ST Alpha - "to repeat what others have said: a serious head injury is not a cut or a scratch, it's permanent. so why not put on a damn helmet?" (Reading a Post)

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In response to "From BB's....I have scars on my legs, arms and my chest from when I ran into a barbedwire fence collapsed on the ground while bike riding as a kid." by Walt_Disney

to repeat what others have said: a serious head injury is not a cut or a scratch, it's permanent. so why not put on a damn helmet?

Posted by loosilu (aka loosilu) Dec 22 '08, 15:02

it's a little thing.

Responses:

But we have so many other things that people including kids get serious injuries and yet we focus on the thing that is only 800 per year.... - Walt_Disney Dec 22, 15:08 35
- Just a quick quibble....those are injuries from those; not deaths. - Will Hunting Dec 22, 15:13 25
  - And really I could care less. I'm not looking to bubble wrap my kids (they ride horses for god's sake and fall regularly), but I don't want my kid to - pmb Dec 22, 15:43 3
    - Just curious, do they wear helmets when riding the horses? ( I honestly don't know the answer for kids riding.) -- nm - Name Withheld By Request Dec 22, 15:47 2
      - I should say that it is mandatory for adults as well. You will almost never see a rider on a horse without a helmet. - pmb Dec 22, 15:54
      - Absolutely. It's mandatory in the show ring and it has to be a certified helmet as well. -- nm - pmb Dec 22, 15:49
  - the stat I heard on the BB, be it true or false, was that 95% of those 800 fatalities were incidents where a helmet was not being worn -- nm - Beryllium Dec 22, 15:14 20
    - And a quibble here (because the other got lost to backboarding), nothing about that number says that helmets would have prevented them. -- nm - Name Withheld By Request Dec 22, 15:16 19
      - You believe 100% of those deaths were non-preventable? - Will Hunting Dec 22, 15:20 10
        
        No. As said below, it just doesn't provide a sound number for comparison is all. As far as your IM... - Name Withheld By Request Dec 22, 15:25 9
        
        it really soumds like - loosilu Dec 22, 15:29 8
        
        Evidence of what Loosi? That a helmet can prevent a head injury? Sure. I've never argued against that. - Name Withheld By Request Dec 22, 15:33 7
        
        you actually did - loosilu Dec 22, 15:37 1
        
        Which post? (Because you shouldn't confuse the criticism of the 95% number as a criticism of helmets themselves.) -- nm - Name Withheld By Request Dec 22, 15:50
        
        You'll need to prove to me that the cost of a bike helmet law is more worth it than a few hundred preventable dead kids. - Will Hunting Dec 22, 15:35 4
        
        Really? So you favour helmets for toboggans? Skating? Skiing? Climbing trees? Tree houses? - Name Withheld By Request Dec 22, 15:42 3
        
        You show me where you're looking at 800 people dying a year (a fair bit of them likely preventable) from those activities, I'll look into it. - Will Hunting Dec 22, 15:54 2
        
        No barb wire scars on me. (That's Walt.) Statistically, I'd bet it's not all that unconsistent with those other activities. - Name Withheld By Request Dec 22, 15:59 1
        
        Here's an interesting fact sheet: (Like, did we know that baseball has the highest fatality rate amongst sports?) -- (link) - Name Withheld By Request Dec 22, 16:01
      - if the rate of helmet wearing is over 5%, it suggests it very strongly. -- nm - loosilu Dec 22, 15:20
      - really? - Beryllium Dec 22, 15:18 6
        
        I'm just saying that until you factor in the overall percentage of helmet usage and factor out fatalities that would have been fatalities anyhow... - Name Withheld By Request Dec 22, 15:22 5
        
        common sense test. - loosilu Dec 22, 15:25 3
        
        No, it is likely far higher I would think. That said, my argument is not that helmets don't cut down on injuries. - Name Withheld By Request Dec 22, 15:29 2
        
        theres - loosilu Dec 22, 15:31 1
        
        Who's been arguing that they aren't safer? Let's not confuse putting numbers into perspective (ala Bery's 95%) and denial that they work at all. - Name Withheld By Request Dec 22, 15:37
        
        Statistics on their own don't mean anything. They just suggest things. -- nm - Beryllium Dec 22, 15:23
- its 800 a year thankls to helmet ,laws. wjhat was it before? -- nm - loosilu Dec 22, 15:11 8
  - Appears to be down from around 1,000 annually, but a couple of authors have hypothesized that drunk driver crackdowns were a big reason too. -- nm - Name Withheld By Request Dec 22, 15:15
  - What were car accident deaths before cars, what were posionings before all the crap we keep under the sink? -- nm - Walt_Disney Dec 22, 15:13 5
    - check out stats for seat belts. -- nm - loosilu Dec 22, 15:16
    - The more likely analogy would be, what were car accident deaths per capita prior to seat belt laws -- nm - Beryllium Dec 22, 15:15 3
      - I agree with seat belts....especially when you are doing 100 km on a highway and someone decides to talk on a cell phone and not pay attention. - Walt_Disney Dec 22, 15:21 1
        
        kids ride bikes on those same streets. -- nm - loosilu Dec 22, 15:26
      - (Populations have trended up, as accidental fatalities have trended down ... so numbers need to be massaged to provide the right perspective) -- nm - Beryllium Dec 22, 15:16
  - I wonder if I should mandate helmets for ST posting? ;-) -- nm - Beryllium Dec 22, 15:12
my parents have a friend who was skiing a few years ago, misjudged a turn, and fell, and hit his head on an exposed rock - tRuMaN Dec 22, 15:04 3
- darwinism at work. -- nm - loosilu Dec 22, 15:08 2
  - sounds like he's still alive, so the human race will become thicker skulled and have a smaller brain capacit5y -- nm - Roger More Dec 22, 15:09 1
    - la.marckism at work! -- nm - loosilu Dec 22, 15:12

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to repeat what others have said: a serious head injury is not a cut or a scratch, it's permanent. so why not put on a damn helmet?

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