🚀 go-pugleaf

Joshua_Putnam wrote:
> 
> In <33A57BF4.7E3B@direct.ca> Ken Bognar <kbognar@direct.ca> writes:
> 
> Such statistics have been repeatedly posted and ignored in the
> neverending helmet flamewars on rec.bicycles.soc, but yes,
> walking is as dangerous as cycling.  Remember, a helmet is only
> designed to absorb the impact of your head falling to the ground
> from cycling height, and your head is higher in the air when
> walking than when riding, so it should not be at all unexpected
> that you're more likely to get a serious head injury when you
> fall down walking than if you fall down cycling.  In neither
> activity are you in anywhere near the level of danger you
> experience when stepping into a bath, walking up stairs, or
> changing the sheets on your bed.

Statistics are almost always skewed to one side or the other especially
by groups trying to state a point. It' like advertising. I've seen and
read a lot of these stats and they don't hold water. The conditions are
just not controlled and monitored correctly. 

> 
> >Why would I have hatred of cyclists who don't look like me. No one does.
> >I just don't want to pay for someone's hospital bills for an injury that
> >could have been prevented. I also don't want to see any of my friends or
> >family die or get injured from a preventable accident. Luckily they
> >already have enough brains to wear helmets. Hey maybe if you aren't
> >smart enough to wear head protection we don't need you on the planet
> >anyways right.
> 
> Amazingly, though, billions of people world-wide have not only
> survived but reproduced over the last century of widespread
> helmetless cycling, and the hospitals are not full of the
> vegetables helmet zealots attempt to conjure up.  

Again, you are grasping for straws. How many of these studies are done
in our present day situations of rapidly growing traffic problems and
congested roads? They don't tell the true story. Of course billions of
people have survived. In China they ride bikes everywhere. Well I'd sure
rather run into a fellow cyclist than 2000 lb of metal, glass, and
plastic. You have to use specific examples for these stats to mean
anything. Go take a stats course and see how easy it is too skew results
and gather incorrect data.


> There are a tiny number of people with serious head injuries from cycling,
> most of whom would not have been significantly helped or hurt by
> a helmet, just as there are tiny numbers of people with head
> injuries from rock climbing, scuba diving, and taking showers on
> tiled floors.

That is exactly why we strive to make rock climbing safer with HELMETS
and better gear and why we strive to make scuba diving safer with rules
and showers safer by putting grippy stuff on bath tubs, showers and
floors. Why wouldn't we try to make cycling safer in any way possible.
You people just don't seem to realize that no matter how experienced,
educated, and skilled you are accidents still happen. That's why they
are called accidents and if the helmet law saves on person then I think
it's done it's job because that's a lot of people that don't have to
suffer.

Nuff said.

bog