Here's a hospital, which theoretically is concerned about people's health, using bicyclists in an ad and they are not wearing helmets.
I should add that one hospital in the Tampa Bay area -- Bayfront Medical Center in St. Petersburg -- has a brain injury prevention program that specifically focuses on getting people to wear bicycle helmets. They participated in the Bicycle Bash by the Bay in October and had a terrific showing.
No bicycle helmet in the University Hospital billboard ad. Maybe University Hospital is trying to create new business for its head trauma unit?
5 comments:
Not trying to stir up an epic argument, but it appears to me that they are on a trail. If so, I don't think helmets are quite as big of a deal. If they aren't on a trail, they are on a sidewalk (going against traffic) which is even worse, or on a road going the wrong way, which is about the worst.
Or perhaps they're in the UK.
Either way, I'm happy that they're using a bicycle in advertising. Hooray legitimacy! =)
Helmets are always a big deal. A Tour de France cyclist died while traveling at a slow rate of speed up a steep incline and lost his balance and fell. Asphalt is harder than your head. Always wear a helmet.
My point was just that there are worse things than not wearing a helmet.
No helmet is going to protect a rider from being on a sidewalk or riding against traffic. Nevertheless, helmet wearing IS a big deal no matter where you're riding.
Striking your bare head on the ground at even very low speeds is no picnic.
Let's put this another way...off-road trail or not, which would you prefer: wearing a slightly dorky $100 helmet or getting bone splinters picked out of your brain at $10K/hour surgeon's rate?
The trouble with bike helmets is that they don't seem to work - laws have stopped a lot of people cycling and have done nothing for head injury rates, see http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/332/7543/722-a. It appears that helmets break easily, but don't absorb the impact, see the engineers quoted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_helmet. A broken helmet has simply failed. Helmets have also strangled some young children who were wearing helmets while playing off their bicycles. At my moderately advanced age it's far too dangerous not to cycle - regular cycling, Danish style, not too far, not too fast, nearly halves the death rate, see http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/160/11/1621 All-Cause Mortality Associated With Physical Activity During Leisure Time, Work, Sports, and Cycling to Work. Andersen et al, Arch Intern Med. 2000;160:1621-1628. It's great to see a medical establishment doing things right.
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