Helmets Save Your Bonce

[careful now]

The worst example is the bloke who was hit from behind by a lorry, in the US.

He's brain damaged but the helmet industry exploits him regularly to say "wear a helmet".

Would be much more sensible if they wheeled him out to say Don't drive like a **** near bikes".

 

[Woz]

http://www.bellboycott.com/

 

[lumos2000]

Also: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11110665

Dr Walker conducted a study looking into how cyclists wearing a helmet affect the behaviour of drivers. He found that for those wearing a helmet, motorists drove much closer when overtaking.

"In absolute terms they got 8-9cm closer than they did when I wasn't wearing one," he explains, "And the proportion of vehicles getting within a really close distance went up considerably."

im going strap a puppy to my head,

as a non driver I have to ask, cars are fitted with brakes right?

 

[highlandsflyer]

Sorry - you are wrong. Doubly wrong in fact. But, hey - you're used to it!

...You can't that get that rate without helmets doing something that you have to be an even bigger idiot still to believe: 50% of cyclists who die have fatal toros injuries, so you won't get that 90% save rate unless helmets protect torsos!

..You might not have been bright enough to work out that this is a claim that helmets make cyclists lorry-proof - obviously you weren't, perhaps because it would involve actually knowing stuff (admittedly stuff that's in the thread, so that isn't much of an excuse) and being able to do sums - but it is. No, don't thank me!

Do you really need to be so insulting?

You live in Runcorn, so how clever are you?

 

[daugs]

Do you really need to be so insulting?

.................................

well said,

I am sure if arguments are valid that they don't need to be put across in a manner designed to cause offence, but this subject matter does seem to stir up emotions which is a shame, after a while it even loses it's limited entertainment value.

 

[The History Man]

Get your tin hats on!

 

[highlandsflyer]

Well, as Mike Flowers once said to a group of drunken Danes who were shouting over Light My Fire, "Jim Morrison is six feet under. You're just talking."

 

[GrahamJohnWallace]

Today the received wisdom of the majority of many people in Britain is that if don't wear a helmet when you cycle you are being irresponsible or even reckless. The simple logic being that the responsibility for protecting his or her brain lies with the rider. Not with motorists, road planners, road maintainers and cycle designers. This logic is based on the precept that cycle helmets will usually protect you from the type of head impact that will commonly occur when a cyclist is thrown from a bicycle and then lands on their head.

However, there is little real world evidence that current helmet designs can be trusted to protect the brain as well as most people believe. The before and after head injury statistics from countries where cycle helmets have been made compulsory do not show the drop in head injury numbers that the politicians predicted. The testing of helmets using methods that imitate real world accidents show rotational accelerations that are many times greater than the brain can withstand. Also many times greater the rotational accelerations measured when the same tests are carried out on motorbike helmets.

If current helmet designs and testing standards are based on a misconceived notion of the type of force that causes most brain injuries, then their continued sale and promotion is a scandal. Nobody expects a polystyrene helmet to protect you from the wheels of a ten ton lorry but they are expected to offer more protection than a hat. But research that concludes that in some accidents you could get more protection from wearing a baseball cap suggests that a serious rethink the way helmets are designed is urgently needed.

This is an extract from the conclusions of a scientific evaluation of bicycle helmet design and effectiveness:
"Designing helmets to reduce linear acceleration suits the helmets industry which has, in
effect, made a huge investment in the theory that it is the main cause of brain injury. Because the theory is widely accepted, claims that helmets prevent injury or even save lives are plausible enough to persuade the public to buy them and politicians to pass laws to compel their use, creating an assured market for them. Finding practicable means to reduce angular acceleration is an unsolved problem, however; there is no money in it for industry."
http://www.cyclehelmets.org/papers/p787.pdf

 

[Chopper the ex Copper]

Runcorn? Good grief indeed. Explains the pent up rage which manifests itself in rudeness to strangers.

 

[GrahamJohnWallace]

I've been to Runcorn but I am only rude to people I know! :?