Four year old killed by bike helmet.

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profpointy
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Re: Four year old killed by bike helmet.

Post by profpointy »

Peter F wrote:
profpointy wrote:
Peter F wrote:
No. This isn't about whether a helmet is safe for climing trees. Many rock climbers wear head protection. It is about whether the helmet is appropriately fitted and fit for purpose. The point is that tree climbing is insufficiently popular as a sport so no one really thinks about it.


I'm not really arguing whether helmets are or aren't desirable for climbing trees as that's not the point at all. My point is that here we have a specific example of unintended harm caused by a helmet. You can't really deny the thrust of the cycle helmet advocacy is based on the "it's obvious" argument rather than statistics. Yet here we have an example of an equally obvious scenario for helmet wearing which has led to a child's death.


You have unintended harm caused by a helmet not being used for it's intended purpose. It is not obvious that wearing a cycle helmet for climbing a tree is a good idea. This is a non sequitur.



Yebbutt the point we often see be made is that it is "obvious" that cycle helmets make cycling safer.
You yourself may or may not be claiming this, but it is a tediously frequent argument, usually followed by calling those who question this stupid.

There's precious little actual evidence that helmets do make cycling safer after all, which is why people revert to the "it's obvious" argument.

To me, it's equally obvious that wearing a helmet makes climbing trees safer as it makes cycling safer - so hardly a non-sequiter.
As it happens it appears that helmets do not make cycling safer - but the jury's out on whether they make climbing trees safer, but as this tragic incident shows, it's no clear cut.
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The utility cyclist
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Re: Four year old killed by bike helmet.

Post by The utility cyclist »

Jdsk wrote:
The utility cyclist wrote:Wearing the helmet is likely to have influenced the child's own risk taking whilst alone and playing and thinking they were safe due to wearing it, we know this to be a valid assessment.

How do we know this, please?

Thanks

Jonathan

Independent studies away from a cycling environment but with children wearing cycle helmets showed that the helmet wearing children more often than not took greater risks within the activity they were undertaking.
There's not many studies, IMO it's because people don't want to 'accidentally' prove what we know because it's so contra to what the majority want in terms of PPE and so called safety. Helmets have been an insidious creep with worse outcomes and generally ignorance of everything else that presents higher risks/higher numbers of injuries or harm and deaths but people wouldn't even remotely consider.

Look at gridiron, it is the very antithesis of helmets protecting, it's peak risk compensation within sport/activity, so much so that there are generations of participants (mostly males) are now suffering CTE problems in the millions. in fact 99% of NFL players show CTE symptoms, this reduces the lower down the competition/level of participation but is still high in those that only got to high school level.
Only recently the change in rules that banned head to head contact reduced reported concussions by 45% in one season, an attempt, albeit it far too late, to offset the virtually unabated recklessness in contact between the combatants. As a former amateur rugby league player who had a dabble with gridiron when I was younger I know how wearing PPE has a huge effect in terms of taking risk within contact scenarios and also how the onus of responsibility for safety shifts in a huge way.
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[XAP]Bob
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Re: Four year old killed by bike helmet.

Post by [XAP]Bob »

With adults it's been shown that wearing a cycle helmet increases the willingness to take risks over wearing a baseball cap.

Trials used the headwear "purely to mount an eye tracking device" and had the participants blowing up a (virtual?) balloon as much as they dared without breaking it.

Participants wearing a cycle helmet were somewhat, but statistically significantly somewhat, more risk taking... And that's in a situation where the headwear can't possibly have an influence on the outcome.

I am unaware of any similar studies involving children.
A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way. No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those can extrapolate from incomplete data.
Jdsk
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Re: Four year old killed by bike helmet.

Post by Jdsk »

The utility cyclist wrote:
Jdsk wrote:Independent studies away from a cycling environment but with children wearing cycle helmets showed that the helmet wearing children more often than not took greater risks within the activity they were undertaking.

Is that Gamble and Walker (2016) or something else, please?
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0956797615620784

Thanks

Jonathan
Bonefishblues
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Re: Four year old killed by bike helmet.

Post by Bonefishblues »

All would have been well, risk or no risk (to acknowledge the departure down the rabbit hole) if the helmet had been fitted with a green buckle designed to release under a prescribed load.
profpointy
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Re: Four year old killed by bike helmet.

Post by profpointy »

Bonefishblues wrote:All would have been well, risk or no risk (to acknowledge the departure down the rabbit hole) if the helmet had been fitted with a green buckle designed to release under a prescribed load.


I don't know about bike helmets per se, since I've never owned one, but motorcycle helmets, climbing / caving helmets and site helmets don't usually have such a thing. Should they? Ir is the risk of them falling off when needed greater than the reduction of strangulation risk

Note: I did used to wear my caving/climbing helmet cycling since cycle helmets seemed pathetically flimsy and their large size seemed to creat all sorts of leverage risk. I no longer wear a helmet cycling at all
Bonefishblues
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Re: Four year old killed by bike helmet.

