Re: The antidote

[Clive.]

In message <[email protected]>, Brimstone
<[email protected]> writes
>How many of them were riding bikes before helmet wearing was made
>compulsory?
Back in 64/65 I was hit by a car on my left had side, I don't know if
helmets were compulsory then or no, but I remember the damage my helmet
sustained and am aware that if it were my skull then my skull would have
been rubbed away and my brains over the road. Needless to say I always
wore a helmet after that, apart from riding from a lockup car park over
the pavement to the side of the road whilst bus driving in Bristol,
being seen by the fuzz and getting 3 points and a fine, (74ish)
--
Clive.

 

[Peter Clinch]

Steve Firth wrote:
> Tony Raven <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> or has no understanding of the basics of statistics and epidemiology
>
> Checks CV.
>
> No, you're wrong. Definitely and explicitly wrong in this instance.

Merely no understanding of his CV, in that case. Yup, Bozo Bin it is.

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/

 

[Steve Firth]

Peter Clinch <[email protected]> wrote:

> Yup, Bozo Bin it is.

Ah, I see you fail the basic intelligence test, you ride a recumbent
bike.

 

[Alex Potter]

On Fri, 12 Oct 2007 19:07:00 +0100, John Wright wrote:

> That was a long time ago now - sufficiently long ago that I suspect
> there aren't many people around now who were riding bikes then. But ISTR
> that helmet wearing was quite common even in those dim and distant days.

When I was a small boy in the early 1950s, I rode pillion for many miles
on my cousin's Lambretta. I was ferried between both choir practise and
church, similarly seated on a Vespa. I never wore a helmet, nor did any
adult consider it odd that I should do so.

I was also privileged to ride with some biker chaps from Walsall in the
late 1960s, both seated pillion and on a flatbed sidecar, again without a
lid. As I recall, there were then a larger number of helmet wearers than
before, which gradually increased and reached a majority before
compulsion.

When I rode a motorcycle in the 1970s, I wore a helmet, and felt naked if
riding without it, for "common sense" rather than well-researched reasons.
I would have worn it without compulsion, as by then I had others than
myself to consider, and I thought that it would do no harm and might do
some good if I fell off, as I did occasionally.

I've ridden a bike since I could turn pedals. I've had 2 incidents while
cycling that resulted in injury to me or the bike, neither of them serious
or involving my head. In the first, something strange[1] happened to the
steering on a borrowed bike and I crashed into a lamp post and flew off.
Cuts and bruises. In the second, a dog ran out of a farm gate[2], saw me
and ran at my front wheel, grinning all the while, as I was travelling
fast downhill. Cuts and bruises. Wrecked front wheel[3].

In my view bicycling on roads is a perfectly ordinary, safe activity
requiring no special equipment, with the possible exception of gloves[4].
I suspect that the same mechanism as that currently proposed in relation
to cycle helmets was used to support the eventual compulsory wearing of
helmets by motorcyclists.

I do wish cyclists wouldn't wear helmets; I really do not want to be
compelled to wear one.

Regards
Alex

[1] Age 8 or thereabouts. The stem was loose, and came out before the
crash. No spanners in the saddlebag. Long Walk.

[2] I knew the farm. There were no dogs. Bloody townies.

[3] Replaced at the expense of the dog owner.

[4] Saved my hands from road rash a few times.

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