Paramount

In article <[email hidden]>,

landotter said:

Tim McNamara said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

landotter said:

Americans, for the most part, ride like [censored]. Not Bernard
Hinault [censored]--that would be pretty baddass, but like Gomer
Fife [censored].

That's frickin' hi-larious! (Although did you mean "Barney Fife"
or "Gomer Pyle?"😉

It's a savory amalgam. ;-)

Well, goll-lee that's quite a limpet pitcher you painted.

Quoted message said:

G.T. said:

Bill Sornson said:

[email hidden] wrote:
> On Jul 4, 11:48 am, "David L. Johnson" <[email hidden]>
> wrote:
>> Johnny Sunset aka Tom Sherman wrote:
>>> head impacts wearing said foam hats. Bicycle helmets are designed to
>>> protect rider's head's in low-speed falls, nothing more.
>> Yeah. Works for that, though. Won't help if you head-on into a Mack
>> truck, despite the claim of "saving lives".
>> --
>> David L. Johnson
>> The lottery is a tax on those who fail to understand mathematics.
> I don't give a hoot if people wear helmets or not. However, I was in
> two bike accidents in which I hit the helmet, and the helmets cracked
> both times and my head was left intact. In one occasion, my head hit a
> car and the helmet cracked in half. I passed out and woke up 4 hours
> later in the emergency room. I got a replacement helmet and a
> certificate that read "saved by the bell".
> The other occasion, my helmet hit the ground and I felt it bouncing up
> and down before sliding on the pavement. On that occasion, my helmet
> saved skin too and it cracked.
> I have no way of knowing the extent of my injuries had I not been
> wearing a helmet. I know that there would have been direct impact w/
> my head and at least, more serious injury could have happened. I
> believe that the injuries would have been likely very serious. so, I
> wear a helmet pretty much all the time.
> OTOH, my brother who is not a cyclist came to visit me this week. On
> 7/04, we went out for a ride and he asked if he could wear my helmet.
> I let him use it and rode w/o a helmet. I have very short hair and
> ended up burning my head under El Paso's 100 degree heat and sun.
> I am one of those that ,while not fanatic about people wearing
> helmets, believe that helmets can save people from much more serious
> injury. This is only from personal experience.
HOW DARE YOU?!??!?

You guys are funny. In the face of overwhelming physics you still cling
to your anecdotes and misconceptions. Do you believe the earth is flat?

Greg
--http://ticketmastersucks.org
Le Petite Dejeuner au Tour de Farce:http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=6131132

What anecdotes and misconceptions are you talking about. I don't
believe in any theory pro or against helmets. I simply can tell you
what happened to me when I fell. I hit something with my head very
hard, but thank budah, there was a helmet.
betwwen my head and the other hard surface.

And what are your reasons to think that a thin piece of styrofoam did
anything but prevent superficial cuts and abrasions? You don't really
think that styrofoam prevented brain injury, do you?

Greg
--
http://ticketmastersucks.org

Le Petite Dejeuner au Tour de Farce:
http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=6131132

email hidden said:

I don't give a hoot if people wear helmets or not. However, I was in
two bike accidents in which I hit the helmet, and the helmets cracked
both times and my head was left intact. In one occasion, my head hit a
car and the helmet cracked in half. I passed out and woke up 4 hours
later in the emergency room. I got a replacement helmet and a
certificate that read "saved by the bell".

The other occasion, my helmet hit the ground and I felt it bouncing up
and down before sliding on the pavement. On that occasion, my helmet
saved skin too and it cracked.

I crashed into a tree the first time I went cross-country skiing and
hit my knee. I was wearing lycra tights over long underwear and both
were ripped. I ended up needing stitches and probably if I wasn't
wearing those clothes I would have broken my kneecap or leg.
--
JT
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Quoted message said:

Probably true - although calling bike helmets a "cultural expectation"
hides much. It's really a mass delusion caused by a concerted,
organized, and well-funded campaign to fool the public and
legislatures, with the ultimate goal of selling a high-profit
product.

They are also tools of anti-cyclists. In a community meeting in my
city some people were complaining about cyclists riding illegally on
sidewalks (which is a legitimate complaint) and some of the
anti-cyclists threw into the argument "they don't even wear helmets!"
So what.

Same thing came up in complaints about "excessive" numbers of cyclists
in a town near me.
--
JT
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Mark Shroyer said:

John Forrest Tomlinson said:

First, do you actually know the odds or have good information on them,
or are you speculating?

Estimation based on observation of my environment. So yes, I
know the odds, I just don't have them pegged down to very many
significant digits.

OK, but there have been links posted here that give a much better
sense of the odds than your limited observation. You should look at
them, and, if you're willing to think rationally, place far more
reliance on them than on your experience, unless there is some aspect
of your life that is decidedly atypical.

