🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4ir6ae$6q7@sullivan.ucc.hull.ac.uk> Ralph Moorhouse <R.Moorhouse@educ.hull.ac.uk> writes:
>cam@aisb.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) wrote:
>>In article <827255530snz@tmsl.demon.co.uk> Paul@tmsl.demon.co.uk writes:

>>> ... you will see that
>>>even with your head surrounded by polystyrene, you are still no
>>>match for the motorist surrounded by a ton of steel.

>>No match only if if you regard it as a collision-surviving contest. This
>>is of course the way many car-drivers and safety "experts" think. There
>>is, however, another route to staying alive on the roads on a
>>bicycle. It is most unorthodox, heretical, and involves using your brain
>>to *avoid* collisions instead of parcelling it up to survive them.

>Whilst I would agree that you shouldn't switch the grey matter off
>when riding, I don't really think that cyclists don't try and avoid
>collisions. Very few people actually set out to be involved in an
>accident - with hindsight, of course, most accidents seem 'avoidable'.
>The fact that such avoidance measures didn't cross the participants'
>minds at the time is the problem here - human beings - bad design.

There are three ways of using your brain to solve problems. The first
method is to wait until the problem happens and then react as best you
can. There are problems which are too difficult to be solved like this,
and require the second method. This involves carefully thinking things
out in advance, devising strategies and skills, practising them, and so
on. And there are some problems sufficiently difficult that it is
unlikely that a single individual reflecting on his own will be able to
solve them. This third type of problem is solved socially, by collecting
the experience of many people, debating it, devising training courses,
testing them, and so on.

Many traffic problems, of the kind that sometimes turn into accidents,
are too difficult to be solved by the first or second method. That's why
so many cyclists keep having accidents, despite the obvious truism that
they don't want to have them, do their best to extricate themselves
once the accident threatens, and reflect seriously on any nasty
accidents or near-accidents that come their way.

>No one seems to be claiming that you're more likely to be injured
>whilst wearing a helmet than cycling au naturel, as it were, so
>it seems to me to provide additional insurance against the unexpected.

There are both theoretical arguments and some (disputed) statistical
evidence that the wearing of helmets can increase the likelihood of
injury, and some posters have argued this. For example, if the wearing
of a helmet were to make the rider feel 20% safer, but in fact provided
only 10% extra safety, then natural unconscious risk compensation would
make a rider wearing such a helmet more liable to injury than if not
wearing it. I'm not arguing that this *is* the case, simply pointing out
that if you think it's *obvious* that wearing a helmet makes you safer,
then you haven't considered all the possibilities.


-- 
Chris Malcolm    cam@uk.ac.ed.aifh         +44 (0)131 650 3085
Department of Artificial Intelligence,    Edinburgh University
5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK                DoD #205
"The mind reigns, but does not govern"             Paul Valery