Trikki Beltran's bad concussion and his helmet



David Damerell wrote:

> Quoting Steven Bornfeld <[email protected]>:
>
>> Context is everything. Anti-helmet folks using risk compensation seem
>>to say that any perceived protective measure is useless for its intended
>>function--that safety measures in short do not promote safety--that they
>>promote risky behavior.

>
>
> This, specifically, is false. I've mentioned many times to Scharf that the
> only effect of lights actually demonstrated by research is that of "any
> lights" versus "no lights" (not, alas, "battery lights SMS sells^W likes"
> versus "dynamo lights").
>
> Based on the research of the UK's Transport Research Laboratory I am quite
> confident that lights improve overall safety.
>
> I also believe that brakes improve overall safety, although I have no
> definite statistics (but there's nothing wrong with using supposition
> where there _are_ no definite statistics); I think that riding at all with
> no brakes is so dangerous that it simply is not possible to increase speed
> in order to achieve a similar level of danger on a bike with brakes, and
> incredibly difficult to maneuver so as to achieve that level of danger.



I assume you don't race track. ;-)
Seriously, in Brooklyn there are plenty of riders on fixed gears riding
in traffic, though most have a front brake. Of course, most of those
guys are terrific bike handlers.

Steve

--
Mark & Steven Bornfeld DDS
http://www.dentaltwins.com
Brooklyn, NY
718-258-5001
 
Quoting Mark & Steven Bornfeld <[email protected]>:
>David Damerell wrote:
>>I also believe that brakes improve overall safety,

[blah]
>I assume you don't race track. ;-)


As always I am discussing road riding. I don't have an opinion on helmets
for offroad, either.

>Seriously, in Brooklyn there are plenty of riders on fixed gears riding
>in traffic, though most have a front brake.


Waitaminute; a fixed gear's rear wheel is effectively braked. None of
these guys are riding brakeless bikes in the sense I mean it, and someone
with a front brake on a fixie has just as good a set of brakes as I do;
the increased difficulty of rear braking is compensated for by the
extremely high reliability of that system.
--
David Damerell <[email protected]> Distortion Field!
Today is First Monday, August.
 
David Damerell wrote:

> Quoting Mark & Steven Bornfeld <[email protected]>:
>
>>David Damerell wrote:
>>
>>>I also believe that brakes improve overall safety,

>
> [blah]
>
>>I assume you don't race track. ;-)

>
>
> As always I am discussing road riding. I don't have an opinion on helmets
> for offroad, either.
>
>
>>Seriously, in Brooklyn there are plenty of riders on fixed gears riding
>>in traffic, though most have a front brake.

>
>
> Waitaminute; a fixed gear's rear wheel is effectively braked. None of
> these guys are riding brakeless bikes in the sense I mean it, and someone
> with a front brake on a fixie has just as good a set of brakes as I do;
> the increased difficulty of rear braking is compensated for by the
> extremely high reliability of that system.


I don't object if you wish to refer to fixed-gear bikes as "effectively
braked". I would point out that using the legs as brakes takes an
additional skill set. They are also working at a great mechanical
disadvantage (albeit powered by larger muscles) than traditional brakes.
Having watched track riders on the road, there is no doubt in my mind
that most of them are extraordinarily skillful.

Steve

Steve

--
Mark & Steven Bornfeld DDS
http://www.dentaltwins.com
Brooklyn, NY
718-258-5001
 
Quoting Mark & Steven Bornfeld <[email protected]>:
>David Damerell wrote:
>>Waitaminute; a fixed gear's rear wheel is effectively braked.

>I don't object if you wish to refer to fixed-gear bikes as "effectively
>braked". I would point out that using the legs as brakes takes an
>additional skill set.


Which is all well and good, but doesn't really get us any closer to the
point; I think brakes have a net positive effect on safety, and hence your
original assertion is unjustified.
--
David Damerell <[email protected]> Distortion Field!
Today is First Monday, August.
 
David Damerell wrote:

> Quoting Mark & Steven Bornfeld <[email protected]>:
>
>>David Damerell wrote:
>>
>>>Waitaminute; a fixed gear's rear wheel is effectively braked.

>>
>>I don't object if you wish to refer to fixed-gear bikes as "effectively
>>braked". I would point out that using the legs as brakes takes an
>>additional skill set.

>
>
> Which is all well and good, but doesn't really get us any closer to the
> point; I think brakes have a net positive effect on safety, and hence your
> original assertion is unjustified.


