Boy hit by car pushing his bike, mother starts calling for helmet compulsion

[Arrowfoot]

This is probably a spiked news story. A school kid gets knocked down in a road accident is boring story. Ask a not too bright parent what they are going to do and make a few suggestions and you have a petition , submission to MP and laws for helmets. And the kid was not even on the bike.

If was really concerned she would have got her son a helmet. Do you need an MP for that?

 

[Sara_H]

The human skull, while not infallible, is designed to protect the brain from injury in most typical falls etc that an unassisted human body can manage.

Cycling, even at very low speed, instantly increases the energy available and takes the wonderful engineering of the skull beyond that which it has evolved to protect the brain.

Therefore (pretend for one moment that cycle helmets are highly effective) walking etc are activities for which body has adapted very well, and for the vast majority of people the skull protects the brain throughout their lives very effectively, making helmet use unnecessary for normal activity. Cycling, however, is an unnatural activity and a fall from a bike causing the head to hit the floor or another vehicle is much more likely to exceed the performance parameters of the skull, thus making a helmet of much more utility.

Until a cycle helmet arrives that genuinely works, I am anti compulsion, and the 'well pedestrians should wear helmets then' retort is completely cringeworthy.

He wasn't cycling.

 

[Drago]

Yes, I know. The Prof asked a question, and this was in response to that.

 

[srw]

OK I'll bite - why is it stupid to compare the need or otherwise for helmets between different activities with supposedly similar (within some range) risk profiles? Yes the intent is to ridicule - but that does not make it an invalid question.

Despite Mr Drago's ridiculous answer, it's called reductio ad absurdam and is a core part of the A-level maths syllabus. Take a conclusion, show it leads to an absurdity and deduce that the original conclusion is in fact absurd.

In the current case, Drago fails at point one. The human skull is not designed. It has evolved from a series of (pre-)historial accidents. Including many, such as falling out of trees or off cliffs, or while running, that closely approximate the effect of an impact at a speed approximating to that of a cyclist on a road.

 

[Drago]

I use the word 'designed' to sum up the progressive efforts of mother nature. By training I am a physicist, not a biologist, so can be perhaps forgiven if my literary prowess isn't up to your high standards, although if you can't recognise the use of deliberately idiomatic English then you've got real problems.

Falling from a free or cliff into ones head is a sufficiently rare occurrence that evolution hasn't needed to adapt to cover it. Cycling, on the other hand, is a recent and very common phenomenon that evolution will require hundreds of thousands of years to adapt to with regards to head impacts, and falling from a bike remains far more common than falling from a cliff.

Therefore, the suggestion that pedestrians should wear helmets when going about their normal business is utterly preposterous.

 

[Julia9054]

I can't make my own 12 year old do something I want him to do so I'd like the law to do it for me.

 

[Drago]

And when he still won't do it?

 

[Julia9054]

Lock him up, of course! He's obviously a hardened criminal in the making!

 

[sidevalve]

All interestig stuff but mostly quite irrelevant. We can rant and snipe amongst ourselves for all time but -
1 - helmets do not prevent accidents, but then neither do seat belts, climbing or m/cycle helmets, harnesses for people working at high levels, steel toe capped boots or indeed any safety equipment worn as a protection.
2 - what is the bog deal anyhow ? If they become compulsory will anybody just give up riding to prove a point ? If so then tough.
3 - compulsion will come, as it did for seat belts and m/cycle helmets and yes all the same aruments were trotted out then too
Just get over it.

 

[Tanis8472]

"I was concerned that Byron was late home from school.

"I got a call from the head teacher who told me what had happened.

"My social worker came and picked me up to take him to the hospital."

Miss Tunnicliff, a mother of three, told the Post: "Most parents would be in a state of shock if they had seen their child in a crash.

"I just went into automatic pilot – I immediately made the necessary phone calls to get to the hospital."

Says it all really

 

[benb]

Therefore, the suggestion that pedestrians should wear helmets when going about their normal business is utterly preposterous

And, by extension, the suggestion that cyclists should wear helmets is equally preposterous, as the risk is broadly similar. That being the whole point being made.