Post by Bonefishblues »

profpointy wrote:
Bonefishblues wrote:All would have been well, risk or no risk (to acknowledge the departure down the rabbit hole) if the helmet had been fitted with a green buckle designed to release under a prescribed load.


I don't know about bike helmets per se, since I've never owned one, but motorcycle helmets, climbing / caving helmets and site helmets don't usually have such a thing. Should they? Ir is the risk of them falling off when needed greater than the reduction of strangulation risk

Note: I did used to wear my caving/climbing helmet cycling since cycle helmets seemed pathetically flimsy and their large size seemed to creat all sorts of leverage risk. I no longer wear a helmet cycling at all

It has been covered earlier in the thread. It is worth your reading.
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[XAP]Bob
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Re: Four year old killed by bike helmet.

Post by [XAP]Bob »

Bonefishblues wrote:All would have been well, risk or no risk (to acknowledge the departure down the rabbit hole) if the helmet had been fitted with a green buckle designed to release under a prescribed load.

Possibly - the better thing to do would be to *not* wear headgear that specifically tells you to remove it when not riding a bike.
A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way. No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those can extrapolate from incomplete data.
Cyril Haearn
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Re: Four year old killed by bike helmet.

Post by Cyril Haearn »

Hard to get a four year old or even a guardian to understand that the helmut is to be taken off to play
One imagines they would know to take it off to swim, mind
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Bonefishblues
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Re: Four year old killed by bike helmet.

Post by Bonefishblues »

[XAP]Bob wrote:
Bonefishblues wrote:All would have been well, risk or no risk (to acknowledge the departure down the rabbit hole) if the helmet had been fitted with a green buckle designed to release under a prescribed load.

Possibly - the better thing to do would be to *not* wear headgear that specifically tells you to remove it when not riding a bike.

Or to be supervised or this, or that, or the other. All of which we've covered.

The issue would not have occurred in this scenario had there been a green buckle, about which I, previous to this thread, knew the square root of nothing. Sadly, it seems that my mails to J Vine got nowhere.
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[XAP]Bob
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Re: Four year old killed by bike helmet.

Post by [XAP]Bob »

The green buckles are so rare that I don't recall ever having seen one.
Yet helmets are still sold... that really ought to be a trading standards issue... but since they aren't safety devices they probably won't get involved.
A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way. No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those can extrapolate from incomplete data.
rmurphy195
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Re: Four year old killed by bike helmet.

Post by rmurphy195 »

mjr wrote:Killed by hanging from a branch. I thought children's helmets had another standard which required the straps to release if the child was dangling from it. Maybe it doesn't work and so these things should be banned.


This puts the accident into the realms of those where children are strangled by any loose thing around thier neck, not necessarily helmets - scraves, other forms of clothing, cowboy hats with straps etc. etc. . This type of accident is not a helmet thing specifically.
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mjr
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Re: Four year old killed by bike helmet.

Post by mjr »

rmurphy195 wrote:
mjr wrote:Killed by hanging from a branch. I thought children's helmets had another standard which required the straps to release if the child was dangling from it. Maybe it doesn't work and so these things should be banned.


This puts the accident into the realms of those where children are strangled by any loose thing around thier neck, not necessarily helmets - scraves, other forms of clothing, cowboy hats with straps etc. etc. . This type of accident is not a helmet thing specifically.

Find me a child wearing a scarf or cowboy hat strap of 1" nylon webbing! A cowboy hat string should snap long before the child is dead - that's a reason we safety test such toys. Many child cycle helmets would fail.
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Bonefishblues
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Re: Four year old killed by bike helmet.

Post by Bonefishblues »

mjr wrote:
rmurphy195 wrote:
mjr wrote:Killed by hanging from a branch. I thought children's helmets had another standard which required the straps to release if the child was dangling from it. Maybe it doesn't work and so these things should be banned.


This puts the accident into the realms of those where children are strangled by any loose thing around thier neck, not necessarily helmets - scraves, other forms of clothing, cowboy hats with straps etc. etc. . This type of accident is not a helmet thing specifically.

Find me a child wearing a scarf or cowboy hat strap of 1" nylon webbing! A cowboy hat string should snap long before the child is dead - that's a reason we safety test such toys. Many child cycle helmets would fail.

ALL child safety helmets not fitted with the green buckle will fail, as Mick's posts earlier thread helped to explain. The buckle tightens/locks when pulled, as its design provides.
mikeymo
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Re: Four year old killed by bike helmet.

Post by mikeymo »

Bonefishblues wrote:ALL child safety helmets not fitted with the green buckle will fail, as Mick's posts earlier thread helped to explain. The buckle tightens/locks when pulled, as its design provides.


I'm confused, isn't that the opposite of what you would want on a child's helmet? Shouldn't it be designed to release?
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