On Tue, May 07, 2013 at 11:40:46AM +1000, Rob Studdert wrote: > Discussions around sex, religion, politics and the controversy > surrounding bicycle helmets are usually shunned but I thought that > this article may be of interest: > > http://sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?newsstoryid=11488
It is indeed interesting to see actual research done on what people consider common sense. It turns out that helmets help some of the time, but not always. Other facts that most people don't realize (and you can look them up) are: 1) Cars with anti-lock brakes do not get into fewer accidents. They get into more of some sort of accident, and fewer of others. 2) People on low fat diets do not live longer. They are just at a lower risk of dying from heart disease. 3) Wearing a camelpak (or other hydration system) can greatly reduce your chance of spinal injury. I do find it frustrating when policy and rules are made based merely on what people think should be true, without any scientific data to back it up. I'd love to see the requirement that a law had to state a goal, and if after some time period it wasn't shown to have achieved that goal, it was stricken from the books. An interesting case in point, research has shown that stricter drunk driving laws result in a temporary decrease in drunk driving, after a while, however, people go back to their old habits. As to the personal responsibility versus public liability debate, there are three ways it can be treated: 1) KMAGYOYO: Everybody is entirely responsible for their own actions, and their own care. Banish insurance. Since insurance is a money making industry, then on average, people would be better off without it. Since they tend not to get sick when they're young, everyone should pay into their own insurance account. If at somepoint they get really sick, and can't pay, or get a loan, we've got 7 billion people on the planet anyways, a few less mouths to feed is generally a good thing. 2) Insurance, and don't allow people to do anything dangerous. It's a public liability, so you aren't allowed to do anything that risks incurring higher costs to society. As such, Tobacco, alcohaol, sugared drinks, overly processed foods etc. are banned. Everybody must exercise a certain amount each week. Since sports like recreational bicycling, rock climbing, running, and football can be shown to cause injuries (as can martial arts, dancing etc.) the calisthetics must be rigorously supervised and regulated so as to prevent injuries. All hazardous activies should be banned so as not to incur the risk of public liability for injuries. 3) Insurance, but figure that different people will enjoy doing different things, some of which will incur some risks. Make the assumption that grievous bodily injury is more of a burden to the person who receives it, than it is for society who has to pay for it, and that in the vast majority of cases, the risk of pain and mutilation is enough of a deterrent to keep most people from doing things that are too stupid, and that the rest won't be stopped anyways. -- Larry Colen [email protected] http://red4est.com/lrc -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
