Your anecdote is interesting, but it has nothing to do with the statement I made. I believe a. many more people would ride bikes if cars were more under control, and b. many of them would not be concerned about a helmet.
On Wednesday, November 25, 2015 at 9:32:14 AM UTC-5, Steve Palincsar wrote: > > > > On 11/24/2015 10:30 PM, 'Mark in Beacon' via RBW Owners Bunch wrote: > > Can someone tell me how being killed by a motor vehicle on a bicycle is > any different than being killed by a motor vehicle while walking? If it can > save you in a bike/car collision, it can save you in a person/car > collision. Leaving aside any "data" that proves or disproves the safety > value of helmets, I would hazard a guess that the existence of cars is the > major reason most cyclists wear helmets. > > > It's not even the reason for the existence of helmets. > > Back in 1972 I met the guy responsible for prodding Bell and MSR into > manufacturing bike helmets. He was an engineer living in Rochester NY. > He'd been introduced to cycling by a close friend who was president of the > local cycling club. The two of them were riding a century when a dog ran > out in front of his friend; the two tangled and the cyclist went down, > struck his head and died of a brain injury. He told us about his campaign > to convince helmet manufacturers to produce something light and cool enough > that a cyclist could wear it but that still would have kept his friend > alive. > > A couple of years later, when I was chairing the workshops committee for > GEAR 1974 in Poughkeepsie, he'd succeeded: MSR introduced a bike helmet > based on its rock climbing helmet, and he did a workshop at that rally > demonstrating the new helmet. The most striking part of it was when at the > front of a classroom full of people, he put on the MSR helmet and struck > himself over the head with an indian club, and then asked the group, "Who > would like to try that with your leather hairnet?" > > A few of the members of our club, the Mid-Hudson Bicycle Club, purchased > the new MSR helmets. Later that year, one of the members, a gifted cyclist > and agile athlete - an engineer at IBM - crashed at night riding home from > work when he rode over what he thought was a shadow but turned out to be a > downed tree limb. His helmet broke into many pieces, but all he got was a > slight headache. The doctors at the ER told him without a doubt he would > have been killed outright without the helmet. The club organized a group > buy and by next spring everyone in the club was wearing a helmet. > > > > > > > > Will wrote: > > *If data indicates that helmets mitigate head damage and if you choose to > ignore that data... whose lives have you compromised? Yours? For sure.* > > That is simply putting your values onto another person. Compared to not > existing for the last 13.82 billion years, and not existing till the end of > time, we're all here for a really, really really short visit, whether that > be 1 month or 100 years. To some degree, we all get to choose the risks we > are willing to live with (ha ha) during our little frolic. Skydiving. > Bathtub gin. Getting married. Pulling the tags off your mattress. Then > there is fate. And the government--obviously the sheer number of deaths > from automobile accidents before seatbelts was costing society a lot of > money. It still does--about 871 billion a year > <http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/05/29/steep-economic-toll-of-crashes/9715893/> > > as of 2010. Because now we have seatbelts--and phones, and movies, and > internet, and typing, in a car. But then, we humans do weird stuff. Like > the war on terror. That cost trillions, and all it did was create more > terrorists. We're not very good at addressing root causes. We prefer > ineffective band-aids that usually not only add unnecessary complexity, but > also make things an order of magnitude worse. The idea that we must all run > around with helmets is like blaming the victim. Most of the people behind > these types of studies have some kind of agenda, and not always the one you > would think. > > People ignore "data" all the time. For instance, there is plenty of data > available that cars are a factor in climate change, among numerous other > ills they cause, including sprawl, huge infrastructure costs, etc. etc. > etc. Using a 2-3,000 pound object to move around a single human being? Now > *that* is compromising all of us. Insisting everyone wear helmets, > thereby reducing the number of people who bicycle? Nah. What we should > really be doing is not designing "better" helmets. We should be designing > cars that can't maim people. Better, we should be encouraging people not to > use cars. What we should be doing is insisting those caught texting or > phoning and causing harm in a car go to jail. Every time. For a long time. > But we are not only good at ignoring data, we are champions of > rationalizing irrational beliefs and behaviors. > > Meanwhile, much more relevant, my Clementine is due Monday! > > > > On Tuesday, November 24, 2015 at 9:45:55 PM UTC-5, Steve Palincsar wrote: >> >> >> On 11/24/2015 09:25 PM, Eric Norris wrote: >> >> Not that cycling is that dangerous, but I'd like to see the data showing >> that "walking on the street" is more dangerous than riding a bike. >> >> >> >> Or that walking on the street presents a danger that is specifically >> addressed by the wearing of a helmet. >> >> >> On a personal level, I've lost several friends/acquaintances over the >> past year, killed by motor vehicles while riding their bikes. I can't think >> of a single incident among my friends, fatal or otherwise, that happened >> while they were "walking on the street." >> >> >> There are plenty of pedestrians run down by motor vehicles, many of whom >> are killed each year. However, it's unlikely that wearing a helmet would >> have saved many. It's basically a specious argument. >> > -- > 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-bun...@googlegroups.com <javascript:>. > To post to this group, send email to rbw-owne...@googlegroups.com > <javascript:>. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > > -- 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. 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