What advice to give - WARNING: contains helmets

[Tony Raven]

Just zis Guy, you know? wrote:
> But I
> don't think there was any chance whatsoever that anybody in the target
> audience of MPs and cycle activists would read it that way.
>

Except Mr Martlew.

Tony

 

[Not Responding]

JohnB wrote:
> Simon Brooke wrote:
>
>
>>I think what you have to be very careful of is implying there's any
>>safety benefit from wearing a helmet. I would try
>>
>> "You will also need to consider whether you wish your child to wear a
>> helmet during training..."
>>
>>'insisting' has some implication that this is a good or recommended
>>thing to do.
>
>
> As an instructor you may find that it is the policy of the 'client' not
> the rider - particularly if that 'client' is a school.
> In such cases you need to accept that policy to enable training to continue.
>
> John B
> http://www.hampshirecycletraining.org.uk/

From that site's FAQ

"We advise children to wear a properly fitted cycle helmet but emphasise
that while they may prevent injury from falls and knocks, the most
important aspect of cycling safely depends upon the riders’ own skills,
awareness and anticipation techniques.
It is an adult’s choice as to whether or not they wear a helmet."

Sounds remarkably sane.

 

[Just zis Guy, you know?]

On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 08:42:20 +0000, David Hansen
<[email protected]> wrote in message
<[email protected]>:

>When I was their age I remember a metal set of climbing bars about
>4m high, which gave a good view over the wall to the railway line.
>Boys and girls enjoyed climbing up these and hanging upside down,
>which caused the girl's skirts to cover their faces. The same when
>they did handstands against the fence. The occasional tears and
>blood were dealt with by a cuddle and antiseptic if necessary. I
>don't think adults or children suffered from this, but now all sorts
>of people would be rushing in to "save" us.

Abso-bleedin-lutely.

As the handwringers trot out their fictitious "88% of brain injuries"
statistic, they never make the point that almost all those "brain
injuries" are actually concussions. Hands up anyone who reached the
age of 21 without at least one headache caused by a bang on the head?
These are the brain injuries of which the handwringers speak, and
almost all have no lasting consequence beyond increased wisdom.

It's quite possible that the supposedly high incidence of such
injuries when cycling is nothing more than an effect of parents never
allowing their children to experience risk, so when they are finally
let off the leash in their early teens they lack the skills to assess
and respond to it.


Guy
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

"To every complex problem there is a solution which is
simple, neat and wrong" - HL Mencken

 

[Colin McKenzie]

Tilly wrote:

> On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 21:18:36 +0000, Colin McKenzie
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>4 tumbles sounds rather a lot for one course. How many trainers, how
>>many children, were they particularly ill-disciplined?
> It was a pilot course. 4 children 2 new instructors. During Level 1B
> drill - looking behind without wobbling - one tumble. During a game,
> keeping bike in a reducing area without colliding, a collision
> involving 2 tumbles. Practicing snaking in the playground, 1 tumble.

Fairy'nuff, then. Dodge is fun, but can cause a few falls. Not a
reason to ban it. Nowadays we don't often have time to play it.

Colin McKenzie

 

[JohnB]

Not Responding wrote:

> > http://www.hampshirecycletraining.org.uk/
>
> From that site's FAQ
>
> "We advise children to wear a properly fitted cycle helmet but emphasise
> that while they may prevent injury from falls and knocks, the most
> important aspect of cycling safely depends upon the riders’ own skills,
> awareness and anticipation techniques.
> It is an adult’s choice as to whether or not they wear a helmet."
>
> Sounds remarkably sane.

Thank you
I took a lot of care on writing that.

The policy works well.

John B

 

[Jon Senior]

Tony Raven wrote:
> Except Mr Martlew.

See Guy's earlier comment about eligibility to vote! ;-)

Jon

 

[Tilly]

On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 09:11:45 +0000, "Just zis Guy, you know?"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>BeHIT claimed the statement that it takes over 3,000 years of average
>cycling to suffer a serious injury to the head would be widely
>misunderstood to mean that there was no possibility of suffering a
>head injury unless you lived to be 3,000 years old- and ASA agreed!
>Not with the figure, but with the wording. What is really scary is
>that out there you could probably find one or two people who would
>read it that way, and they are probably still allowed to vote. But I
>don't think there was any chance whatsoever that anybody in the target
>audience of MPs and cycle activists would read it that way.

I have to agree with BeHIT. The 3,000 year statement is entirely
unhelpful.

What is average cycling? The average cycling of the average cyclist
or the average cycling of the average person or cycling in an average
way by an average cyclist or cycling in an average way by an average
person?

How about:

The average life expectancy of a cyclist is [2]* years longer than the
normal.

The average life expectancy of non-helmet wearing cyclists is not
noticeably different from helmet wearing cyclists.