Quoted message said:

I don't know about you, but where I'm from the risk of ending up
in an uncontrolled fall to the pavement is actually
significantly greater on my bicycle than when I'm on foot. This
is the conclusion I have reached after years of experience with
local drivers, after the accidents that my friends have been in,
and after several near misses I've had myself.

I think you're way off, particular if you consider stairs.

Quoted message said:

And I don't particularly care whether anyone thinks
I'm "anti-cycling" for admitting that I face greater risks as a
cyclist on the road than as a pedestrian at my destination.

People who are anti-cycling are, in general, [censored].

--
JT
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Tim McNamara said:

Motor vehicle accidents cause far more traumatic brain injuries than
bicycling. Falls cause more traumatic brain injuries than bicycling.
Gunshot wounds cause more traumatic brain injuries than bicycling.
Assaults cause more traumatic brain injuries than bicycling. Why single
out bicycles?

The answer is that the bicycle helmet industry has made a lot of money
scaring people into wearing helmets because cycling is "so dangerous."
And people believe the marketing which include the utterly specious
claim that wearing a styrofoam hat will reduce brain injuries by 85%.

Yeah. And there's more to it than that. I started cycling a lot as a
teenager and didn't wear a helmet at first. But I saw people on
organized bike tours near where I spent each summer wearing them. I
associated helmets with serious cyclists. Same thing with racers --
racers and long-distance tourists wore helmets and to me wearing one
was a sign of taking the sport seriously, even before I started
racing.

It's a badge to demonstrate that we know what we're doing and/or are
on an adventure and/or care more about being safe than the next guy.

On Fri, 06 Jul 2007 11:26:25 -0500, A Muzi <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Helmet usage is also driven by a strong social in-group/ out-group
effect. "We" wear helmets, "You" are unsafe / unsocialized/ not of our kind.

Exactly.
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On Fri, 06 Jul 2007 11:26:25 -0500, A Muzi <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Helmet usage is also driven by a strong social in-group/ out-group
effect. "We" wear helmets, "You" are unsafe / unsocialized/ not of our kind.

One other thing about this.

It's interesting that, as a bike racer who sometimes doesn't wear a
helmet, I get told off for "trying to look like a europro" when in
fact in most of the US, a high-end helmet is a sign of bike racing and
serious cycling.

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On Sat, 7 Jul 2007 00:29:46 +0930, Michael Warner <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

In Australia (as in the US) your public health system spends FAR more
to treat and rehabilitate people who wouldn't need treatment if they
cycled more.

True, but irrelevant. They also wouldn't need as much treatment if they
walked around the block every day.

If they walked next to the road they would have a small chance of
being hit by cars or of falling.
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John Forrest Tomlinson said:

email hidden said:

I don't give a hoot if people wear helmets or not. However, I was in
two bike accidents in which I hit the helmet, and the helmets cracked
both times and my head was left intact. In one occasion, my head hit a
car and the helmet cracked in half. I passed out and woke up 4 hours
later in the emergency room. I got a replacement helmet and a
certificate that read "saved by the bell".

The other occasion, my helmet hit the ground and I felt it bouncing up
and down before sliding on the pavement. On that occasion, my helmet
saved skin too and it cracked.

I crashed into a tree the first time I went cross-country skiing and
hit my knee. I was wearing lycra tights over long underwear and both
were ripped. I ended up needing stitches and probably if I wasn't
wearing those clothes I would have broken my kneecap or leg.

Actually if you hadn't been wearing lycra and long underwear then you'd
be wearing diapers now.

Greg

--
http://ticketmastersucks.org

Le Petite Dejeuner au Tour de Farce:
http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=6131132

On Fri, 6 Jul 2007 08:26:07 -0700, "Bill Sornson" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I am one of those that ,while not fanatic about people wearing
helmets, believe that helmets can save people from much more serious
injury. This is only from personal experience.

HOW DARE YOU?!??!?

As I pointed out to you many times, there is nothing wrong with using
personal experience or even hunches to make decisions. We all do it.
We have to do it. We don't have perfect or better information about
many things in life.

Nothing wrong with that.

What is wrong is, when faced with much stronger information we
disregard it and simply say our experience overrides. *Maybe* in some
cases that's OK, but if we are being rational we'd better have a
really good reason why our situation is such that the better
information does not apply to use.

--
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Tim McNamara said:

No, the argument for taking it personally is people yelling at me "Hey!
Where's your helmet?" on rides that I don't wear one. Many people
already seem to think that it's a law.

Sadly it is a law in many places in the US, and I think that is
expanding.

--
JT
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Quoted message said:

Bill Sornson said:

Quoted message said:

On Jul 6, 11:41 am, "Bill Sornson" <[email hidden]> wrote:
> [email hidden] trolled:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

>> Oh, and feel free to look up the number of pedestrian fatalities
>> in the US each year, and compare them to the number of bike
>> fatalities.