I'm finished with this thread. I just want to clear up that I never
claimed brakes had no positive effect on safety. I was making an
inference (justified or not) that those who oppose helmet use based on
risk compensation seemed to be saying that as a consequence (of risk
compensation) that devices intended to improve safety would not
accomplish this goal. This was never my opinion; whether my inference
was unfair or not is another issue.

Steve

--
Mark & Steven Bornfeld DDS
http://www.dentaltwins.com
Brooklyn, NY
718-258-5001
 
This post is solely intended to drive this thread to 1000 posts. Please
pitch in.
 
bryanska wrote:

> This post is solely intended to drive this thread to 1000 posts.
> Please pitch in.


No. I do not believe in your cause.

{pause}

D'OH!
 
[r.b.racing pruned from newsgroups list]

In article <IRx*[email protected]>,
David Damerell <[email protected]> writes:
> Quoting The Wogster <[email protected]>:
>>But think about it for a second, the argument against dynamo lights is
>>their low power (no matter how you look at it, 3Watts at 3V is pretty
>>dim).

>
> [3 Watts "at 3V", eh? It's 6V and not pertinent.]
> Well, there's one way you can look at it where they aren't; from behind
> one with the business end pointed at the road. Focussing is everything; 4
> times the power output doesn't help you when 4/5 the power output is going
> to light up bats, earthworms, and stuff waaay off to the side you couldn't
> hit if you tried.
>
> Seriously. I didn't really believe it either until I tried one.


I just downloaded this little primer on light, optics, photometry, etc.
It looks quite interesting to me. Maybe others can glean something
from it, too:

The Light Measurement Handbook, by Alex Ryer

Available in PDF download at:
http://tinyurl.com/cay8b

(hardcopy version is also orderable from the same page.)


cheers,
Tom

--
-- Nothing is safe from me.
Above address is just a spam midden.
I'm really at: tkeats [curlicue] vcn [point] bc [point] ca
 
Mark & Steven Bornfeld wrote:
>
>
> I'm finished with this thread. I just want to clear up that I never
> claimed brakes had no positive effect on safety. I was making an
> inference (justified or not) that those who oppose helmet use based on
> risk compensation seemed to be saying that as a consequence (of risk
> compensation) that devices intended to improve safety would not
> accomplish this goal. This was never my opinion; whether my inference
> was unfair or not is another issue.


It's been clearly explained that your "inference" was a mistake.

If you don't understand your mistake, we can try to explain it again -
but I believe the explanations were quite clear.

- Frank Krygowski
 
I submit that on or about Fri, 19 Aug 2005 19:29:07 GMT, the person
known to the court as Steven Bornfeld
<[email protected]> made a statement
(<[email protected]> in Your Honour's bundle) to the
following effect:

>> Risk compensation is real, and denying it is vacuous.


> No one is denying it. I am denying that safety measures are fruitless.
> I think it was Guy who suggested that road signs be removed in order
>to make vehicular traffic safer.


There are two separate ideas there.

The first is that safety improvements are fruitless. That is not
quite what I'm saying; what I pointed out was that in 1938, Smeed
noticed an inverse-square relationship between road casualties and
motor vehicle ownership. He found it applied across 20 countries for
which he had good data. It was always an empirical formula. What
Adams notes is that despite all the time, effort, ingenuity and money
spent on road safety interventions over the years, it's actually quite
hard to prove any improvement over and above what the Smeed law
predicts - which indicates that some at least of the safety benefit is
being consumed in other ways. We all know this: modern cars
accelerate faster, corner faster, brake better in the wet - and we use
these features to get away quicker, go round corners faster and brake
later than we used to, so we get to the end point quicker - or at
least we would if we hadn't compensated for /that/ advance by choosing
to live further from work!

http://www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/~jadams/PDFs/smeed's law.pdf discusses
this (and there's more from Adams at
http://www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/~jadams/publish.htm)

The second point is that removing road signs, in line with Hans
Monderman's "naked streets" ideas, might make the roads safer.
Actually I suspect that some or all of the improvements in safety
which have been yielded by these experiments would regress to the mean
after a few years, or rather, that the overall levels of casualties
would return to previous levels, but I'd be surprised if the
severities would be as great, and I'd also be surprised if the balance
didn't shift (right now we have a lot of highway engineers making
changes which improve safety for those who are already safest at the
expense of their victims; I don't know whether the so-called "naked
streets" initiatives will reverse this at all). But even if that
happens, even if the roads end up after a few years no safer than they
were before, the end result is vastly more pleasant aesthetically, and
vastly more humanised.