*or whatever figure is correct

 

[Just zis Guy, you know?]

On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 11:27:30 +0000, Tilly <[email protected]>
wrote in message <[email protected]>:

>I have to agree with BeHIT. The 3,000 year statement is entirely
>unhelpful.

But is it likely to be misunderstood in the way they claim, by an
audience of people used to looking at social statistics? That was
their claim. There was no dispute about the figure itself.

This is different form the life-expectancy thing. It allows me to
form a judgment: in (say) forty years of average cycling, I therefore
have a one in 75 chance of suffering a "serious head injury" (i.e. one
sufficient to require a doctor to look at it). What is unhelpful
about being able to make that calculation?

Looking at it, the stats would be better off without me as I've
already suffered two serious head injuries in only about 25 years of
cycling. I am fairly sure that one of these has cost me about £2000
and the derision of some of my clubmates: I do not like riding
drop-bar bikes fast downhill any more.

According to BeHIT, of course, the fact that I've suffered a serious
head injury means I now have to be fed with a spoon. The effect seems
to be somewhat delayed in my case. On the other hand, one of those
serious head injuries is clearly a figment of my imagination as I was
wearing a helmet at the time.

I think the most serious head injury I suffered was from an assault in
a children's playground, and the next worst was caused by hitting my
head on a low doorway in an old mill building. My quality of life is
degraded to a far greater extent by work stress and the tinnitus which
is a result of loud music and working in a room with a bandsaw bolted
to the floor above than it is by any of my cycling crashes.


Guy
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

"To every complex problem there is a solution which is
simple, neat and wrong" - HL Mencken

 

[Tilly]

On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 10:15:18 +0000, Colin McKenzie
<[email protected]> wrote:

>Fairy'nuff, then. Dodge is fun, but can cause a few falls. Not a
>reason to ban it. Nowadays we don't often have time to play it.

By its very definition, there will only be one child who rides without
making a mistake.

As I propose to point out in my revised letter to parents, falls are
much more likely in the playground where cycling skills are being
challenged.

 

[Chris Malcolm]

"dkahn400" <[email protected]> writes:

>Peter Fox wrote:

>> You shouldn't have anybody doing their own thing - the playground
>> is a classroom not a playground (if you see what I mean.)

>Tee hee. Reminds me of a wonderful line from Dr. Strangelove when a
>scandalised President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers) admonishes
>Ambassador de Sadesky (Peter Bull) and General Buck Turgidson (George
>C. Scott) with, "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the War
>Room!"

Or as an uncomfortable US general once told a room full of sceptical
anti-war robotics researchers, "The battlefield is a very dangerous
place. The whole point of using robots there is to minimise
bloodshed."
--
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/]

 

[Chris Malcolm]

Tilly <[email protected]> writes:

>On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 21:33:07 +0000, David Hansen
><[email protected]> wrote:

>>On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 18:25:24 +0000 someone who may be Tilly
>><[email protected]> wrote this:-
>>
>>>It's classed as safety equipment. Goggles for metalwork, overalls for
>>>chemistry, helmets for cycling...
>>
>>Incorrect. Cycle helmets are specifically not safety equipment (PPE)
>>according to the HSE.

>Even so, I will oppose any move to make helmet wearing compulsory. If
>a child has a fall and injury is blamed on helmet use, the school
>could be liable if helmet use was compulsory.

The above argument can be made logical by inserting a "not" or two in
various places.
--
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/]

 

[JLB]

Just zis Guy, you know? wrote:
[snip]
> BeHIT claimed the statement that it takes over 3,000 years of average
> cycling to suffer a serious injury to the head would be widely
> misunderstood to mean that there was no possibility of suffering a
> head injury unless you lived to be 3,000 years old- and ASA agreed!
> Not with the figure, but with the wording. What is really scary is
> that out there you could probably find one or two people who would
> read it that way, and they are probably still allowed to vote. But I
> don't think there was any chance whatsoever that anybody in the target
> audience of MPs and cycle activists would read it that way.
[snip]

This comes up frequently in presenting quantified risk assessments. For
example, offshore installations must be law have a safety case that
includes some QRA about the chance of various things going wrong. In a
safety case the probability of someone being killed while working there
could be presented in the same way as the above, but it never is. The
risk is stated in the form of an individual risk of fatality of (say)
3.33 x 10^-4 / year.

This is better in the sense that it expresses the total risk from that
source in one year to one individual. That's a realistic length of time
for one person. 3000 years is not. The problem is it seems that a large
part of the population of this country is so innumerate that a number
like 3.33 x 10^-4 is completely meaningless.

Given that level of ignorance I don't think there is any wholly
satisfactory way of presenting the information so that people can
develop even the beginnings of an understanding of risk. Without that,
all you can expect are irrational emotional reactions to perceptions.

