What Happened to Helmets? - An Observation

[TVR]

Sorry, I missed the news flash.

Which mountains are restricted "By denying a private ski area the ability to impose helmet restrictions aren’t you already on that (bad) slippery slope? " It seems the all managed to put mask requirements in place, so I missed the restrictions being imposed. 

Maybe this was trying to "draw arguments out to ridiculous extremes?"

I don't see the need to any mandates. Resorts should do what they want to do, and their clientele can then decide to spend at the resorts that cater to their wants and needs. I will say I find it amazing how vitrol the conversation becomes when someone goes against the established compliance dogma. My arguments make logical sense and history has repeatedly shown one restriction seldom is the end all. 

Anyway, I have made my point, and with the tone now present, each can discuss this at their leisure, but I am done with it. Even Patrick Henry would, as he makes the statements he never made, decide to leave all to their own thoughts with the chastise applied. 

[st_lupo]

14 minutes ago, TVR said:

I don't see the need to any mandates. Resorts should do what they want to do, and their clientele can then decide to spend at the resorts that cater to their wants and needs. 

 

I don’t get where you are going with those first two paragraphs but Ill do my best to find some common ground and read this with my best intentions.  If The above quote had been the crux of your argument, we would be in COMPLETE agreement.  But this gets lost in all of the seemingly contradictory noise surrounding it.  Given there is no federal mandate in most countries for helmets on ski areas, I assumed you were arguing against allowing ski areas to mandate helmet use?  
 

Matters of public safety and national health strategies otoh are completely a different story.

[BlueB]

2 hours ago, st_lupo said:

If you wanna go parachuting, they're going to make you wear a parachute. 

The quote of the year!  

Not exactly comparable to the helmet, though. 

[pow4ever]

just going to leave this here:

https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/logic_in_argumentative_writing/fallacies.html

Spring/end of the season must be near

[Deuxdiesel]

Helmets are a personal choice and should not be mandated, but neither should seatbelts or helmets on motorcycles and bicycles.  The problem is that we all pay for TBI or ICU care in the end.

[Spiny Norman]

2 hours ago, Deuxdiesel said:

Helmets are a personal choice and should not be mandated, but neither should seatbelts or helmets on motorcycles and bicycles

The Granite State awaits you.

[TVR]

And we welcome him.

[Neil Gendzwill]

3 hours ago, Deuxdiesel said:

Helmets are a personal choice and should not be mandated, but neither should seatbelts or helmets on motorcycles and bicycles.  The problem is that we all pay for TBI or ICU care in the end.

It’s a balance. The problem with not mandating seatbelts or motorcycle helmets is that people are idiots, by and large. Whenever I drive through a state with no helmet law I remark on the fact that helmet use is so low. Spotting a biker with a helmet in Minnesota is so rare it catches you by surprise. 

[lordmetroland]

22 hours ago, TVR said:

I will say I find it amazing how vitrol the conversation becomes when someone goes against the established compliance dogma.

Exasperation and vitriol can look very similar. Ask the parent of any three-year-old.

[pow4ever]

22 hours ago, pow4ever said:

just going to leave this here:

https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/logic_in_argumentative_writing/fallacies.html

Spring/end of the season must be near

to make the heads hurt/spin:  "logical fallacy" isn't suppose to invalidate an argument.  It suppose to promote constructive feedback based on evidence. 

fallacy/fallacy(double negative?)  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy

who is watching the watcher that watch the watcher and so on and on until it's all turtles all the way down.

Nothing wrong going against the "establishment dogma" -- in a way that is "alpine snowboard"
Best practice become the norm/main stream not because it's wrong but because given the data in that moment in time that's what SME believed the right thing to do.
Ability to change one's view based on evidence/new data is good
being a contrarian for being contrarian sake is bad?  it does make you think. 
Finding that balance is hard....

TLDR: question everything; existence is pain!! 

[Jack M]

On 3/17/2021 at 3:03 PM, TVR said:

How does someone not wearing a helmet harm someone else?

It can harm their family/dependents.