Here's a comparatively limited scheme, in Kensington High Street in
the City of London:
http://www.rbkc.gov.uk/EnvironmentalServices/general/hsk_beforeafter.asp

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

85% of helmet statistics are made up, 69% of them at CHS, Puget Sound
 
Mark & Steven Bornfeld wrote:


> I was making an
> inference (justified or not) that those who oppose helmet use based on
> risk compensation seemed to be saying that as a consequence (of risk
> compensation) that devices intended to improve safety would not
> accomplish this goal. This was never my opinion; whether my inference
> was unfair or not is another issue.
>
> Steve
>


Yesterday I took my kids, and two nieces bicycling in Monterey. I
realized that I had packed everything, except my own helmet. I didn't
know what to do. I thought about those people who are just positive that
risk compensation would rear its ugly head and I was terrified that I
would suddenly begin riding at 2 mph and would have to pull over every
time a car or bicycle approached from the front or rear.

Amazingly, I found that I did not ride any differently with or without a
helmet. I still raced down the downhill sections at 40 mph, I almost had
a squirrel emded itself in my spokes which might have caused a fall
beyond my own control, but fortuntately it mad it across the road a
split second before my wheel.

I finally realized that the problem was _not_ that I suddenly was riding
more carefully because of no helmet, but that I had been riding too
carefully when I actually did have a helmet. I should be riding much
more dangerously when I wear a helmet, because otherwise the whole
theory of bicycle helmets and risk compensation goes out the window.
 
Just zis Guy, you know? wrote:

> I submit that on or about Fri, 19 Aug 2005 19:29:07 GMT, the person
> known to the court as Steven Bornfeld
> <[email protected]> made a statement
> (<[email protected]> in Your Honour's bundle) to the
> following effect:
>
>
>>>Risk compensation is real, and denying it is vacuous.

>
>
>> No one is denying it. I am denying that safety measures are fruitless.
>> I think it was Guy who suggested that road signs be removed in order
>>to make vehicular traffic safer.

>
>
> There are two separate ideas there.
>
> The first is that safety improvements are fruitless. That is not
> quite what I'm saying; what I pointed out was that in 1938, Smeed
> noticed an inverse-square relationship between road casualties and
> motor vehicle ownership. He found it applied across 20 countries for
> which he had good data. It was always an empirical formula. What
> Adams notes is that despite all the time, effort, ingenuity and money
> spent on road safety interventions over the years, it's actually quite
> hard to prove any improvement over and above what the Smeed law
> predicts - which indicates that some at least of the safety benefit is
> being consumed in other ways. We all know this: modern cars
> accelerate faster, corner faster, brake better in the wet - and we use
> these features to get away quicker, go round corners faster and brake
> later than we used to, so we get to the end point quicker - or at
> least we would if we hadn't compensated for /that/ advance by choosing
> to live further from work!
>
> http://www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/~jadams/PDFs/smeed's law.pdf discusses
> this (and there's more from Adams at
> http://www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/~jadams/publish.htm)
>
> The second point is that removing road signs, in line with Hans
> Monderman's "naked streets" ideas, might make the roads safer.
> Actually I suspect that some or all of the improvements in safety
> which have been yielded by these experiments would regress to the mean
> after a few years, or rather, that the overall levels of casualties
> would return to previous levels, but I'd be surprised if the
> severities would be as great, and I'd also be surprised if the balance
> didn't shift (right now we have a lot of highway engineers making
> changes which improve safety for those who are already safest at the
> expense of their victims; I don't know whether the so-called "naked
> streets" initiatives will reverse this at all). But even if that
> happens, even if the roads end up after a few years no safer than they
> were before, the end result is vastly more pleasant aesthetically, and
> vastly more humanised.
>
> Here's a comparatively limited scheme, in Kensington High Street in
> the City of London:
> http://www.rbkc.gov.uk/EnvironmentalServices/general/hsk_beforeafter.asp
>
> Guy


Where is the traffic? ;-)

Steve

--
Mark & Steven Bornfeld DDS
http://www.dentaltwins.com
Brooklyn, NY
718-258-5001
 
Just zis Guy, you know? wrote:

> Incredible, isn't it? People should be grateful for your taking time
> out of your busy schedule to tell them their experience counts for
> nothing, their judgment is worthless and their assessment of the
> benefits of different types of system is necessarily wrong!


