Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Off road riding where you're exposed to branches and flying rocks is anther matter. Those things won't kill you, but a helmet and face mask will save you from many nuisance injuries.
Those not well versed in physics won't t understand this, but perpendicular vectors are mutually exclusive-- when you fall off a moving bike, you hit the ground with the same force as when you fall off a stationary bike...If you don't run into an obstruction that stops your forward progress, then you're not at risk of real head injury...
...If you use your hi school physics knowledge, you can calculate that when taking a nose dive off a 3rd story balcony you'll hit the ground going about 15mph. Do you think a helmet would help save you from head or neck injury?
Common sense tells us the world is flat.
I guess our neighbor's brother who died riding a bicycle without a helmet didn't die from his head hitting a curb trying to avoid a pothole. He fell sideways.
If your motorcycle goes down at 80mph, not wearing a helmet is going to result in sever injury as you slide down the road.
Anyone who rides a motorcycle without a helmet needs to have their organ donor card filled out.
I guess our neighbor's brother who died riding a bicycle without a helmet didn't die from his head hitting a curb trying to avoid a pothole. He fell sideways.
If your motorcycle goes down at 80mph, not wearing a helmet is going to result in sever injury as you slide down the road.
Anyone who rides a motorcycle without a helmet needs to have their organ donor card filled out.
Show us the autopsy report-- head tauma or high cervical fx as cod? A helmet simply turns a puncture injury to the skull into a closed injury--total force to the brain unchanged.....Your anecdote is meaningless in a scientific (ie- data based) discussion.
If you,re ever on trial for murdering someone who had a head injury, good luck with trying to defend yourself with the old ,,he just fell down and hit his head,, argument. Courts have seen thru that as an impossibility for over a hundred years. Mother nature has seen to it that it,s diiffult for a head to be seriously injured by a fall from your own height -- six feet, more or less.
I was in the neighborhood in which I grew up as recently as yesterday morning. Aside from changes in playground equipment, same old, same old.
I am glad everything turned out OK. It usually does.
The changes should be for better, not worse. We should not live in lockdown.
What lockdown are you referring to? The kids not playing outside, instead sitting in front of a screen are not forced to do that by society, but maybe encouraged by their parents. In the 60's when I grew up there were a few kids who spent more time in front of the television than playing outside. It was used as a babysitter for parents who could not afford a babysitter or thought the kid would be ok on their own with the television. That hasn't changed. People get busy and want the kids to be quiet so the kids have all kinds of electronic devises that keep then occupied. That is not lockdown.
Show us the autopsy report-- head tauma or high cervical fx as cod? A helmet simply turns a puncture injury to the skull into a closed injury--total force to the brain unchanged.....Your anecdote is meaningless in a scientific (ie- data based) discussion.
If you,re ever on trial for murdering someone who had a head injury, good luck with trying to defend yourself with the old ,,he just fell down and hit his head,, argument. Courts have seen thru that as an impossibility for over a hundred years. Mother nature has seen to it that it,s diiffult for a head to be seriously injured by a fall from your own height -- six feet, more or less.
We were told he died of a skull fracture that would not have occurred had he been wearing a helmet.
We were told he died of a skull fracture that would not have occurred had he been wearing a helmet.
My brother in law is a big time road cyclist. He's a competitive rider. Lives in Longmont CO. He was riding home one evening, went across a railroad crossing and was ejected from his bike. He landed on his head and chest some 15-20yds from the tracks. He was wearing a helmet and was out cold. A motorist saw him, he came around and they put him in their mini-van and took him to the hospital. His helmet was TOAST. He wound up with a mild concussion and contusions and scrapes from the incident.
Had he not been wearing his helmet it would have turned out a lot worse, and the ER said as much.
I've lowsided on a road bike and managed to keep my head up in the slide. My armored pants took the brunt of the damage. I walked away with bruises and sore muscles.
This discussion has gotten sidetracked into a detailed issue of one or perhaps two of the OP examples. Perhaps I should have put bicycles and air bags in transportation. There are other issues of overregulation, which in hindsight I should have included in the OP and wish to solicit views:
Security desks and entrance regulations at schools - A few days ago I went to drop a cell phone off for my son at his high school. He had called and I said I would leave it at the principal's office. I was greeted at the front door by a friendly and pleasant security guard. I had to leave it with him. We got to talking. I pointed out that back in the day I visited my high school alma mater and went right to teachers' offices, and to my old club offices. Now that would be impossible. He pointed out that there used to be all kinds of entrances and exits that people could use. Now every entrance is a cluster and a delay, all because of the one-off incident in Sandy Hook. We went centuries before Sandy Hook without such rules; are there suddenly hundreds of monsters out there that would kill children? Remember most such tragedies, such as Columbine, involve current students, not outsiders. It would be better if schools were part of the community rather than effectively armed camps and prisons.
Same complaint regarding places of worship
Security at office buildings - Right after 9/11 we began seeing almost all office buildings having restricted access for "security" reasons. Any reason a terrorist bent on making a statement couldn't just blow himself up anywhere he sees a line, such as a theater entrance or subway station? We have made it impossible for people such as myself, for example, who are looking for jobs to simply show up, hand in a CV and demonstrate motivation and drive. Or for spouses to surprise each other at work? Or close friends similarly? How many terror attacks are really prevented this way?
Security at airports - We have made air travel cumbersome. Thus, for example, I am planning to travel to Washington, DC a few weeks from now from the New York City area. Train travel is ridiculously expensive for a trip of about 5 hours. If I take a plane, back in the day it was a shuttle that was about a one hour flight. Now, adding security time at airport, it's 3 hours. Maybe I'll just drive. Heck, gas is cheap these days. Imagine the financial impact this must be having on the air industry? It would make far more sense to do spot checking, behavioral profiling, and the random use of sky marshals. But hey, it's racist to target people at war with us. Maybe this will be helped by facial recognition.
