All had helmets

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Patrickpioneer
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All had helmets

Post by Patrickpioneer »

I few days ago I was passing two ladies and a group of children, all in HI VIZ and helmets. Thinking they where doing some cycle training I slowed to say hello, they where training to cross the road not a bike in sight. Never seen this before is it common?
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Lance Dopestrong
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Re: All had helmets

Post by Lance Dopestrong »

Mrs Mrs Dopestrong worked in a school. I know the hi vis tabards are a given, gives a nice clear target for the idiot element to aim their cars at, but cycle helmets are a new one on me.
MIAS L5.1 instructor - advanded road and off road skills, FAST aid and casualty care, defensive tactics, SAR skills, nav, group riding, maintenance, ride and group leader qual'd.
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Cugel
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Re: All had helmets

Post by Cugel »

I have seen the future so will be making and marketing "total-protection for the little children" suits, as they will surely go like hot cakes down an Audaxer's throat! Inflatable plastic should do the job .... although a polystyrene life-jacket-shaped thing with garish colour and large labels proclaiming "SAFE CHILD" would probably do.

I mean "do" in the sense of making me millions from the dupes that buy them, not "do" as in making anyone safe. That is no longer a requirment of "a safety aid" as Humpty has redefined the semantics in line with the required capitalist-hyena mode of buying & selling stuff.

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landsurfer
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Re: All had helmets

Post by landsurfer »

4 years ago in Cuba i came across a group of German hill walkers ... hill walkers not mountaineers ... all wearing cycle helmets ???
I enquired ..."Someone may trip " ....came the answer ..... ???

We're doomed !!!!
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pjclinch
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Re: All had helmets

Post by pjclinch »

Somewhere in safety literature land is a Japanese study that assessed whether helmets had a beneficial impact on child pedestrians (walking to school IIRC). Conclusion was it didn't seem to make much difference, if you can imagine such a thing...

If you want to see how tough skulls are spend any amount of time at a primary school over the lunch hour. Showing up to give Bikeablity lessons there was often someone being treated after a playground fall. Head injuries are so serious that the school had a special procedure. Not just an "I;ve been brave!" sticker, but an "I've banged my head!" sticker too. And a form letter home on top of the usual TLC. SO that works for falling over and hitting your head playing chase in the playground, but do some cycle training there and despite all the measures to make it safer (instructor:pupil ratios to ensure close supervision, planned lessons, risk assessments) you're doomed without a helmet.
Last edited by pjclinch on 30 May 2019, 8:57pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Mike Sales
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Re: All had helmets

Post by Mike Sales »

We have been saying for long enough that if cyclists need helmets, why not pedestrians? When adult pedestrians (on the street as well) and car occupants start wearing the damn things as well we will lose that point!
P.J. mentions the Japanese study that shows they are not needed. That sort of study for cyclists does not deter the helmeteers in their cause.
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reohn2
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Re: All had helmets

Post by reohn2 »

landsurfer wrote:4 years ago in Cuba i came across a group of German hill walkers ... hill walkers not mountaineers ... all wearing cycle helmets ???
I enquired ..."Someone may trip " ....came the answer ..... ???

:shock:
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pjclinch
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Re: All had helmets

Post by pjclinch »

Mike Sales wrote:We have been saying for long enough that if cyclists need helmets, why not pedestrians? When adult pedestrians (on the street as well) and car occupants start wearing the damn things as well we will lose that point!
P.J. mentions the Japanese study that shows they are not needed. That sort of study for cyclists does not deter the helmeteers in their cause.


But once you're on a bike the nature of the literature (contradictory and lots of it) means you can cherry pick according to your preferred narrative and/or cultural values. And if that is that cycling is dangerous then there's no shortage of material to indulge a bit of confirmation bias.
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Mike Sales
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Re: All had helmets

Post by Mike Sales »

pjclinch wrote:
But once you're on a bike the nature of the literature (contradictory and lots of it) means you can cherry pick according to your preferred narrative and/or cultural values. And if that is that cycling is dangerous then there's no shortage of material to indulge a bit of confirmation bias.


