Other issues are raised by your trolling, such as your unofficial “Takuan the Churlish BoingBoing Mascot” status. It would be great for the moderators to address this issue: why is it that Takuan often speaks in the name of rationality, even pseudo-moderates, then goes over into asshat mode when it suits him/her? No reprimands, no corrective moderation that I can see. Whereas I and other are quite rightfully corrected when our posts go over the line. Why is that, mods?

PeterBruells, we disagree about terminology, but it’s a rank ad hominem for you to ascribe our disagreement to some perversion by me of some obvious truth, due to the need to fit some agenda. Look up the theory I’ve mentioned, learned helplessness, and hit me back. Otherwise, don’t offer kneejerk ripostes to stuff you seem uninformed about. Obviously, acting responsibly in one part of one’s life carries over into other parts of said life: it’s called “care of the self,” responsibility, etc. It’s a quite unobjectionable phenomenon: careful people are careful people.

In response to Takuan’s suggestion of banning other dangerous activities, personally, I think recreational fishing should be banned. Dozens of fishermen (yes they are all men) are killed in NZ every year, mostly because they don’t wear life jackets. It is the most dangerous recreational sport in New Zealand.

A lot of folks think they look uncool, and I think that when 50% choose not to wear helmets, the other 50% will tend to not wear their helmets.

Thankfully my state (western Australia) has manditory helmet laws, and i don’t look any less cool than the other kids :)

It’s a no brainer, like putting on your seat belt. Still, not everyone does that either…

No, I do not.

Does he wear a helmet? Yes, usually he does.

You see, instead of just telling him what he should do, I’ve tried to raise him to think clearly about things like risk. I kind-of wish the governments of the world would extend the same courtesy to their citizens. It would be really helpful, for example, in the “drug debate.”

As to if helmets actually increase safety or not… I guess that’s an interesting discussion as far as it goes, but it seems to be a separate one.

Thank goodness.

I’ll go out on a limb to say that every time I see a rider without a helmet I consider them to be ignorant and an idiot.

Although helmets under certain circumstances can be useful for the majority of people they will probably do very little (if anything at all).

Why? Because regardless if you are a 50 pound kid or a 200 pound guy they are all tested to the same exact force standard. Simple physics lessons from highschool should tell you that this is pretty much BS.

Even Helmets.org admits that the helmet really is only good up until around 10mph:

Research on crashed helmets shows that most people hit the ground at a relative speed of about 10 MPH. If a rider is hit by a car or hits a brick wall at 30 mph and the head takes a direct blow at that speed, no helmet will prevent injury or death. But that type of crash is rare, and helmets are designed for the severity of the most frequent crash types.

http://www.helmets.org/negativs.htm

Most people don’t just fall off their bike, they usually hit something (usually a car), there would be much better money spent on separating bicycles and cars and educate car drivers about cycling than forcing people to wear a helmet. Much more so as most people equate safety with the helmets. The most “oblivious to danger” cyclists I see on the road are usually the ones plastered in reflectors and protective gear.

I think this is great. It makes the police protectors, not enforcers. In a cost-benefit analysis, I like to imagine handing out free helmets is less expensive than fining the helmetless, or cleaning up their splattered brains. If you count the value of lives saved, the benefits definitely outweigh the costs. Plus, those are pretty sweet helmets they’re handing out there.

I’m a bike messenger and have gone down at high speed quite a number of times.

If I hadn’t been wearing a helmet every single time, I’d have had concussions so bad I wouldn’t be able to tell up from down by now.

….. but to each their own, I guess.

Seriously though, your brain is pretty delicate, and it’s one of your more valuable possessions. I know there’s no such thing as 100% safety, and every endeavor worth doing has some risk involved, but I don’t see any disadvantages to wearing a helmet when bicycling or motorcycling. Maybe it’s because I never really understood the whole vain/hair thing.

I was wondering the same thing: does Denmark even have mandatory helmet laws? For adults?

I saw this video as police promoting public safety by encouraging people to wear helmets in an awareness campaign, rather than enforcing any law. Kind of like when fire departments give out free smoke detectors and point out the benefits of having one.

