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This is why you should wear a helmet on a bike

https://metro.co.uk/2018/07/11/wear-helmet-bike-7705704/#mv-a

Does anyone know how the lad came to be “knocked off”? 

 

 

 

If you're new please join in and if you have questions pop them below and the forum regulars will answer as best we can.

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35 comments

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Rich_cb | 5 years ago
0 likes

I think a helmet would have helped in this situation.

The CT shows a depressed skull fracture, this is caused by a relatively high amount of energy being applied to a small area.

If you hit someone on the head with a small hammer for example.

A helmet would dissipate the energy over a wider area reducing the likelihood of fracture. If a fracture did still occur it would be less severe as there would be less energy involved.

(BTW I'm not advocating compulsion and I don't think that a helmet would help in every collision. I also don't think that helmets are a panacea for all of the problems we encounter on the road. Reducing the number of collisions between motor vehicles and cyclists should be the number 1 priority.)

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Yorkshire wallet | 5 years ago
5 likes

Compulsory stab vests for London residents!

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giff77 | 5 years ago
4 likes

I would much rather the various police forces enforce the Highways Act and have ‘strong words’ with miscreants if they are not going to charge them. For the CPS/DPP/Fiscal to actually process charges to court And for judges/sheriffs/magistrates doing something other a slap on the hand. 

This young fella should NEVER have been knocked down. The driver in question has received a license to operate HEAVY machinery on a public road. He has been tested to determine if he has the skills and the temperament to do so. The license was introduced because of the increase of motorised vehicles on OUR roads and to ensure the safety of road users. 

It makes little odds on what the lad could have worn to ‘protect’ himself. There would still have been some inattentive, distracted , impatient bugger who would still have hit him. 

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Hirsute replied to giff77 | 5 years ago
0 likes

giff77 wrote:

This young fella should NEVER have been knocked down.

We have no idea what the circumstances are, so that's just a meaningless statement. For all we know, the kid just cycled straight off the pavment without looking

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BehindTheBikesheds replied to Hirsute | 5 years ago
2 likes

hirsute wrote:

giff77 wrote:

This young fella should NEVER have been knocked down.

We have no idea what the circumstances are, so that's just a meaningless statement. For all we know, the kid just cycled straight off the pavment without looking

Ah so what you are saying is motorists have no responsibility for what's around them and the safety of a child on a bike or indeed on foot is solely down to them?

Gotcha, typical motorcentric victim blaming/responsibility diverting bullshit, you sound like the police and a motorist, they always pull that crap out of their hats to divert the blame and indooctrinate the vulnerable to make them think it's their fault for being killed/harmed!

Fact is the police contable making a statement (made out to be fact) doesn't know the facts either, yet was convinced enough to form a statement based on no knowledge of helmets or the incident itself.

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don simon fbpe replied to BehindTheBikesheds | 5 years ago
2 likes

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

hirsute wrote:

giff77 wrote:

This young fella should NEVER have been knocked down.

We have no idea what the circumstances are, so that's just a meaningless statement. For all we know, the kid just cycled straight off the pavment without looking

Ah so what you are saying is motorists have no responsibility for what's around them and the safety of a child on a bike or indeed on foot is solely down to them?

Gotcha, typical motorcentric victim blaming/responsibility diverting bullshit!

Fact is the police contable making a statement (made out to be fact) doesn't know the facts either, yet was convinced enough to form a statement based on no knowledge of helmets or the incident itself.

As a driver, and a cyclist, I can't disagree with this (even if you have to drill down to get the real meaning).

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Hirsute replied to BehindTheBikesheds | 5 years ago
0 likes

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

hirsute wrote:

giff77 wrote:

This young fella should NEVER have been knocked down.

We have no idea what the circumstances are, so that's just a meaningless statement. For all we know, the kid just cycled straight off the pavment without looking

Ah so what you are saying is motorists have no responsibility for what's around them and the safety of a child on a bike or indeed on foot is solely down to them?