I still don't have sympathy for the BeHIT / ASA line, which appears to
be in support of ignorance.

--
Joe * If I cannot be free I'll be cheap

 

[Tilly]

On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 10:15:18 +0000, Colin McKenzie
<[email protected]> wrote:

>Fairy'nuff, then. Dodge is fun, but can cause a few falls. Not a
>reason to ban it. Nowadays we don't often have time to play it.

By its very definition, there will only be one child who rides without
making a mistake.

As I propose to point out in my revised letter to parents, falls are
much more likely in the playground where cycling skills are being
challenged.

 

[James Annan]

JLB wrote:

> This comes up frequently in presenting quantified risk assessments.
For
> example, offshore installations must be law have a safety case that
> includes some QRA about the chance of various things going wrong. In
a
> safety case the probability of someone being killed while working
there
> could be presented in the same way as the above, but it never is. The

> risk is stated in the form of an individual risk of fatality of (say)

> 3.33 x 10^-4 / year.
>
> This is better in the sense that it expresses the total risk from
that
> source in one year to one individual. That's a realistic length of
time
> for one person. 3000 years is not. The problem is it seems that a
large
> part of the population of this country is so innumerate that a number

> like 3.33 x 10^-4 is completely meaningless.

Indeed. Mention a one in a billion chance, and they will think "ooooh,
I could get killed", and decide it is too dangerous. Tell them it's a
one in three chance (eg heart disease from sitting in a cage), and they
will just shrug their shoulders and assume it won't happen to them

> Given that level of ignorance I don't think there is any wholly
> satisfactory way of presenting the information so that people can
> develop even the beginnings of an understanding of risk. Without
that,
> all you can expect are irrational emotional reactions to perceptions.

But one can perhaps hope that the decision-makers should be
sufficiently intelligent to make sensible decisions. Which brings us
back to the tyranny of democracy...

James

 

[Just zis Guy, you know?]

On Sun, 13 Mar 2005 19:50:24 +0000, Tilly <[email protected]>
wrote in message <[email protected]>:

>*Whether or not your child wears a helmet is between you and your
>child but you must tell us and you must ensure they bring it with them
>and it must fit correctly or be adjustable to fit correctly.*

Sounds jolly good to me.


Guy
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

"To every complex problem there is a solution which is
simple, neat and wrong" - HL Mencken

 

[Patrick Herring]

|Tilly <[email protected]> wrote:
....
| This is what I have settled on:
|
| *Whether or not your child wears a helmet is between you and your
| child but you must tell us and you must ensure they bring it with them
| and it must fit correctly or be adjustable to fit correctly.*

I suppose you could include gloves with helmets so as to promote the
fact that helmets aren't safety gear as such. I would have thought
gloves much more effective in avoiding skin-lossage with children,
possibly adults too, since the instinct is to put a hand out toward the
ground.

--
Patrick Herring, http://www.anweald.co.uk/ph

 

[JohnB]

Patrick Herring wrote:

> I suppose you could include gloves with helmets so as to promote the
> fact that helmets aren't safety gear as such. I would have thought
> gloves much more effective in avoiding skin-lossage with children,
> possibly adults too, since the instinct is to put a hand out toward the
> ground.

I always suggest to all trainees prior to a course that gloves are
advisable - primarily because cold hands can make a training session
extremely unpleasant.
Childrens' hands seem to suffer the most.
They can always be put aside if hands become too warm.

John B

 

[James Annan]

Tilly wrote:

> This is what I have settled on:
>
> *Whether or not your child wears a helmet is between you and your
> child but you must tell us

Fine...

> and you must ensure they bring it with them
> and it must fit correctly or be adjustable to fit correctly.*

Even if the child isn't wearing a helmet?

James

 

[RogerDodger]

On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 18:25:24 +0000, Tilly <[email protected]>
wrote in message <[email protected]>:

>It's classed as safety equipment. Goggles for metalwork, overalls for
>chemistry, helmets for cycling...

Not been around here long, have you?


Guy
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

"To every complex problem there is a solution which is
simple, neat and wrong" - HL Mencken

"There's a sucker born every minute" - P. T. Barnum (I believe?)

Roger
PS - cycle helmets are nothing but a marketing scam and a cash cow for helmet manufacturers - and cyclists are the easily duped suckers who all-too-easily become the captive market.

 

[David Hansen]

On Sun, 13 Mar 2005 21:42:18 +0000 someone who may be Patrick
Herring <[email protected]> wrote this:-

>I suppose you could include gloves with helmets so as to promote the
>fact that helmets aren't safety gear as such.

Gloves could well be called safety gear, unlike helmets.


--
David Hansen, Edinburgh | PGP email preferred-key number F566DA0E
I will always explain revoked keys, unless the UK government
prevents me by using the RIP Act 2000.