I agree that the data are irrelevant-- but, the reason that I wear a helmet is that if I'm in a collision, then I don't want the excuse to-be "the cyclist wasn't wearing a helmet".
In virtually all of the bike/auto collisions covered in the Boston-area media, there's a statement "Cyclist was/was not wearing a helmet" or "It is unknown whether cyclist was wearing a helmet". In some situations, it's comically sad to include helmet/no helmet, because the helmet is irrelevant: e.g., cyclist was run over by a garbage truck, a head-on collision with a fast-moving car crossing over the double yellow, etc. Here's a first-person narrative from SF (excerpt from http://humofthecity.com/2014/04/21/who-protects-us-from-you/): "..When my son and I had our injuries assessed, the paramedics took off our helmets (and cut off the rest of my clothes as well). For the next half hour that we were in the ambulance as the police took the report, I was asked repeatedly whether we had been wearing helmets. “Were you sure you were wearing helmets? You’re not wearing helmets now. If you were really wearing helmets, where are they? Were you really wearing a helmet?” Then they asked my son whether we were really wearing helmets. My husband showed them our helmets. “Were they wearing those helmets when they were hit?” The paramedics said we were wearing helmets, that they had taken off our helmets. “Did you see the helmets on them?” They asked the (many, many) witnesses, “Were they wearing helmets?” They said yes. “Are you sure?.." --shoji On Monday, May 19, 2014 7:50:58 AM UTC-4, Ron Mc wrote: > > The data is irrelevant. It doesn't matter how many helmets you're wearing > if you go head-to-head with an automobile in a collision. But by yourself > on a bicycle, 12 mph with just the wrong impact will kill you. All of us > are going to flip our bikes at some point. Wearing a helmet then will make > all the difference in impact and laceration injuries. > > On Monday, May 19, 2014 6:25:40 AM UTC-5, Edwin W wrote: >> >> I would love to see the same chart for car wrecks. Walking deaths. Stair >> falls. For biking in the Netherlands. >> I know a guy who was in a bike crash. He lived, with no head injury. He >> was not wearing a helmet. I'm not convinced that is why he lived, with no >> head injury, but it is a correlation. >> >> Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't, >> >> Edwin >> >> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