Low speed limits - See this thread (link). Low and arbitrary limits are only selectively enforced on a "shooting fish in a barrel" basis. They contribute nothing to safety since in general traffic flows at around 70 on highways, and 40 or 45 on most secondary roads.
All of these rules, and more that other think of, are annoying at best. At worst, they detract from productivity and waste valuable time and resources.In other words, can we prioritize functionality to "bubble-wrapping" society?
We were told he died of a skull fracture that would not have occurred had he been wearing a helmet.
They simply ca,t know that. A blow severe enough cause a skull fx is severe enough to cause severe brain damage- aDeath would result from damage to the top of the spinal cord controlling breathing & heart beat. A fx, in fact, can sometimes save the life because it prevents build up of intracranial pressure....A helmet distributes the force more evenly around the skull preventing a fx but the total blow to the brain is unchanged....
The hard shell of a helmet is tp prevent a penetrating wound. The suspension/padding is to try to increase the time over which deceleration occurs...The problem is, to significantly increase that time, the padding would have be so thick that the circumference of the helmet would be m huge, significant!y increasing the leverage/torque effect, making the neck trauma even worse.
I m not saying no one should wear a helmet. I,m just saying that the scienc doesn,t support any laws or regs commanding their use. If you feel safer wearing one, go ahead. The stats don,t support the feeling, but it,s your head.
BTW--follow the money. 10 million mc riders in the US. $300+/helmet and they need to be replaced every 3-5 yrs(the padding goes bad). That,s a lot of profit for the helmet makers and their lobbyists.
This discussion has gotten sidetracked into a detailed issue of one or perhaps two of the OP examples. Perhaps I should have put bicycles and air bags in transportation. There are other issues of overregulation, which in hindsight I should have included in the OP and wish to solicit views:
Security desks and entrance regulations at schools - A few days ago I went to drop a cell phone off for my son at his high school. He had called and I said I would leave it at the principal's office. I was greeted at the front door by a friendly and pleasant security guard. I had to leave it with him. We got to talking. I pointed out that back in the day I visited my high school alma mater and went right to teachers' offices, and to my old club offices. Now that would be impossible. He pointed out that there used to be all kinds of entrances and exits that people could use. Now every entrance is a cluster and a delay, all because of the one-off incident in Sandy Hook. We went centuries before Sandy Hook without such rules; are there suddenly hundreds of monsters out there that would kill children? Remember most such tragedies, such as Columbine, involve current students, not outsiders. It would be better if schools were part of the community rather than effectively armed camps and prisons.
Same complaint regarding places of worship
Security at office buildings - Right after 9/11 we began seeing almost all office buildings having restricted access for "security" reasons. Any reason a terrorist bent on making a statement couldn't just blow himself up anywhere he sees a line, such as a theater entrance or subway station? We have made it impossible for people such as myself, for example, who are looking for jobs to simply show up, hand in a CV and demonstrate motivation and drive. Or for spouses to surprise each other at work? Or close friends similarly? How many terror attacks are really prevented this way?
Security at airports - We have made air travel cumbersome. Thus, for example, I am planning to travel to Washington, DC a few weeks from now from the New York City area. Train travel is ridiculously expensive for a trip of about 5 hours. If I take a plane, back in the day it was a shuttle that was about a one hour flight. Now, adding security time at airport, it's 3 hours. Maybe I'll just drive. Heck, gas is cheap these days. Imagine the financial impact this must be having on the air industry? It would make far more sense to do spot checking, behavioral profiling, and the random use of sky marshals. But hey, it's racist to target people at war with us. Maybe this will be helped by facial recognition.
Low speed limits - See this thread (link). Low and arbitrary limits are only selectively enforced on a "shooting fish in a barrel" basis. They contribute nothing to safety since in general traffic flows at around 70 on highways, and 40 or 45 on most secondary roads.
All of these rules, and more that other think of, are annoying at best. At worst, they detract from productivity and waste valuable time and resources.In other words, can we prioritize functionality to "bubble-wrapping" society?
You really think Sandy Hook was a 'one off'? Please Google 'mass school shootings'.
Workplace safety? The bank I worked at in 1988 had a berserko kill 3 of my co-workers. Our security? Armed with billy clubs. And they fled. We hired armed security after that.
You really think Sandy Hook was a 'one off'? Please Google 'mass school shootings'.
Workplace safety? The bank I worked at in 1988 had a berserko kill 3 of my co-workers. Our security? Armed with billy clubs. And they fled. We hired armed security after that.
In the scheme of things, Sandy Hook, Columbine, etc. are "one offs" they are random events, a lot like being hit by lightening. School security is theater because the security guards will melt away and the police won't run in during an active shooter situation. Thus, all that it does is allows people to pretend the schools or for that matter office buildings are safe. We all saw what happened in Parkland and in Texas a few years ago. The problem is mental health, not the gun. People just don't want to be involved in the lives of "berserkos."
In the scheme of things, Sandy Hook, Columbine, etc. are "one offs" they are random events, a lot like being hit by lightening. School security is theater because the security guards will melt away and the police won't run in during an active shooter situation. Thus, all that it does is allows people to pretend the schools or for that matter office buildings are safe. We all saw what happened in Parkland and in Texas a few years ago. The problem is mental health, not the gun. People just don't want to be involved in the lives of "berserkos."
I definitely agree it is a mental health issue, but the fact still remains school shootings (and mass shootings) are a preferred tactic for the berserkos. Until this country comes to grips with dealing with that, I 100% agree with metal detectors, limited public access and other security measures. 100%.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