Gotcha, typical motorcentric victim blaming/responsibility diverting bullshit, you sound like the police and a motorist, they always pull that crap out of their hats to divert the blame and indooctrinate the vulnerable to make them think it's their fault for being killed/harmed!

Fact is the police contable making a statement (made out to be fact) doesn't know the facts either, yet was convinced enough to form a statement based on no knowledge of helmets or the incident itself.

Oh, gosh, perhaps I should have thought about a completely water tight scenario, whereby the kid cycles out of his front door, across 1m of pavement straight into the path of the van. Or like the little shit tonight who decided to cycle across the zebra crossing and then halfway across, decided to cycle straight at me on the wrong side of the road.

 

If you had bothered to read the thread, you would have seen that I have criticised PC Stanton.

Since there are no details about the "incident", coming out with 'it's the fault of X' or 'helmets save the day' is pointless.

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giff77 replied to Hirsute | 5 years ago
3 likes

[quote=hirsute]

giff77 wrote:

This young fella should NEVER have been knocked down.

We have no idea what the circumstances are, so that's just a meaningless statement. For all we know, the kid just cycled straight off the pavment without looking

[/quote]

Bullshit. Whenever I’m driving in a built up area I’m not only watching traffic. I’m watching the pavements - especially when there’s youngsters about.   This is my responsibility as a driver. Look at rules 208-218 in the HC. While not  DO NOT or MUST. They are guidelines that motorists should follow. As a cyclist and motorist I see very few following any of those guidelines. 

Again, the van driver knocked the lad down. He was obviously driving in a manner that prevented him either avoiding or lessening the injuries caused. 

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Hirsute replied to giff77 | 5 years ago
0 likes

giff77 wrote:

Again, the van driver knocked the lad down. He was obviously driving in a manner that prevented him either avoiding or lessening the injuries caused. 

You can't conceive then of any circumstance where a pedestrian or cyclist could be a fault?

 

 

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madcarew replied to Hirsute | 5 years ago
0 likes

hirsute wrote:

giff77 wrote:

Again, the van driver knocked the lad down. He was obviously driving in a manner that prevented him either avoiding or lessening the injuries caused. 

You can't conceive then of any circumstance where a pedestrian or cyclist could be a fault?

It is very hard to conceive of a likely circumstance where the pedestrian or cyclist is entirely at fault.

I don't entirely disagree with you, but you are showing some of the bias that is inherent in our vehicle-centric society. There are scenarios where the unforeseeable happens, but they are extraordinarily rare. In the vast majority of cases, if the driver was driving with enough care that they could deal with all foreseeable issues, then most 'accidents' wouldn't happen. We drive as if the status quo is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. Look at motorway traffic, lines of cars 8-10 m apart at 70 mph. Realistically, to be driving with due care and attention they should all be about 80 - 90m apart. But there is a very strong expectation that the foreseeable, but unexpected, won't happen. And that is considered fair and reasonable behaviour. To be driving at  25 mph around a residential area, or through town with pavements full of people,  rather assumes that the highly possible, but unlikely, won't happen. In nearly every other sphere of life this is considered completely irresponsible (Coffee cups have "beware, contents may be hot" on them, as do apple pies. A toilet brush I once bought had "not for personal hygiene uses" on it.... but I digress). Fluffykitten has a very responsible, but rather rare, personal approach to this.... she doesn't drive.

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madcarew | 5 years ago
3 likes

And back on to the helmet question....
That is precisely the kind of injury a helmet protects against. Don't believe me? Get an egg and tap it on yr kithen bench lightly. You'll see a very similar indentation in the egg shell to that in the boy's CAT scan. Now do the same thing with a few mm of polystyrene wrapped  around the egg....
In just the same way as people used to say about someone thrown from a vehicle "sure it's ok to wear a seatbelt, but isn't it better to not crash n the first place?". 
Crashes happen. Kids do wheelies, van drivers have a momentary lapse of reason when they see a cyclist without a helmet.... wearing a helmet recognises that shit happens, and when it does, wearing a helmet is likely to protect against, or reduce the severity of, just this kind of injury.
However, in the wider scheme of things making helmet wearing compulsory will likely be to the detriment of the entire population. Wear a helmet, just don't tell anyone else they should   1

