Salutary Tale About Helmet Use

Bunnyhopper

I was cycling home today through the wind and rain thinking that it wasn't really too bad out. Then I got to a roundabout not far from home and as I was going around it the back wheel went out from under me and down I went.

No biggie - just one of those things that happens now and then. No harm done beyond very minor scuffs to me and the bike. I didn't hit my head but I wasn't too far from the kerb when I went down and I did think that it was well I was wearing a helmet as I might easily have hit it a whack with the side of my head.

This sort of thing helps prop up my unscientific basis for helmet wearing: I've been doing it for so long that it's become an ingrained habit and I now feel so uncomfortable without one that I probably become dangerously distracted by not having a helmet.

Anyway, having picked myself up and made my way home I then headed for the shower and just as I was getting in to it, what happened?

Yeah, hit my head on a towel rack. Was I wearing a cycle helmet? No. Do I have a cut on my head? Yeah.

You see - wear a helmet whatever the scientists say. I mean, you can prove anything with facts, but this is a personal anecdote so it must be true.

petethedrummer

I'd just like to mention Darwin and Hitler before anyone else does.

RustyNut

I forget the exact figures but remember being told during a road safety course that fatalities in car crashes could be reduced by 80% or there abouts if all occupants were to wear helmets. But them towel racks just have no consideration for anyone else I think you should report it

CheGuedara

yeah, but unfortunately, most shower users are nasty and malicious people, quite at variance with the image of the happy hippie dropping out of the bath race. It's been my experience that most of them are resentful individuals who are quite prepared to deliberately engineer incidents with other towel rails and 'dare' them to come close.

Most of this attitude could be removed by the simple expedient of making them carry the towels themselves. With CCTV all over the place, the incidents of breaking towel rails, falling on to them, going the wrong way into the shower and slipping and the rest would disappear overnight. Nobody's asking for anything from shower users except to obey the rules that everybody else has to. I'd bet a small amount of money that the OP had spent most of his day up to the point of engagement with the shower rail breaking every rule in the code, and probably doing the same afterward.

dalkener

Never used to wear a helmet until Jens Voight crash in the tour this year.
I'm not a risk taking cyclist so never saw the need until Jens went down with a mechanical failure.....
Always wear one now

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxNzgTlqdEg

DirkVoodoo

More dangerous activities than cycling from xkcd (:D):

Ant

What's the mouseover text for that one? That's often the funniest part of an xkcd cartoon.

DirkVoodoo

http://xkcd.com/369/

BostonB

petethedrummer wrote: »

I'd just like to mention Darwin and Hitler before anyone else does.

LOL with that one. QFT

buffalo

I find when I'm wearing my helmet I tend to whack my head off everything - doorframes, pillars, the metal door of my garage. As soon as I put it on, I either get very uncoordinated, or very careless.

BostonB

I've dropped my helmet on my head, my foot. Its a complete menance.

Bunnyhopper

CheGuedara wrote: »

Most of this attitude could be removed by the simple expedient of making them carry the towels themselves.

We all know that where a towel rail is provided you are obliged by law to use it, even if it is a badly designed towel rail that forces you to duck (or to hit your head when you forget to duck).

Also:

"died in a bathing accident"
705 google hits

"died in a showering accident"
1 google hit

So bathing is up there with skydiving: it's practically an extreme sport.