It can waste resources and time of emergency personnel who have to deal with a helmetless victim when they might not have had to otherwise, potentially pulling those resources away from other people in need.

And unless you are independently wealthy and self-insure, ultimately we all pay for each other's healthcare, no matter what system of doing that you believe is best.  Helmets are largely believed to reduce those costs, and I believe that too.

[Jack M]

The flip side is that if a society decides the freedom to choose to wear a helmet or not is worth more than the costs and risks of not wearing one, that's fine.  For now the society of skiers and snowboarders has decided it is.

Personally I stop short of saying helmets should be mandated.  The problem with that becomes, where do you draw the line between acceptable and unacceptably risky behavior?  Many people would put snowboarding altogether over that line.

[Spiny Norman]

11 hours ago, TVR said:

And we welcome him.

Ha! You Maineiacs with your Primary Enforcement of seat belt laws!

Per Wikipedia:  New Hampshire is the only state that has no enforceable laws for the wearing of seat belts in a vehicle.[3]

AND no mandatory insurance either. Talk about freedom baby!

[queequeg]

22 minutes ago, Spiny Norman said:

Ha! You Maineiacs with your Primary Enforcement of seat belt laws!

Per Wikipedia:  New Hampshire is the only state that has no enforceable laws for the wearing of seat belts in a vehicle.[3]

AND no mandatory insurance either. Talk about freedom baby!

Is this: no mandatory insurance to own a car, or no mandatory insurance to drive a car on public roads? That is uhh ... pretty wild. What happens if a young, impoverished, legally uninsured motorist maims someone innocently going about their day and puts them in the hospital? What if the person they harmed cannot afford good health insurance? And has dependents? What if they crash into a business and cause massive amounts of damage? I’m genuinely curious.

[Spiny Norman]

They can sue. Bwahahaha!

No liability insurance required here. Be very careful.

[BXFR70]

I am sure everyone has read this: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31335753/.  There is not much on the subject.  
 

I believe there is other reputable information to suggest that helmets would protect against certain minor injuries, lacerations and potentially skull fractures that may occur from the head actually hitting something without a helmet. My opinion for myself is that a ski helmet isn’t really going to do much for a more dramatic injury. I would hold more confidence in a DOT helmet, but depending on the weight a Leatt brace would come into play then.  And then similar to with DH bikes, the DOT helmet may be too much for very low energy impacts. 

Edited March 20, 2021 by BXFR70

[queequeg]

2 minutes ago, Spiny Norman said:

They can sue. Bwahahaha!

Wow, so: the plaintiff is totally screwed because the defendant has no money. That’s horrifying. Yikes!

[lowrider]

Perhaps the simple reality is some brains aren't worth protecting. Just a Darwinian thought here.

[big mario]

 

I know that a high energy impact with a tree is more than likely going to tear my aorta and I will bleed out in a matter of minutes, and my helmet ain't gonna do jack shit. It drives me nuts hearing news reports that the deceased was wearing a helmet, and it didn't save their life. Really? No shit. I don't wear one for that, I wear mine for the myriad of lower and medium energy impacts that I have experienced through the years due to my choices for recreating.  I have to wear a hardhat on my jobsites during certain phases of work,  one of my least favorite things to do, despite all of the cool stickers  on it.  It has protected me from a few incidents that  could have left me  a blubbering tub of goo. I get the personal freedom arguments, and if you're into that shit, then please have your organ donor cards filled out as well as your dnr paperwork to avoid draining resources from the rest of society while keeping your selfish ass alive for the rest of your days on a vent. You cannot legislate stupidity out of existence, but at least you can hope to minimize its impacts.

Rant over

Mario

Edited March 21, 2021 by big mario

[lordmetroland]

1 hour ago, big mario said:

I get the personal freedom arguments, and if you're into that shit, then please have your organ donor cards filled out as well as your dnr paperwork

Rant over

Mario

Today I discovered you can’t like a post multiple times. Not sure what the actual data say, but in my mind, you have won the day, brother! I could actually feel the spittle hitting my face...