I don't care about the grateful part, but unfortunately you are often
correct about your next three statements. It's sometimes very difficult
for a person to get beyond, 'I do it this way, I've always done it this
way, I haven't experienced any negative consequences doing it this way,
so my way is obviously a good way.' Being lucky does not mean being
smart, it just means being lucky. It reminds me of the stupid bumper
sticker, "God said it. I believe it. That settles it."

As far as the relative merits of the different kinds of lights, I am
certainly not alone, among lighting experts, in stating the safety
benefits of the higher brightness lights, while recognizing the
self-sufficiency and convenience aspects of of dynamo systems (I do own
some dynamo systems).

The "Myths and Facts" section at "http://nordicgroup.us/s78/myths.html"
is probably the best place for you to start your quest for knowledge,
once you decide to open your mind.

"With vastly more light available, night bicycling is qualitatively far
safer. The road can be lit both further ahead and, even more important,
far more brightly to the sides of the bicycle." Marty Goodman, Writing
about the CatEye's Stadium Bicycle Light, in History of Electric
Lighting Technology

"For commuters, the best front light is the very bright rechargeable
lamp." Ken Kifer, Ken Kifer's Bike Pages
 
On Tue, 23 Aug 2005 16:57:53 GMT, Mark & Steven Bornfeld
<[email protected]> wrote:

> I'm finished with this thread.


Good. I hope for your own sake you keep reading it though.

JT

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John Forrest Tomlinson wrote:
> On Tue, 23 Aug 2005 16:57:53 GMT, Mark & Steven Bornfeld
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>> I'm finished with this thread.

>
>
> Good. I hope for your own sake you keep reading it though.
>
> JT


You're a good guy, John. Trust me on this one--continuing to read this
post will NOT be good for my health.

Steve

>
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> Visit http://www.jt10000.com
> ****************************



--
Cut the nonsense to reply
 
"bryanska" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> This post is solely intended to drive this thread to 1000

posts. Please
> pitch in.


I'm in. So, how does this compare to "Sheldon is a Party Doll."
Attention Carl Fogel -- you have a research assignment. Which
thread is longer? -- Jay Beattie.
 
"(PeteCresswell)" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Per Tom Kunich:
>>I even
>>had Dr. Shively, the DEAN of helmets as past director of the Snell
>>Institute
>>admit at the transportation committee in Sacramento that no possible
>>helmet
>>can make a difference in any accident which would normally cause a
>>fatality
>>on a motorcycle.

>
> Maybe I'm misunderstanding what's above. Is that to say that somebody
> claims
> that a motorcycle helmet cannot save somebody's life?


That is to say that accidents in which a motorcyclist is killed from a head
injury alone and in which the head injury therefore sustained could be
mediated by a motorcycle helmet to less than lethal are so rare as to be a
statistical freak. If you read the accident reports and the statistics you
can arrive at no other answer.

Moreover, Dr. Shively, the past director of the Snell Memorial Foundation -
the originator of safety helmet science - said so at a meeting of the
Transportation Committee meeting in Sacramento, CA.

It was widely reported in the media as "Hell's Angels Defeat Helmet Bill".

Then when everyone else had cleared out the fine Senators quietly passed the
helmet bill and bankrupted 2/3rd's of the motorcycle shops in California.
 
On Tue, 23 Aug 2005 21:37:49 +0100, "Just zis Guy, you know?"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>The second point is that removing road signs, in line with Hans
>Monderman's "naked streets" ideas, might make the roads safer.


And after a short time with GPS in the Prius, I have to say that it is
entirely doable in the near future. Don't need the entire map system
display, just a couple of text displays. No problem about reading road
signs at night or worry about missing signs.

Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...
 
On Wed, 24 Aug 2005 05:17:21 -0400, Curtis L. Russell
<[email protected]> wrote:

>On Tue, 23 Aug 2005 21:37:49 +0100, "Just zis Guy, you know?"
><[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>The second point is that removing road signs, in line with Hans
>>Monderman's "naked streets" ideas, might make the roads safer.

>
>And after a short time with GPS in the Prius, I have to say that it is
>entirely doable in the near future. Don't need the entire map system
>display, just a couple of text displays. No problem about reading road
>signs at night or worry about missing signs.


Uhhh, dude, you know there are people who travel w/o cars sometimes --
like walking or even (gasp) on a bike. Are we supposed to carry a GPS
at all times too?

JT

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