Yet Another Cycling Forum
General Category => Freewheeling => Topic started by: gordon taylor on 22 December, 2010, 10:03:31 pm
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A while ago, I was with a couple of people who were wringing their hands over the death of Diana. I'm afraid I dismissed their angst with a cursory "she wasn't wearing a seatbelt, so what do you expect" response.
I consider any driver or passenger who chooses not to wear a seatbelt to be an ignorant, selfish moron... but I applaud cyclists who chose not to wear a helmet as free spirits.
I get annoyed with non-cyclists who see cycle helmets as the absolute key safety fundamental on our roads.
Am I a hypocrite? (Acknowledging the helmets on ice thread.)
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IIRC, that car was in such an unholy mess that I'm not sure a seatbelt (or a helmet) would have ben a lot of use to her.
I understand that people who wear seatbelts are statistically more likely to survive a crash. I don't know of any statistics which suggest that helmet wearing while riding a bike improves the rider's chance of surviving a crash.
I did read somewhere a while back that front seat passengers in cars are statistically much more likely to benefit from wearing a helmet than cyclists are. Can't remember where I read that though.
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The body guard who was wearing a seatbelt in the front survived, and the front of the car took the brunt of the impact IIRC
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A while ago, I was with a couple of people who were wringing their hands over the death of Diana. I'm afraid I dismissed their angst with a cursory "she wasn't wearing a seatbelt, so what do you expect" response.
I consider any driver or passenger who chooses not to wear a seatbelt to be an ignorant, selfish moron... but I applaud cyclists who chose not to wear a helmet as free spirits.
I get annoyed with non-cyclists who see cycle helmets as the absolute key safety fundamental on our roads.
Am I a hypocrite? (Acknowledging the helmets on ice thread.)
I get very annoyed by that as well.
Victim-blaming is due to a subconscious desire to find a reason to withhold sympathy: for them to admit that someone died (or suffered other misfortune) through no fault of their own, is to admit that the same thing could happen to them.
But seat belts are obviously mandatory because there is overwhelming evidence that they save lives, whereas there isn't for cycle helmets.
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Given that the stats show that helmets make little difference to cycling fatalities but seatbelts are proven to significantly reduce vehicle fatalities, not at all.
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My question is why drivers are allowed to choose to inflict greater injury through their choice of vehicle.
If someone buys a Jeep Cherokee with a EuroNCAP of no stars then they know that in a given condition they will inflict injuries and or death that would have been less had they bought a vehicle with a 5 star rating
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My question is why drivers are allowed to choose to inflict greater injury through their choice of vehicle.
If someone buys a Jeep Cherokee with a EuroNCAP of no stars then they know that in a given condition they will inflict injuries and or death that would have been less had they bought a vehicle with a 5 star rating
I would like to see additional training and licensing required for vans and large 4WD vehicles that would include specific training on awareness of pedestrians and cyclists.
An annual expensive course that they would have to pay for and be highly inconvenient would be even better, something to dissuade the Chelsea tractor brigade from running these totally inapppropriate vehicles. This weather and the poor gritting doesn't help that cause though, I have heard several people discussing that their next car will be a big 4WD in the past week :(
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IIRC, that car was in such an unholy mess that I'm not sure a seatbelt (or a helmet) would have ben a lot of use to her.
Diana ended up embedded in the dashboard. The rear of the car (where she was sat milliseconds earlier) was pretty much intact.
The bodyguard survived despite being in the mangled front-end of the car. He was wearing a seat belt and hence avoided head-butting the dashboard at 70mph.
It's up to the individual to draw their own conclusions.
"Slack Kills" is what F1 drivers say. They walk away from 200mph impacts because they are wearing seatbelts. That allows the crumple-zones to perform their job and dissipate the forces
I've no doubt Diana would be alive if she'd worn a seat belt. I'm not saying she wouldn't have been badly injured but, looking at pictures of the car, I think the only injuries she'd have received would have been from the seat-belt. The front of the car did its job and crumpled. It's just unfortunate that Diana was flung into the crumple-zone.
