Don't Die.

[Kieron]

Jaz, what if you hit your head and you don't die but you no longer have the motor skills to wipe your own ass...  let alone ride a bike.

[Alex Thompson]

Jaz, what if you hit your head and you don't die but you no longer have the motor skills to wipe your own ass...  let alone ride a bike.

Let's have a list here of who would be fucked if not for their helmet

1)  Kieron - concussed badly with his helmet on - probably would be doing more drooling if not for it
2)  Alex T - probably would still be with us and annoying, but would have split his forehead open from front to back

[Jaz]

Jaz, what if you hit your head and you don't die but you no longer have the motor skills to wipe your own ass...  let alone ride a bike.

Then I would be able to meditate all the time, and write a book using one of those headsets for computers to press the keys/lazer beam headsets to type on a screen based keyboard. It would be difficult, but I'd get sympathy points and thus increase the ability to see the novel.


Or, I would die of starvation due to being stubborn.

Let's have a list here of who would be fucked if not for their helmet

1)  Kieron - concussed badly with his helmet on - probably would be doing more drooling if not for it
2)  Alex T - probably would still be with us and annoying, but would have split his forehead open from front to back

There is no proof of this. For all we know, if either you wouldn't of had your helmets, maybe your shortening of the top of your head could have allows you to tuck and roll.

A true example could only be made of people who got hurt from not wearing a helmet. However going that route one could argue then that they would have gotten hurt just the same with a helmet if severe enough.


Plus there is the issue of wearing a helmet causes people to drive several inches closer to you. So it's more inviting to accidents even though one might be more prepared for one.

[Alex Thompson]

Jaz,

Don't lecture a mathematician about proof.  We live in a world where if you wait for proof that bullets kill you'll have a dead body on your hands, there's no rewind button in life.

I slid on my helmet for several yards.  First I did it with my face and it did this to me, are you saying I wouldn't have split my scalp wide open?



Kieron was totally out of it with a head slam on a car - with his helmet on.  Ask him about it, but there is no way he would be the same now if he hadn't been wearing his helmet.

If you don't want to wear a helmet then don't, but don't lie to yourself and others about whether it makes a difference.

3) Morgan Beeby - clobbered from behind with his helmet on, spent two weeks in the Cedar Sinai ICU with a brain injury.

[Jaz]

"Since 1999, two very high quality studies have appeared showing that helmet use rising from nil to 85-90 percent in New Zealand and Western Australia had either no effect or only a trivial effect on the head injuries being suffered by cyclists. These are careful studies by reputable sources; the Otago Injury Prevention Unit and the Public Health Dept of the University of Western Australia."

On a page of arguments for and against compulsory helmet use.


I can understand that helmet use is beneficial in that it enables a final line of protection, but in studies I have read long ago, the negatives I see, I feel outweigh that of the positives. Mainly the fact that if you wear a helmet, it increases the closeness of cars driving around you. Add that to the fact that there is a higher chance of head injuries from being a pedestrian (I don't know about others, but I don't wear a helmet when walking down the street) than a cyclist, and a much higher rate of head injuries from driving a car (once again, I don't wear a helmet here), I feel if I don't wear a helmet there, there is no point to wearing one while riding a bike.

Then again, I have no real respect for my own life. However I support the use of helmets for others, since what the hell, let me be the study used against the studies I have read.

[oregondan]

Everyone loves that one british study- "Mainly the fact that if you wear a helmet, it increases the closeness of cars driving around you. "

I call bullshit. One study does not proof make.

I am on my third helmet.

If anyone wants to be a dumbass and not wear one, fine, I will be sad when you are gone.

[david_f]

Yes:
The world is over populated with people and most of the trends remain very bad. 
Despite that we are all 'unique' and 'very special' we really are all much more alike, than different from each other.
We appear to have no control over what happens in our lives.

Consider:
The world/society/most living species, are threatened by 'modern' human activities, we need strong/aware/caring/thouhtful/wise/lucious people like you to pioneer ways out of this situation. Put your energies there!, not in arguing some fatalistic vision of (pre)destinty, or 'painting' the pavement with your cerebral cortex.

The question of freewill seems unresolveable, so 'choose the high road',  presume that you do matter and can make a difference... much better than being a passive disengaged vicdumb of existence.

some inspired phrases I have run accross...
Do by Doing,
Each One Teach One,
etc.

and besides, a great amount of resources have already been invested & expended to nurture/grow/make who you are. Don't squander, YOU OWE US 

...life the universe and everything

P.S.
BTW I've had my helmet degaussed and repolarized to repel cars instead of attracting them.

[david_f]

...
P.S.
BTW I've had my helmet degaussed and repolarized to repel cars instead of attracting them.

Now,
If I could only get that to work on Assholes too!

[Alex Thompson]

JAZ -

The study about cars passing closer when you're wearing a helmet is more or less discredited.  It was conducted by one person, and he rode the bike and compiled and presented the results.  Go look it up, I'm too hungover to deal, but in short it's bad research.  No one else has done any similar studies so it's hard to know whether this is a real effect or not.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/09/060911102200.htm

[paul]

Add me to the should be dead list.

The windshield of the car that hit me would have been less smashed if I wasn't wearing a helmet..

[Alex C]

... I think it was after spending the day at LA County Hospital and the night at UCLA Medical on morphine after my first collision with a car (ever) in LA.   

You got Morphine. Please explain the bad part again?? 

[Kieron]

the other bunk thing about that study which proves that cars drive closer to you when you're wearing a helmet is it only really accounts for cars that are passing you which is the least of your worries on the road.  i rarely hear of cyclists getting hit by a passing vehicle.  i think the most common accident is the left cross, when a car turns left in front of you.  the right hook is pretty damn common too, when a car turns right in front of you and cuts you off.  Neither of these collisions have anything to do with a car driving closer or further from you by any matter of inches.

[oregondan]

Good point. The only people I know (and knew) who got hit from behind got hit by a drunk driver, and they said it may have been the blinkie   that got them hit (as well as the asshole driver who was wasted). They're illegal in Germany and help me out where else.... I roll mine solid mostly now.

Not sure a helmet would help anyway in that equation, but it couldn't hurt.

[faultymonk]

Unless someone here funds a large study to determine the efficacy of bicycle helmet use, there doesn't seem to be a reason to debate opinions.

To wit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_helmet (particularly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_helmet#The_helmet_debate)

"There is intense academic debate on whether helmet use offers any reduction of the chance of head injury. The debate on whether helmet use should be compulsory is even more intense and occasionally bitter, often based not only on differing interpretations of the academic literature, but also on differing assumptions and interests on the two sides."

"Cyclists' representative groups complain that focus on helmets diverts attention from other issues which are much more important for improving bicycle safety, such as road danger reduction, training, roadcraft, and bicycle maintenance. Of 28 publicly funded cycle safety interventions listed in a report in 2002, 24 were helmet promotions. For context, one evaluation of the relative merits of different cycle safety interventions estimated that 27 % of cyclist casualties could be prevented by various measures, of which just 1 % could be achieved through a combination of bicycle engineering and helmet use."


http://bikehugger.com/2007/06/flight_of_the_conchords_hair_h.htm

[Jaz]

http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/index.php/Wikipedia

"Wikipedia is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) in which participants play editors of a hypothetical online encyclopedia, where they try to insert misinformation that they are randomly assigned when they create their accounts, while preventing contrary information from being entered by others. Players with similar misinformation to promote will generally form "guilds" in order to aid each other."