David Stafford:A Complete Guide to Safe Helmet Usage

[Dean aka Artist in Seine]

Orginally meant for an Art unworthy relative.     I have it now, and it's all mine! 

     This wonderful boekie is so funny, but actually started me thinking of accidents.  So I started a little research project to go with the blog.

    According to the Center for Disease Control, falling out of bed accounts for 1.8 million emergency room visits and over 400 thousand hospital admissions each year.

“The primary way consumers can avoid static electricity problems at the gas pump is to stay outside  the vehicle wearing a helmet while refueling. The helmet will greatly minimize the likelihood of any build-up of static electricity that could be discharged at the nozzle.”

OK I know this is going to sound strange, but my research took me to a 61 page report entitled; Library Injury Prevention and ergonomics; Why the human body and libraries don't mix and what to do about it.

  I'll let you Google this one yourself at your leisure.

The top pages are about Greek pottery.  I don't know the title of the book, or even who wrote it.  Here’s what it reads:

     Defects in the preparation of the clay, in the construction, in the glazing, in the firing, all are revealed when the vase emerges from the kiln.  That there were plenty of mistakes and mishaps in Greek vases as in modern ones becomes evident when we examine even museum pieces. 

     We see many cases of warped lips and sagged shoulders, of dents and cracks, and of red spots in the black glaze. 

     Spalls –  that is, chips produced by particles of limestone which became embedded in the clay and then explode in the fire –  are not infrequent.  Consequently neck and handles had to be shaped irregularly so as to produce a level top.

And you thought pottery was safe?   I had irregular handles for years and I'm sure it was an accident.

The best is yet to come.

     The most hazardous activities for all ages are bathing and getting out of the tub. (Only 2.2 percent of injuries occur while getting into the tub, but 9.8 percent occur while getting out.)

     Injuries in or near the bathtub account for more than two-thirds of emergency room visits.

The bathroom injury rate for women was 72 percent higher than for men.   Alcohol use may be a factor, the researchers suggested, but there is no data to prove it.

Please stay tuned for David Stafford's Volume Two of A Complete Guide to Safe Helmet Usage .

    One of the highlights will be;

Each year dozens are killed when sharp icicles fall from snowy rooftops and land on hapless victims on the sidewalks below.

Thank you again David & Thanks to all who read this blog to the end.  If you did read all the way to here, can you please enter a comment; "David is a true funny Guinness"  yes, with the spelling error!

[Katerina Nikoltsou (MomKat)]

Does In Seine wear a helmet when he bikes around Paris?

Yes….( an invisible one :-)

[Valentine Mark Herman]

A couple of comments:

i) helmets used to be (and still are) a sort of fashion accesory in Rome -- scooter drivers would very often have one attached to their....handlebars, but not their heads

ii) concerning the use of helmets in baths & showers, you should read Prof Flu Shloo (of the University of Peking, 14)'s famous study of 'Sanitary Safety: Bicycle Helmets and French Bidets'

[Valentine Mark Herman]

To me, the very funny thing about cycling in the Netherlands is that people are more concerned about ptotecting their bums than their bonces.

When you see bikes in Holland (the photos below are from Maastricht Station on a sunny summer day: in winter almost all of the bikes have seat covers), the saddles often have plastic rain covers, -- given out by various companies as advertising/promotional gimmicks. Do the Dutch cyclists protect their heads by wearing helmets?

No, they do not!

(I have a small collection of these seat covers that I will trade for gold ingots)

[Nancy Bell Scott]

A biker chose to follow the helmet law by wearing his helmet on his knee. A cop stopped him and ordered him to put it on his head. Not long after, the guy got into an accident and wrecked his knee. This is a true story.

[Nancy Bell Scott]

Good point, David, because danger-free existence is a nonlife. In fact, that existence doesn't even exist. This knowledge must be what caused me to beg for an old clawfoot bathtub right before I became afraid of bathtubs. It's nice to look at, but oh god.

[David Stafford]

Yes, I believe you've put your finger on a significant difference between The Netherlands and the USA. Car culture rules here and our roadways, while improving for bicycles, seem determined to pit the two means of transport against each other in a sort of blood sport that makes no one happy. Of course, head injuries are horrible but one has to wonder if something else is operating here. Are we trying to soothe our existential anxieties by making our existence danger-free?, a fool's errand if their ever was one. In the meantime, wear your helmet to the library and keep a rabbit's foot in your pocket.

[Heleen de Vaan]

Great pictures, great blog! Thanks for sharing. Now I know why we have a shower only, and why they didn't build a bathtub (and created too little room for a tub) in my home.

@ Mim: as David already noticed, here in the Netherlands almost no cyclist wears a helmet while cycling in daily life (in sports / competitions, people do).
So you will see thousands of people cycling without helmets, and only some children (and very little few adults) who do wear one.
A few years ago some governmental people thought of obliging a helmet for cyclists, but there were too many protests (and also I wouldn't like to wear one).

The positive thing is that there are many good bicycle pathways which are safe. But when people who are used to helmets would visit our capital, they might be shocked: cyclists share the street with car drivers, taxi drivers (who drive very, very fast), motor cycle drivers (who are obliged to wear a helmet) and trams. Maybe David has hired a bike and cycled without helmet, too?

Don't forget, there is some paradox about safety: people who wear a helmet, may take more risks than they would do without helmet (see for instance this info).

But after reading this eye-opening blog, I still am not sure what to do when entering a library. Libraries are too attractive to avoid, but I still don't have a helmet, and if I'd have one, I would take too many risks there between the books...

Maybe the answer is in Volume 2, looking forward to reading it.

[David Stafford]

Mim, as Dean, my statistician, says you can never be too careful. Having said that, in Amsterdam I saw very few helmets among the hundreds of bicyclists. Luckily they have the magic scarves to protect them.

[Mim Golub Scalin]

This is hilarious, but also useful. Actually, I have seen people in my neighborhood wearing helmets even not with bicycles so could be this is catching on. Then again, I've seen people without helmets riding bicycles. Go figure.

mim

[borderlinegrafix]

"The Guinness is good."