{NO MENTION OF PER-HOUR RATES OR COMPARISONS}

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

> Suddenly Frank /doesn't/ consider total population factors. LOL

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I'm taking this step by step, Bill. And in any case, I provided
per- hour figures, which you seem to have somehow missed.

Quoted message said:

Perhaps there is somebody in your neighborhood who can explain the
term "Per hour" to you. Ask around.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

The above quote attributed to you is accurate, Frank. You didn't
qualify it.

Quoted message said:

You really _don't_ understand "per hour," do you? ;-) Let me explain
slowly.

Yawn. You posted a bunch of Australian stuff (IIRC), then asked the
self-contained question-as-a-suggestion above.

HTH!

Frank "annoyances per hour greatly increased since you returned to Usenet"
S.

G.T. said:

Bill Sornson said:

Quoted message said:

On Jul 4, 11:48 am, "David L. Johnson" <[email hidden]>
wrote:
> Johnny Sunset aka Tom Sherman wrote:
>
>> head impacts wearing said foam hats. Bicycle helmets are designed
>> to protect rider's head's in low-speed falls, nothing more.
> Yeah. Works for that, though. Won't help if you head-on into a
> Mack truck, despite the claim of "saving lives".
>
> --
>
> David L. Johnson
>
> The lottery is a tax on those who fail to understand mathematics.
I don't give a hoot if people wear helmets or not. However, I was in
two bike accidents in which I hit the helmet, and the helmets
cracked both times and my head was left intact. In one occasion, my
head hit a car and the helmet cracked in half. I passed out and
woke up 4 hours later in the emergency room. I got a replacement
helmet and a certificate that read "saved by the bell".

The other occasion, my helmet hit the ground and I felt it bouncing
up and down before sliding on the pavement. On that occasion, my
helmet saved skin too and it cracked.

I have no way of knowing the extent of my injuries had I not been
wearing a helmet. I know that there would have been direct impact w/
my head and at least, more serious injury could have happened. I
believe that the injuries would have been likely very serious. so, I
wear a helmet pretty much all the time.

OTOH, my brother who is not a cyclist came to visit me this week. On
7/04, we went out for a ride and he asked if he could wear my
helmet. I let him use it and rode w/o a helmet. I have very short
hair and ended up burning my head under El Paso's 100 degree heat
and sun. I am one of those that ,while not fanatic about people wearing
helmets, believe that helmets can save people from much more serious
injury. This is only from personal experience.

HOW DARE YOU?!??!?

You guys are funny. In the face of overwhelming physics you still
cling to your anecdotes and misconceptions. Do you believe the earth
is flat?

His opinion is a misconception? You have him confused with Al Gore! LOL
(They just found evidence of life-forms in Greenland -- under more than a
mile of ice, mind you -- that could /only/ have existed if the earth was
WARMER THAN IT IS TODAY. I realize you won't choose to consider the
ramifications of that, but there ya go.)

Bill "the earth is COOLING; doomsday is coming" S.

Quoted message said:

Greg

In article
<[email hidden]>,

Tim McNamara said:

In article <[email hidden]>,
Mark Shroyer <[email hidden]> wrote:
It's an anecdote, which is different from data. Anecdotes are subject
to all kinds of erroneous conclusions, unfortunately.

Quoted message said:

One other argument I'd like to attack, which I keep seeing pop up in
this and similar threads, is that helmets aren't rated for 30 MPH
collision, ergo if you're riding at 30 MPH then wearing a helmet
won't do you any good. Bull$hit. If you're clipped and fall off
your bike, the speed at which you hit the ground is mostly a function
of the acceleration of gravity from your position on top of your bike
down to the pavement, regardless of your horizontal velocity.

Perhaps you need to look into this further. The most balanced
discussion I know of is at http://www.cyclehelmets.org

An often overlooked weakness of anecdotal evidence
is that the same incident can be reported by different parties
and taken for two different incidents.

--
Michael Press

Michael Press said:

In article
<[email hidden]

Quoted message said:

,

Mark Shroyer said:

I don't understand the vehemence of the anti-helmet fanatics in
this thread.

There is no such thing as an ` anti-helmet fanatics'.

[censored]. One Mister Flailor comes to mind, among others.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Nobody

Quoted message said:

Yes, they are.

Name one. Just one.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

(at least nobody here) is telling you that
you should wear a helmet if you don't want to;
likewise, if the
rest of us prefer having some degree of protection, however
minimal, between our heads and the road, then you really
shouldn't take it personally.

Oh, but they do.

Bill Sornson said:

His opinion is a misconception? You have him confused with Al Gore! LOL
(They just found evidence of life-forms in Greenland -- under more than a
mile of ice, mind you -- that could /only/ have existed if the earth was
WARMER THAN IT IS TODAY. I realize you won't choose to consider the
ramifications of that, but there ya go.)

