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stef -> RE: Big Ben (6/20/2006 8:01:26 AM)
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ORIGINAL: SirCumsSlut
Helmets do not always save lives......
Nothing is 100%, but in the overwhelming majority of incidents, they can save the wearer from serious injury. The same can be said for seatbelts. In certain limited instances, they can fail to protect or even contribute to an injury, but those situations are a tiny fraction of the overall picture. Want to be 100% safe? Don't ride/drive. Want to be as safe as you can? Wear a helmet/seatbelt. It's not rocket science.
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Do any of you realize that a helmet is tested at speeds of 15 miles an hour??? Now what biker, or motorcyclist is going 15 miles an hour when they had their accident....
According to the Hurt Report in 1981 and backed up by the COST 327 study in 1999, half of all serious motorcycle accidents occur at speeds below 25 MPH. Unless the rider is thrown from the bike and hits an upright stationary object, the speed of primary impact (the one that causes the most damage during an accident) is generally equal to the accelleration from gravity from the height from which the helmet drops. One of the main conclusions of the Hurt Report was that the vast majority of crash damaged helmets examined showed they had absorbed roughly the same amount of impact you would receive if you just fell over while standing (like a bowling pin tipping over) and hit your head on the pavement. 90+% of head impacts surveyed produced equal to or less than the force involved in a seven foot drop. 99 percent of the impacts were at or below the energy of a 10-foot drop. Lateral speed does not necessarily translate into impact velocity and is somewhat of a red herring in this discussion.
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I have a dear friend who was riding his bike and wearing a helmet in Ohio, he was in a major accident, and thanks to the helmet he suffered a severe fractured skull and a broken neck which has left him permanently paralized and memory loss....the doctors and state police both said that if he had not been wearing a helmet his injuries would have been less severe, ie the skull fracture. You see, due to the impact of the accident, the helmet (the thing that was supposed to protect his head) collapsed like a mellon around his head in turn causing the fracture to his skull, and when the paramedics, against the advice of police officers, removed his helmet they caused more extensive injuries to his spinal cord which resulted in his paralization.
I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to call bullshit here. I'm an EMT and have spent over a decade cornerworking at motorcycle roadracing events. I have seen hundreds of crashes that involved significant helmet impacts. Assuming the helmet your friend was wearing wasn't one of those salad bowl beanies or a 20 year old fibreglass relic from Dickie Mann's closet; if the impact was sufficient enough to collapse his helmet, it would have collapsed his skull as well. The helmet didn't cause the injury.
It's certainly possible that the ambulance personnel who responded to the incident didn't know the correct way to remove a helmet and exacerbated his spinal injury, and that's a terrible shame. When I took my EMT class *mumble* years ago, helmet removal got only a cursory mention and it wasn't even something we practiced in class. It wasn't even mentioned during the state certification testing. I had to learn the correct way to do it from paramedics at a racetrack when I started cornerworking. New EMTs I meet say the curriculum hasn't changed much in that regard so we spend a lot of time teaching the new kids what to do and I've probably taught 100 EMTs how to do it since then. There's a reason I have a "DO NOT REMOVE THIS HELMET UNLESS YOU ARE TRAINED TO DO SO" sticker on the chinbar of my helmet.
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A person's right to choose is just that his or her right......the Pennsylvania helmet law is one like so many other states have.....you can wear one if you want or you cannot wear one as long as you have TWO years riding experience and take the required bike safety and riding classes when first getting license.
As a rider, I do think people should have the right to not wear a helmet if they choose. I also think that those people forfiet the right to any medical care they can't pay for out of pocket should they require it. Choose to ride without a helmet and you can suck it up if you crash and have head trauma. If you need to be on a ventilator, you can stay on it until your money runs out then they pull the plug. I don't need my insurance premuims going up to offset the cost of medical care for people too stupid to wear a helmet who turn themselves into turnips and require 24/7 medical care until they waste away into nothingness.
If you're willing to pay that piper, feel free to ride without a helmet.
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And as to the NFL big wigs, telling players via contract that they cannot ride bikes......BULLSHIT
The Steelers organization has built a franchise around Ben and have invested millions of dollars in the fact that he will stay healthy and lead their team for many years to come. They have every right to put such restrictive clauses in his contract. Many contracts for atheletes are written that include language that prohibits the signer from engaging in "risk taking" behavior. It's hardly new and it's not going to end any time soon.
~stef
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