[TVR]

On 3/19/2021 at 9:17 PM, queequeg said:

Is this: no mandatory insurance to own a car, or no mandatory insurance to drive a car on public roads? That is uhh ... pretty wild. What happens if a young, impoverished, legally uninsured motorist maims someone innocently going about their day and puts them in the hospital? What if the person they harmed cannot afford good health insurance? And has dependents? What if they crash into a business and cause massive amounts of damage? I’m genuinely curious.

NH does not require car insurance, in any form. The state also does not require motorcycle helmets or seat-belts. The state sees this as an infringement on individual choice, as they give the individual the choice of what to do with their money. It is also why there is no state income tax. This idea of choice, and individual responsibility is foreign to many of the other states as they promote the dogma that individuals, like pets, must be protected from their own actions.

This does NOT, however mean people are free to go drive a car, injure others or their property, and refuse to pay due to this accepted freedom of choice. There are very specific laws in place to hold individuals who damage others in some way accountable. These include the very real aspect of jail and forfeiture of the offenders properties and future income to compensate the individual harmed. Due to this, NH does not have an epidemic of people getting away with harming others, and NH is not in the bottom half of safety for states to drive in. NH simply looks at this aspect differently, has voted for individual freedoms, and allows those with the resources to self-insure. I am a NH resident, do not have sufficient resources to self-insure, and have insurance on all of my vehicles. Like when I wear a helmet, this is a choice I have made. Draconian laws in Massachusetts caused me to put my money where my mouth is, and why I bought a house in NH. Mass has a seat-belt law, and one of my British cars would not pass an inspection, as they mandate seat-belts, and this car did not come with them installed. I chose my personal freedoms over their regulations, and refused to modify my property for their will. 

I don't understand the vitriol people have for others who espouse for freedom of choice and freedom from regulation. This isn't even a matter of "if you don't like it, get out of the country" as this is the reason why the USA was created as a republic and each state has the autonomy it has. Read the federalist papers and you can see this was on purpose. If someone doesn't like the way another state operates, why the vitriol towards those individuals? Just enjoy the state you are in, or if you want more or less regulations, their are 50 to choose from where one of them will have what you want.

Queequeg, your question was civil and I thank you. But the tone of others certainly won't help the sport or increase membership. 

[Spiny Norman]

TVR, Fellow NH-rite here.

 

The fly in your Personal Choice argument is that the consequences do not fall only on you. A car accident without seatbelts probably means greater injury. If you are insured and it costs a bazillion dollars to rehab/repair you, all our insurance rates will eventually reflect that. If you are not insured then tax dollars will be spent on you directly through social security to fix you or the hospital will have to carry much of the cost and they will pass it on to the rest of us eventually.

 

Without checking I would say NH has fairly safe drivers but that may be because we are an old, and also well educated state. Both indicators of safer drivers.

And if you are hit by a poor, uninsured driver, perhaps they will face criminal charges but that won't pay for the medical bills.

 

Be safe.

[bumpyride]

Let's carry this personal freedom a little further. 

I assume all of us were born naked, so isn't against my personal freedom to be forced to wear clothes when I didn't come into this world with a pair pants on?  Clothes are manmade laws, and you can't give me the argument of decency, because that's not something we were born having to contend with.  Don't you see little kids loving to run around naked?  

Personally I love to run around naked, unfortunately I'm forced to wear clothes which infringes on my personal rights. Having said that I haven't run the "Bare Buns Race" in a lot of years, mostly because I can't run downhill.

So there are all kinds of extremes that one can go to when insisting that personal rights are being affected.  

Even in "Au Natureau" enclaves you're often mandated to bring a towel to sit on.  So there's even rules for being naked.

[lowrider]

We're not forced to drink from the water hole but it's reasonable to mandate that others cant piss in it. Your only free to imagine not act. 

[Spiny Norman]

There was an accident today close by. 17yo in a old 3/4 pickup was texting and rearended a guy in a new Kia Sportage. No skid marks on the road. Maybe he had insurance because he was under 18 but maybe not.