In an unrelated incident I head-butted the ground in an MTB accident. Fortunately I had an inch or so of expanded polystyrene between ny cranium and the ground when it happened. I don't think it save my life but I know it saved me the pain of stitches, a prolonged stay in A&E and possibly a fractured skull.
It's up to the individual to draw their own conclusions.
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It's up to the individual to draw their own conclusions.
Is the correct conclusion that it is better not to be you?
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It's up to the individual to draw their own conclusions.
Is the correct conclusion that it is better not to be you?
What do you mean?
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This is quite an interesting and well made presentation on the subject of helmet wearing and the culture of fear:
YouTube
- TEDxCopenhagen - Mikael Colville-Andersen - Why We Shouldn't Bike with a Helmet
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07o-TASvIxY)
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It's up to the individual to draw their own conclusions.
Is the correct conclusion that it is better not to be you?
What do you mean?
You fell off and hit your head on the deck. Last time I fell off riding my MTB I ended up with my head in a bush. Better to have my outcome than yours.
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It's up to the individual to draw their own conclusions.
Is the correct conclusion that it is better not to be you?
What do you mean?
You fell off and hit your head on the deck. Last time I fell off riding my MTB I ended up with my head in a bush. Better to have my outcome than yours.
I broke my collarbone and some ribs as well. I didn't need any more broken bits that day.
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In general I'm in favour of free choice where the consequences are very likely to be limited to the person who made the decision. Wearing/not wearing a helmet on a bike doesn't affect anyone else regardless of whether or not they work, whereas if those seatbelt ads from years ago are true then not wearing one could cause you to fly forward and hit the front passenger/driver, or go through the windscreen and injure someone else or cause another accident.
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Given that the stats show that helmets make little difference to cycling fatalities but seatbelts are proven to significantly reduce vehicle fatalities, not at all.
OH RLY?
Risk compensation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation#Seat_belts)
Seat belts clearly do help if you're involved in a crash, but how do you stop people driving less carefully when they feel more safe?
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Driving doesn't improve health.
Cycling almost invariably does.
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You fell off and hit your head on the deck. Last time I fell off riding my MTB I ended up with my head in a bush.
And we all thought you were gay :o
Well, it was an accident.
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I'm exempt from the requirement to wear a seatbelt when driving. But you can guarantee that I will wear one.
As others have said, the evidence that seatbelts save lives is overwhelming. The evidence that cycle helmets save lives is underwhelming...
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This is a false debate.
The reason car crashes kill is the huge amounts of energy involved: it has to go somewhere - crumple zones or making mince, it's all the same to physics.
Motorcycles, where the energies are high, same thing, and sensible helmet laws exist and apply and -- because they're sensible -- are almost universally adhered to.
Cycles do not have the same energies. If I ride into an underpass stanchion, I will not utterly paste my self across it leaving teeth embedded in the concrete.
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Seatbelts work
Helmets don't.
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"Slack Kills" is what F1 drivers say. They walk away from 200mph impacts because they are wearing seatbelts. That allows the crumple-zones to perform their job and dissipate the forces
Well, they are tightly strapped into form-fitting carbon fibre seats. They also wear carbon fibre helmets - which can withstand a 55 ton tank driving over them there is an article in Race Tech magazine on the latest helmet standard.
An F1 driver sits in a completely rigid carbon fibre 'tub' - which also contains the kevlar fuel bladder. The back of his seat butts onto the fuel bladder. It is the best place for it - keep the volatile fuel within the safety cell.
There are crumple zone structures - there are two carbon fibre 'tubes' at the sides which are side impact crash tubes, and the rain light to the rear of the gearbox is on a short crash structure.
The front nose is also crash tested, and should deform to absorb energy. Search for the video online of the US F1 nose undergoing a crash test. US F1 claimed this was their nose passing a test - most people who saw that had severe doubts on that score, it looks a failure.
YouTube
- US F1 Team - Nose Crash Test
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc0wFyCIDfE)
The padding round the cockpit rim is I suppose a type of crash structure - it is removable within a certain number of seconds so the driver can be extracted.
Your basic point is true - the driver is fixed into a rigid structure, which is tested to survive a very major impact - hence you see those dramatic shots of cars with the front torn off etc.
