RTE News: Brain injury groups call for compulsory helmet use

tomasrojo

I meant to type Face Palm. Typo. Forgive me, Pete. That made you look insensitive.

opinion guy

Face palm it is fair enough....lol

Canis Lupus wrote: »

You shouldn't have landed on your head.

True. Thats a good point. I should indeed not have used my head as a crumple zone. But I could never remember how the fall happened and noone quite saw it completely either so your guess is as good as mine as to what i actually did!!

Capt'n Midnight

el tonto wrote: »

In fairness to her, she said they have campaigned on other sports. Just looking at their website, they've items on quad biking and winter sports.

I did point out the Australian experience to her and said there was a lot of interesting researching stemming from it that she should consider looking at.

quad biking is a motor sport, and quite a few of the people who use them are complete beginners.
By comparison , you can't ride a bike until you learn how to balance / control it and speed is limited by fitness in most cases but any muppet can hop on a quad and rev it up.

winter sports are dangerous, most travel insurance exclude cover for it

Lumping cycling with them gives the impression that cycling is intrinsicly dangerous.
In general cycling is intrinsically safe.

Most cyclists are killed by collisions with motorists, and in most cases the motorists are at fault. Wearing a helmet designed to take a 20Kmph impact will only change your odds of survival by about 3-4% if you get hit at 60Kmph - which is the likely speed traffic in a 50Kmph zone will do without congestion or calming.


Driver education would prevent more cycling accidents, and should also reduce pedistarian casualties too.

tomasrojo

In that quote from that doc that Dr. Bob found back near the start of the thread, they put cycling first in their list of pastimes where head protection was required, ahead of quadbiking, winter sports, motorcycling and contact sports.

It's telling.

seamus

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

quad biking is a motor sport, and quite a few of the people who use them are complete beginners.

Not to mention (having spoken to a quad biking instructor about it) the vast vast majority of serious injuries in quad biking occur when the bike falls on top the rider. Not such an issue in cycling, we just occasionally get tangled up a bit.

rubadub

tomasrojo wrote: »

Seat belt laws never caused a massive drop in driving though. Not that ABII care whether cycling drops. I imagine, from their general tenor, they'd be quite pleased.

When were seatbelt laws introduced? did people have to install them in cars?

A lot of people cycle solely for leisure or exercise, this is not seen as much in cars. If pedestrian helmets were mandatory I would not expect a large drop off in pedestrians, just like I would not expect a large drop off in cars relative to the drop off I would expect in cyclists.

People with an old bike might just abandon it for good if they had to buy a helmet. Whereas if you have a car it is usually a bigger financial comittment and you probably really do need it. It also reinforces the view that cycling is dangerous, so little johnny & mary will not be allowed cycle to school. A bit of rain the other morning and every little runt in the country appearred to be driven to school by mammy, the traffic was horrendous.

opinion guy wrote: »

I'm sorry I don't get why you all have a problem with helmets. Speaking as someone who fell off a bike and was unconscious for 20 mins with a few residual effects (weird stuff like the foods i liked changed etc) I would always wear a helmet.

Do you wear it in the car and out walking or drinking? And if not why not? Perhaps the knock affected your logical rational reasoning, it seems to with many people who crack cycling helmets. Mandatory drinking helmets would be a far more sensible proposal. Just look at A&E it is a very risky activity.

petethedrummer

Doctor Bob wrote: »

Time to get in at the ground floor on the rugby helmets. Who's with me?

I know you're not actually advocating this.

But there is a duty of care in rugby not to annihilate your opponent, something which is missing from American football, with its helmets and shoulder pads and war paint. I'd be curious to see does all the safety gear in American football result in fewer injuries relative to rugby.

opinion guy

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

....Wearing a helmet designed to take a 20Kmph impact will only change your odds of survival by about 3-4% if you get hit at 60Kmph - which is the likely speed traffic in a 50Kmph zone will do without congestion or calming.


Driver education would prevent more cycling accidents, and should also reduce pedistarian casualties too.

I rather have the 3-4% on my side thou than not. My accident was a just a fall probably at 25-30kph and i was out for 20mins. I've also seen someone else end up in hospital for weeks with just a simple fall with possibly permanent mental deficits. He wasn't wearing a helmet either......to be fair thou he was locked but thats possibly protective according to the beeb:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8262393.stm

petethedrummer

opinion guy wrote: »

I've also seen someone else end up in hospital for weeks with just a simple fall with possibly permanent mental deficits. He wasn't wearing a helmet either......to be fair thou he was locked

Did he fall of a bike or just fall? Do you think we should introduce mandatory helmet wearing in pubs? An awful lot of drunk people fall over. Probably more than people riding bikes.

