
The other view point, there is one you know... wrote:

> Maybe, take your pick, climbing, kayaking, both are to protect the
> head in knocks


I have one of each, and wouldn't want to cycle in either,
especially the kayak lid. Overheating in white water is rather
less of a problem, thanks to large quantities of cold water
showering you the whole time. On a bike the ear protection would
be largely redundant and make it harder to hear things coming up on
you. Not so clever.

The climbing helmet is designed with a large dome to prevent
isolated falling rocks penetrating to the skull, not generally a
problem when head-butting a road: sticks up rather a long way and
catches the wind a bit much, and the ventilation is relatively poor
as the sort of climbing that encourages helmet is slower burning
stuff than hard cycling.

> Of course if there is a market for a 'better' helmet than currently
> available, maybe a manufacturer will pop along and 'supply the demand'


You've missed the point that cycle helmets need to be (a) as light
and well vented as possible to be comfortable, and (b) as
protective as possible. Requirement (a) is directly at odds with
requirement (b), so if you create a "better" helmet protectively
(for example, a motorcycle helmet) then it will be rather on the
heavy and uncomfotable side. You can't just magic up a helmet
that's perfect because people want one.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email protected] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/
 
On Thu, 17 May 2007 20:50:24 +0100, Peter Clinch wrote:

>
> You've missed the point that cycle helmets need to be (a) as light
> and well vented as possible to be comfortable, and (b) as
> protective as possible.


I don't think they need to be b) at all, seeing as cycling is well and
truly safe without them.
 
On 17 May, 13:47, Tony Raven <[email protected]> wrote:
> Mark McNeill wrote on 17/05/2007 12:52 +0100:
>
> > Response to Tony Raven:
> >> The other view point, there is one you know... wrote on 16/05/2007 17:06
> >> +0100:

>
> >> So which nym morph are you then?

>
> > Gravity tells me it's

>
> > From: "The other view point, there is one you know..."
> > <[email protected]>

>
> Ah yes, Dewi, the poster of such gems as:
>
> "Indeed, so let's; test, tax, insure and number plate the cyclists.
> As soon as they are accountable, I'm sure they will conform more."
> <[email protected]>
>
> and
>
> "The risk to the drivers head is not significant to justify wearing a
> helmet, where's as all cyclist should wear a helmet."
> <[email protected]>
>
> Nuff said.
>
> Pretty incompetent nym morpher though to leave his name visible behind
> his new alias. Wonder what woke him up from his not posting here since
> 2005 slumber.
>
> --
> Tony
>
> "The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there
> is no good evidence either way."
> - Bertrand Russell


PC isues, life issues and priorites elsewhere can't take the ID I had
them with me so....

What woke me up really was, the same silly coments still being bandied
around. I'm sure your not to think to understand, you can use
statistics to say whatever you want.
 
On 17 May, 20:43, Peter Clinch <[email protected]> wrote:
> The other view point, there is one you know... wrote:
>
> > And what of the cyclists who flout the rules on the road?

>
> What aboutt them? I have no problem with them being nicked, though
> I imagine it would make sense to take their chances of killing
> people other than themselves into account.
>
> Pete.
> --
> Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
> Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
> Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
> net [email protected] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/


are you in favour then of making cyclists accountable?

By being insured, tested and identifiable?
 
On 17 May, 23:14, _ <[email protected]>
wrote:
> On Thu, 17 May 2007 20:50:24 +0100, Peter Clinch wrote:
>
> > You've missed the point that cycle helmets need to be (a) as light
> > and well vented as possible to be comfortable, and (b) as
> > protective as possible.

>
> I don't think they need to be b) at all, seeing as cycling is well and
> truly safe without them.


tell you what, i'll believe you when organised bike events change
their rules to say, no need to wear a helmet ;-)