You say that like that's something new. No one denies that the earth
has been warmer in the past. If Gore doesn't believe that then he's an
idiot.

Greg
--
http://ticketmastersucks.org

Le Petite Dejeuner au Tour de Farce:
http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=6131132

In article <[email hidden]>,

Michael Press said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Tim McNamara said:

In article
<[email hidden]>,
Mark Shroyer <[email hidden]> wrote:
It's an anecdote, which is different from data. Anecdotes are
subject to all kinds of erroneous conclusions, unfortunately.

Quoted message said:

One other argument I'd like to attack, which I keep seeing pop up
in this and similar threads, is that helmets aren't rated for 30
MPH collision, ergo if you're riding at 30 MPH then wearing a
helmet won't do you any good. Bull$hit. If you're clipped and
fall off your bike, the speed at which you hit the ground is
mostly a function of the acceleration of gravity from your
position on top of your bike down to the pavement, regardless of
your horizontal velocity.

Perhaps you need to look into this further. The most balanced
discussion I know of is at http://www.cyclehelmets.org

An often overlooked weakness of anecdotal evidence is that the same
incident can be reported by different parties and taken for two
different incidents.

Another is that anecdotes are interpretations about events. Bike rider
guy gets hit by a car and taken to the ER where he dies. Did he die
from the concussion or from the sucking chest wound, punctured lung
ruptured spleen and kidney contusions? Depending on the focus of the
person describing the event, you get different answers. "Yeah, the dude
wasn't wearing a helmet and he died." Causality is assumed but not
necessarily correctly.

G.T. said:

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

Quoted message said:

I don't understand the vehemence of the anti-helmet fanatics in
this thread. Nobody (at least nobody here) is telling you that
you should wear a helmet if you don't want to; likewise, if the
rest of us prefer having some degree of protection, however
minimal, between our heads and the road, then you really
shouldn't take it personally.

Operative word being "minimal". If you are worried about scratches or even
wounds requiring stitches than by all means wear a helmet. But it's
laughable to expect a thin styrofoam helmet to protect your brain from
serious injury.

MY MAGIC FOAM HAT [TM] SAVED ME FROM A MINOR ABRASION AND TEMPORARY
DISCOMFORT WHEN I BUMPED MY HEAD AGAINST THE OPEN HATCH OF A STATION WAGON!

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
The weather is here, wish you were beautiful

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

Bill Sornson said:

Quoted message said:

Bill Sornson said:

[email hidden] wrote:
> On Jul 6, 11:41 am, "Bill Sornson" <[email hidden]> wrote:
>> [email hidden] trolled:
>>> Oh, and feel free to look up the number of pedestrian fatalities
>>> in the US each year, and compare them to the number of bike
>>> fatalities.

{NO MENTION OF PER-HOUR RATES OR COMPARISONS}

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

>> Suddenly Frank /doesn't/ consider total population factors. LOL
> I'm taking this step by step, Bill. And in any case, I provided
> per- hour figures, which you seem to have somehow missed.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

> Perhaps there is somebody in your neighborhood who can explain the
> term "Per hour" to you. Ask around.
The above quote attributed to you is accurate, Frank. You didn't
qualify it.

You really _don't_ understand "per hour," do you? ;-) Let me explain
slowly.

Yawn. You posted a bunch of Australian stuff (IIRC), then asked the
self-contained question-as-a-suggestion above.

HTH!

Frank "annoyances per hour greatly increased since you returned to Usenet"
S.

Yep, Frank "I wuz a Perfessur" Krygowski is back. And he's the same
helmet-obsessed, arrogant, condescending, self-inflated gasbag and all-
around [censored] as always! :-((

Tim McNamara said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

landotter said:

Fred Clydesdale said:

In article <[email hidden]>,
John Forrest Tomlinson <[email hidden]> wrote:

> On Wed, 04 Jul 2007 22:26:17 -0700, [email hidden] wrote:
>> I've "used" 3 helmets- and certainly if I wasn't wearing one "I"
>> would not be here now.
> I don't know the circumstance of your accidents, but in every
> case I've heard where someone said something like that it's
> turned out that they are very mistaken and irrational about
> helmet use.
> It's amazing that you have three times you had accidents that
> were severe enough to have been deadly and yet were not so severe
> as to overwhelm those small pieces of foam or break your neck or
> other body parts in crippling or deadly ways. Or perhaps you are
> crippled or severely injured in other ways?
wasn't there a paramount in here just a second ago?

Theft on Usenet is worse than NYC.

back to the subject at hand: Anyone commuting without a chain mail
vest is a thorax hater!!!!

Mine's mithril. Lighter and breathes better than iron or steel.

Mithril is stiffer than steel, yet is more compliant.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
The weather is here, wish you were beautiful

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com