Also of interest are the wheel tethers - wheels and hubs are tied onto the chassis, to prevent loose wheels flying off at high speed and hitting another car.
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Seatbelts work
Helmets don't.
Did for me when I came off in the summer
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Speed kills
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Seatbelts work
Helmets don't.
Did for me when I came off in the summer
I've fallen off several times, hard enough in one case to break a bone, but never succeeded in hitting my head. In all those instances I was wearing a helmet. It stands to reason that now I've mostly stopped wearing one (snow/ice being the main reason I wear one) when I do fall off I'll hit my head.
The case for mandatory seatbelt wearing is weakened by the fact that motorists are much more of a danger to others than cyclists, so any risk compensation element means the danger posed to others increases at a result of seatbelt use.
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Seatbelts work
Helmets don't.
Did for me when I came off in the summer
Yep, me too.
I wear one out of choice. I would not want to see any law being passed to make the wearing of helmets compulsory.
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Nor me.
You won't often catch me without one, though.
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You don't have to carry a seatbelt around with you in the shops.
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Seatbelts work
Helmets don't.
Did for me when I came off in the summer
I've fallen off several times, hard enough in one case to break a bone, but never succeeded in hitting my head. In all those instances I was wearing a helmet. It stands to reason that now I've mostly stopped wearing one (snow/ice being the main reason I wear one) when I do fall off I'll hit my head.
The case for mandatory seatbelt wearing is weakened by the fact that motorists are much more of a danger to others than cyclists, so any risk compensation element means the danger posed to others increases at a result of seatbelt use.
That's not a weakening of the case for wearing a seatbelt. It's a case for driver education.
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The case for mandatory seatbelt wearing is weakened by the fact that motorists are much more of a danger to others than cyclists, so any risk compensation element means the danger posed to others increases at a result of seatbelt use.
That's not a weakening of the case for wearing a seatbelt. It's a case for driver education.
Even if you educate drivers to take more care, risk compensation will still operate
(unless you somehow brainwashed them into thinking seatbelts were mandatory but useless :D )
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I'm not suggesting at all that driver education isn't nigh on impossible, I'm simply asserting that it is necessary. :)
I know that 99% of all known germs motons somehow consider themselves invincible and with a higher order of right to the road than anybody else* but just because they have shit between their ears is no excuse.
* Except of course as soon as they leave their vehicles then somehow they acquire a divine higher right as pedestrians to the detriment of all other road users including the other pedestrians.
In fact, let's just call them selfish fuckers. :)
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The case for mandatory seatbelt wearing is weakened by the fact that motorists are much more of a danger to others than cyclists, so any risk compensation element means the danger posed to others increases at a result of seatbelt use.
Pish, what about their passengers?
There's nothing to suggest that a belted passenger encourages riskier driving -- the driver isn't any safer, so his behaviour doesn't modify.
Driver behaviour doesn't only risk us. It risks their passengers too. Round here, the usual headline is "ghastly chav kills girlfriend and mates in stupid car stunt, walks away."
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That's an argument for mandatory passenger seatbelt wearing, leaving the driver the choice to wear or not.
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The case for mandatory seatbelt wearing is weakened by the fact that motorists are much more of a danger to others than cyclists, so any risk compensation element means the danger posed to others increases at a result of seatbelt use.
Pish, what about their passengers?
There's nothing to suggest that a belted passenger encourages riskier driving -- the driver isn't any safer, so his behaviour doesn't modify.
Driver behaviour doesn't only risk us. It risks their passengers too. Round here, the usual headline is "ghastly chav kills girlfriend and mates in stupid car stunt, walks away."
"chav dies alone" tends not to make the headlines!
It's an interesting question - I wonder how many unbelted passengers die compared to peds/cyclists?
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Anecdata: When I was about 18, three teenagers were driving to a football match. I knew two of them. On the way they crashed head on into another car at 70mph. The driver and front seat passenger, belted, escaped with minor injuries. The rear seat passenger, unbelted - it was only compulsory in the front back then, in fact there were still many older cars without belts in the back - was flung about inside the car and suffered serious brain injuries. He still can't walk properly, in fact he'll never have a 'normal' life at all.
Would a seatbelt have saved him? Seems like it. A helmet? No idea. Does this prove anything? Doubt it.
