Protection for casual rider

[Into_the_blue]

Ooo, red wine with beef, white wine with fish.
(or is it the other way around?)

But if you’re having fish…
beans or peas?

[tomkarches]

dood!

peas rock.

beans suck.

–Tom

[milk]

@tomkarches

peas rock.

beans suck.

–Tom

I second that.

[UniGeezer]

@kington99

Do you wear a car racing helmet when you drive? Well why not, it’s something you can easily do to stop brain damage in a nasty accident surely? In the group that I ride there have been 2 severe car crashes but no head impacts while unicycling in the last few years, so which should we wear helmets for? My point is that you can’t be that simplistic in assessing risk, you need to consider both the severity of a possible injury and the frequency of occurence before you make decisions about wearing protection, and you have to draw a line somewhere. It just so happens that wearing helmets for slow, flat street riding is the other side of my personal line.

Airbags and seat belts will greatly reduce the severity of head injuries, or completely protect you from head injuries in the event of most car crashes. No such protections on motorcycles, bikes or, yes, UNICYCLES, so helmets ARE necessary in preventing and/or reducing the severity of head injuries. It’s a “no-brainer” and just makes sense. Am I wrong?

[podzol]

What’s with the pink wine like zinfandel. I mean come on people, let’s make up our minds!

Red has it hands down. I like a Syrah or a Cabernet.

[system]

Re: Protection for casual rider

On Thu, 15 Jun 2006, Into the blue <> wrote:
>
> IAN SMITH WROTE:
>
> > when there is a lot of evidence that they(helmets) at best make no net
> > contribution to safety, and at worst positively harmful.
>
> I’m still waiting to see this evidence Ian.

You could read teh thread you’ve just referred to?

In summary, if you look at places where helmet madation is applied,
teh wearing rate rockets overnight, the number of cyclists drops
dramatically and teh head injury numbers drop slightly, but tehrate
increases significantly.

However, compulsion introduces potentially confounding factors. If
you want figures taht avoid comulsion, look at UK ksi rates. For
many, many years the pedestrian rate and teh cyclist rate tracked each
other almost precisely. However, as helmet wearing rates have
increased, the rates have diverged, with teh cyclist rate getting
proportionately more dangerous than the pedestrian rate.

> Don’t forget that yes, while pottering about on the cycle path at a
> walking pace, you may think that nothing will happen, don’t forget that
> it just takes one idiot on the bike path, be they a rollerblader,
> BMXer, mountain biker or roadie cyclist (even in some cases down my
> way, uninsured boy racers on mopeds or minibikes), to plough into you.

Exactly that argument applies to teh same degree when you’re walking,
so do you wear a helmet whenever you leave the house (whether on
unicycle, on foot or in a car) ?

regards, Ian SMith

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[TheObieOne3226]

I am a confident enough in my basic point a to point b unicycling that I no longer wear a helmet some times while JRA. Its like walking to me. I don’t fall off, ever. Anytime theres even a chance my tire will leave the ground or my feet will leave the pedals though, I put on the helmet. I almost always wear gloves because my hands get sweaty and my hands are the thing I fall on the most.

[kington99]

@terrybigwheel

It’s a “no-brainer” and just makes sense. Am I wrong?

6 pages of entrenched argument probably says that it isn’t a no-brainer. I think my very first post covered the entirety of my argument, I shall try and clarify:

1. You can’t wear all the safety equipement in the world available to you, you have to draw the line somewhere.
2. One decides where to draw the line by assessing the chance of an injury occuring, and the severity of that injury.
3. I believe that injuries to my head occuring when casual riding will be insufficiently frequent, and of insufficient severity for me to need to wear a helmet. Riding in this style without a helmet is within the limit of risk that I am happy to accept in my everyday life. This is entirely my own gut feeling, based on people’s personalitites and experiences they might well place the line a long way from where mine is, in either direction.