In fact the more I think of it, you're an idiot if you don't wear a helmet on a night out. I can't think of any other reason not to, other than you might look a bit stupid, but I'm not gonna let looking stupid stop me.

Capt'n Midnight

petethedrummer wrote: »

But there is a duty of care in rugby not to annihilate your opponent, something which is missing from American football, with its helmets and shoulder pads and war paint. I'd be curious to see does all the safety gear in American football result in fewer injuries relative to rugby.

Out of curiousity how do either compare to Aussie Rules, no protection and does it have a duty to care ??

The comparison may not be so much about the duty to care but the degree of risk equalisation since american football players probably feel safer in their armour and so take greater risks.

Capt'n Midnight

opinion guy wrote: »

I rather have the 3-4% on my side thou than not. My accident was a just a fall probably at 25-30kph and i was out for 20mins.

If you want proper head protection when in an accident partialy or wholely the fault of a motorist (the majority of bicycle / motorcycle collisions) you need a motorbike helmet.

a cycling helmet is only of use if you fall off at normal cycling speed. It isn't even much on many of the descents in Wicklow. The ventiation groves mean that the average cycling helment is a lot less effective than it could be off road in rock terrain.

Civilian_Target

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Haven't they heard of risk equalisation ?

If you want road safety , insist on harpoons in the centre of steering wheels, and airbags / seatbelts only for passengers.

That's a wonderful idea

Ryder

Suppose my own view on this is live and let live. I year one but dont think everyone else should have to. The only way that there advocacy groups have a point is if cycling head injuries are a public health issue ie if caring for them takes a signif portion of our health fund. If yes then they should be mandatory. If not stick to education.

tomasrojo

Ryder wrote: »

Suppose my own view on this is live and let live. I year one but dont think everyone else should have to. The only way that there advocacy groups have a point is if cycling head injuries are a public health issue ie if caring for them takes a signif portion of our health fund. If yes then they should be mandatory. If not stick to education.

That seems a fair point, except I'd add that even if brain-damaged cyclists were a burden on the health system, the onus should be on the compulsionists to prove helmets are very effective in preventing serious brain injury.

And that would mean engaging with the whole-population data from Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere and explaining why head injury rates didn't drop 88%, as they claimed they would after compulsion (0% is what they actually dropped). Instead, they just ignore those data.

Lumen

Ryder wrote: »

The only way that there advocacy groups have a point is if cycling head injuries are a public health issue ie if caring for them takes a signif portion of our health fund.

They'd have to ban smoking and burgers first.

Besides, I've paid loads of tax. A few weeks of high quality life support might get me close to break even point before they pull the plug.

coolbeans

OK a bit of a mea culpa here. In the past I have kicked or thumped vehicles, mostly taxis but not always, that cut me up or overtake me without giving me sufficient room as they go by. I've also done this if someone makes a right turn which forces me to take drastic evasive manoeuvres. I know many of you will think me a thug and castigate me accordingly but the amount of times drivers' carelessness has nearly resulted in a nasty injury is ridiculous. Shouting does nothing as they can't hear me in their cocoon so a kick to the bodywork or a less than gentle "tap" on the window is, I think appropriate if the person in question hasn't bothered to account for the fact that they almost crippled me or worse. Opinions? Am I overreacting and giving cyclists a bad name or am I justified in my actions as these, the worst offenders need to realise the consequences of ignoring vulnerable cyclists.

Victor

I have a solution to these people.

I'm not sure if everyone can see this video, but its a heart stopper. http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=701571092&ref=nf#/video/video.php?v=1121570680584&ref=mf

fenris

How about making it compulsory for the helmet nazis to wear full face motorcycle helmets backwards and look elsewhere for their cynical funding grab?

rubadub

I have a sneaky suspicion that the policitians might be selling up their non-profitable pubs and buying up bike shops, seems to be where the moneys at these days, especially if they legal oblige people to buy helmets after forking out for an well overpriced €1,000 bike...

el tonto wrote: »

She also said that the organisation had received a number of abusive phone calls after the item appeared on the news, which is pretty disgusting.

Did they express any surprise at this? I would have thought they would not expect it, seeing as many seem to be woefully ignorant of the views against them. It might at least make them actually think for a minute and they must be wondering why it would provoke such a response.