Mario Andretti with a highly tuned sports car. And a half-blind 80 year old woman with a 20 year old Dodge.

They both have to drive 55 mph.”

they both can go as fast as they want – as long as they don’t go below the lower limit of 60 km/h or so..

By your “logic”, helmets should be worn by everyone at all times in every instance.

Takuan, please look up the term “slippery slope”. You might want to know the definition before you do it again.”

slippery slope – as in “countries that impede on individual freedom for the alleged benefit of the greater good are usually on a slippery slope to…” – sterilizing disabled people – anyone?

So, it’s got nothing to do with anything I said. You’re pissed about something that happened long before this conversation even started. You don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine. But don’t try and convince me your rage has anything whatsoever to do with me.

well, bundeling contankerousness, ignorance and complacency to argue that it’s ok to impede on individual freedoms is a proven method to get people steaming – nice job :P

Don’t hug me bro!

Your interpretation of learned helplessness in this context is objectionable. Simply because it has not been shown that wearing a bicycle helmet helps. No, “I banged my head once and nothing happend” or “My neurosurgeon swears by it(*)” are not proof. For fairness sake: “I used bikes for 35 years and never needed one” isn’t one, either.

I actually do take a lot of careful stuff. I never stay in a room with large people without checking where the escape exits are. I will not ride in the back of cars where the head rest have been taken down. I lock my car (and I live in a very save area) even when putting the trolley away and the car’s in my line of sight. I do not use chairs to climb up to get something from the top of cabinet. When making modifications to power-tools, I always disconnect it from the powerline.

For the bike-riding I do, a helmet doesn’t demonstrably (again: anectode is not the singular of data) decrease my risk. That’s why *I* don’t wear one. If you want to use one: Go ahead. I don’t mind. But when people *like* you start passing laws based on “common sense”, *then* I mind it very much.

*) One M.D. actually recommened homeopathy to me. I changed the doctor. Anectode. I know. Couldn’t resist.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17032-bicycle-helmet-laws-could-do-more-harm-than-good.html

Like all bike helmet studies, including those looking at how effective helmets are, the conclusions are not clear cut.

Good for you Denmark.

Do not apply different levels of tolerance for abusive behaviour simply because he’s usually a consistently insightful poster.

After reading this thread and seeing how much unjustified violence has come out of his mouth I am seriously considering finding an equivalent of the youtube comment snob firefox extension for bb. That saddens me greatly.

back on topic.

I’m of the opinion that for the most part, people do should not be coddled and instead, be allowed to make their own decisions. I make an exception with that belief when it comes to making decisions about safety though. I base that premise from the general human population not being educated enough (about being safe) to be able to make rational choices about safety. It’s not something you can test empirically on yourself.

Personally, I feel naked without a helmet on my bicycle, in much the same manner that I feel naked without a seatbelt in a car.

If I hadn’t been wearing a helmet every single time, I’d have had concussions so bad I wouldn’t be able to tell up from down by now.

Huh? I quote the helmet advocates and I the one with the BS?

I am also not quite sure how you manage to wipeout so often? I’ve been riding in all kinds of conditions (and quite high speeds at times) for almost 30 years and so far my wipeouts on the road were reduced to mechanical failure in the drive train and falling over once because I got stuck in my clip on and forgot to keep pedaling.

If you don’t like the advocats reasoning behind the product they advocate, I suggest you take it up with them though, not with me.

Organ donor.

As soon as I saw Takuan post in a discussion about bike helmets, I knew exactly which road we were heading down. Other than that though, he seems to be a great guy.

As to bike helmets, yep, this has been done to death on every cycling forum on the web. Twice.

To all of you who can’t ride fast enough to put yourself in any real danger, I’m so sorry. I, however, start each day by pacing cars in traffic, so I do it wearing a helmet. I also do it wearing padded half gloves, largely because I’m exponentially more likely to land with my hands in a crash. If anybody cares (or is even still reading this far down), I don’t think either should be mandatory. But I do think that playing in traffic without a lid is simply daft.