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What has been shown to be effective is making people financially responsible for crashes.
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In general I'm in favour of free choice where the consequences are very likely to be limited to the person who made the decision. Wearing/not wearing a helmet on a bike doesn't affect anyone else regardless of whether or not they work, whereas if those seatbelt ads from years ago are true then not wearing one could cause you to fly forward and hit the front passenger/driver, or go through the windscreen and injure someone else or cause another accident.
ah but the consequences aren't limited to them, though, what about their bereaved family?
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In general I'm in favour of free choice where the consequences are very likely to be limited to the person who made the decision. Wearing/not wearing a helmet on a bike doesn't affect anyone else regardless of whether or not they work, whereas if those seatbelt ads from years ago are true then not wearing one could cause you to fly forward and hit the front passenger/driver, or go through the windscreen and injure someone else or cause another accident.
ah but the consequences aren't limited to them, though, what about their bereaved family?
I think that's between the risk-taker and their family. Everyone should judge their own attitude to personal risk. We can't go around banning everything with an element of danger.
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ah but the consequences aren't limited to them, though, what about their bereaved family?
I think that's between the risk-taker and their family. Everyone should judge their own attitude to personal risk.
We can't go around banning everything with an element of danger.
Point taken. But their family might not agree with their attitude to risk. This is, as far as I can tell, (one of) the main reason(s) why motorcycle helmets are mandatory. Should we make them optional?
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It's an interesting question - I wonder how many unbelted passengers die compared to peds/cyclists?
Who knows. It seems unimportant in the collation and reporting of statistics. It is also completely irrelevant to newspaper reports of crashes, unlike cycle helmets, which MUST be reported on, even if the cyclist was killed by being turned into a sheet of pasta by a road roller.
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ah but the consequences aren't limited to them, though, what about their bereaved family?
I think that's between the risk-taker and their family. Everyone should judge their own attitude to personal risk.
We can't go around banning everything with an element of danger.
Point taken. But their family might not agree with their attitude to risk. This is, as far as I can tell, (one of) the main reason(s) why motorcycle helmets are mandatory. Should we make them optional?
Well actually I'm pretty undecided on this. I don't ride motorbikes, so on that basis I'm pretty cautious to jump to conclusions (especially as I'm anti-cycle-helmet compulsion). Then there's the fact that my worst head injury yet was in a car, and noone asked me if I was wearing a helmet in that crash ...
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Well actually I'm pretty undecided on this. I don't ride motorbikes, so on that basis I'm pretty cautious to jump to conclusions (especially as I'm anti-cycle-helmet compulsion). Then there's the fact that my worst head injury yet was in a car, and noone asked me if I was wearing a helmet in that crash ...
Which was one of the main points made in the 'Why we shouldn't bike with helmet' presentation video.
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ah but the consequences aren't limited to them, though, what about their bereaved family?
I think that's between the risk-taker and their family. Everyone should judge their own attitude to personal risk.
We can't go around banning everything with an element of danger.
Point taken. But their family might not agree with their attitude to risk. This is, as far as I can tell, (one of) the main reason(s) why motorcycle helmets are mandatory. Should we make them optional?
Depends on their effectiveness, the absolute number of injuries that would be prevented, and who's liable for the accident (self-inflicted, or caused by someone else). Ideally it should be down to personal choice, but in practice society has to pay some costs through the NHS so it's not so clear cut. However if the main reason is as you suggest (family pressure) then I think it shouldn't be compulsory.
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Also of interest are the wheel tethers - wheels and hubs are tied onto the chassis, to prevent loose wheels flying off at high speed and hitting another car.
The only problem with wheel tethers is that they appear not to work very well. If you know a good medium you could ask Henry Surtees. The latest batch of F1 rule changes include beefing up the wheel tether system.
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Motorcycle crash, mechanical failure and nobodies fault. Wearing a good quality helmet. Traumatic Brain Injuries and not expected to live. Then Coma but still alive now. The helmet must have done some good as it was in a really bad state after my wife got it back and there were dents and scrapes in parts that weren't dented or scraped on my head!
I still don't wear a helmet cycling, or at least very rarely do.
Go Figure?