These anecdotes, of child walking on the street helmets and hill walker helmets seem to show that someone has decided that these activities are dangerous. The necessary studies will come. Many of us can remember when cyclists did not wear them, and no one thought they were needed. Then, if you saw a helmeted cyclist you knew they came from across the Atlantic.
Car occupants will be more difficult I would think, but I'm sure you know that car helmets for everyday use have been marketed.
It's the same the whole world over
It's the poor what gets the blame
It's the rich what gets the pleasure
Isn't it a blooming shame?
LollyKat
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Re: All had helmets

Post by LollyKat »

This photo appeared in the Cuk's Cycleclips email of 3 May about Big Bike Revival.

Image

Of course gyms are sooo dangerous. Playing netball at school I once fell backwards and cracked my head quite hard - ouch. I confess I used the resulting (slight) sore head as an excuse to get off the next class, but really I was fine. :oops:

Back then we had wall bars, window ladders, beams and ropes to climb on - I loved it. All gone now.
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The utility cyclist
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Re: All had helmets

Post by The utility cyclist »

LollyKat wrote:This photo appeared in the Cuk's Cycleclips email of 3 May about Big Bike Revival.

Image

Of course gyms are sooo dangerous. Playing netball at school I once fell backwards and cracked my head quite hard - ouch. I confess I used the resulting (slight) sore head as an excuse to get off the next class, but really I was fine. :oops:

Back then we had wall bars, window ladders, beams and ropes to climb on - I loved it. All gone now.

As I said a while back, the website was festooned with hi-vis/helmets and yet some insist that I'm being oversensitive when I say that CUK are part of the problem when they promote helmets in this way by using images way too often showing all the groups we want to encourage into cycling wearing them. For every one photo sans helmets, there are plenty more with and each one with is targeted at women, children, new people into cycling. It's sickening and yet CUK won't admit or simply don't see the damage they are doing. :evil:
Phil Fouracre
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Re: All had helmets

Post by Phil Fouracre »

Losing battle? ☹️☹️
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Mike Sales
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Re: All had helmets

Post by Mike Sales »

Phil Fouracre wrote:Losing battle? ☹️☹️


It is already the normal, expected thing to wear a helmet, so that battle is already lost.
The battle I fear losing now is the battle against compulsion by law.
It's the same the whole world over
It's the poor what gets the blame
It's the rich what gets the pleasure
Isn't it a blooming shame?
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Lance Dopestrong
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Re: All had helmets

Post by Lance Dopestrong »

When I were a lad I climbed trees, played unsupervised with a bow and arrow, and used to entertain myself by sticking bullets in my Dad's vice and lighting them off with a hammer (ammo from the war and the likes was still in circulation-a-plenty back then), all before I was double digit age. I also had some horrific bike accidents and managed to damage just about every part of my body...other than my head!

How we survived to become adults without cycle helmets is a mystery to me.
MIAS L5.1 instructor - advanded road and off road skills, FAST aid and casualty care, defensive tactics, SAR skills, nav, group riding, maintenance, ride and group leader qual'd.
Cytec 2 - exponent of hammer applied brute force.
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Cugel
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Re: All had helmets

Post by Cugel »

Mike Sales wrote:
Phil Fouracre wrote:Losing battle? ☹️☹️


It is already the normal, expected thing to wear a helmet, so that battle is already lost.
The battle I fear losing now is the battle against compulsion by law.


It would be good if there was compulsion by law to keep humans (and all the other denizens of the biosphere) "safe". Obviously this would address the many real and serious risks, such as ecological devastation by hyena capitalists aided by corrupt politicians. Not to mention the horrors of the continuous carmageddon.

Cycling helmets would be consigned to the dustbin of history as dangerous things, since they both induce over-confidence (and thus harms) in the user as well as polluting the place with their plastic landfill and sea-choking detritus.

Who is doing the risk assessment? I fear it has been suborned by them hyena capitalists!

Cugel
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
John Maynard Keynes
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