 

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BehindTheBikesheds replied to madcarew | 5 years ago
0 likes

madcarew wrote:

And back on to the helmet question....
That is precisely the kind of injury a helmet protects against. Don't believe me? Get an egg and tap it on yr kithen bench lightly. You'll see a very similar indentation in the egg shell to that in the boy's CAT scan. Now do the same thing with a few mm of polystyrene wrapped  around the egg....
In just the same way as people used to say about someone thrown from a vehicle "sure it's ok to wear a seatbelt, but isn't it better to not crash n the first place?". 
Crashes happen. Kids do wheelies, van drivers have a momentary lapse of reason when they see a cyclist without a helmet.... wearing a helmet recognises that shit happens, and when it does, wearing a helmet is likely to protect against, or reduce the severity of, just this kind of injury.
However, in the wider scheme of things making helmet wearing compulsory will likely be to the detriment of the entire population. Wear a helmet, just don't tell anyone else they should   1

Except you have precisely the square root of zero proof of that do you? Helmets are not tested for motorvehice impact forces, why, because it would show not only that helmets would be destroyed more often than not but the actual reduction in forces would be negligible simply because the foam would not be depressed in anything like that at low speed/low energy impacts. what with all the increased helmet wearing in this country serious injuries have outstripped cycling increases massively, that's despite driver education, more segregated infra, despite the 'safety in numbers' thinking, this is replicated globally anywhere that helmet laws/increases in wearing, even Denmark ffs!

I look forward to your presentation to local authorities/police forces to promote helmet wearing for children on fooot and in cars, oh wait, did you forget that more children die of head injury alone in motorvehicle crashes (In England and Wales) than the total number of child cyclists in the UK, what do you think the numbers are for child head injury deaths elsewhere, what about adults, what about the serious head injury numbers, care to have a guess like your guessing on the what a helmet will protect against?

Out of the 1.3million reported head injuries annually to UK hospitals (this is a big under estimation of head injuries BTW) and circa 161,000 hospital admissions, what % of those are from people on bikes?

I'll give you a hint, even if we take the 161k as the absolute figure for serious head injuries, (which it can't be because not all serious head injuries are going to be admitted for one thing and it must be fairly serious to be reported at all so it's closer to half a million SI) that still makes cycling head injuries across both adults and children, most of which will be the fault of a criminal around 0.5%. And you think this is the only group that should be targetted despite the facts saying helmets should going by your theory make a massive difference elsewhere.

Well?

You and your type are dangerous and should be exposed as such, you restrict freedoms, you aid impose unlawful rules, you aid impose bias and discrimination from those that are supposed to anything but, you aid exclusiion of participation, you aid ill health and pollution and you aid those that cause the massive harm to have responsibility removed and pushed onto victims of their actions.

Your type are disgusting, not just short sighted but determined to impose your outdated rules so that everyone suffers.

get fucked!

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madcarew replied to BehindTheBikesheds | 5 years ago
0 likes

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

madcarew wrote:

And back on to the helmet question....
That is precisely the kind of injury a helmet protects against. Don't believe me? Get an egg and tap it on yr kithen bench lightly. You'll see a very similar indentation in the egg shell to that in the boy's CAT scan. Now do the same thing with a few mm of polystyrene wrapped  around the egg....
In just the same way as people used to say about someone thrown from a vehicle "sure it's ok to wear a seatbelt, but isn't it better to not crash n the first place?". 
Crashes happen. Kids do wheelies, van drivers have a momentary lapse of reason when they see a cyclist without a helmet.... wearing a helmet recognises that shit happens, and when it does, wearing a helmet is likely to protect against, or reduce the severity of, just this kind of injury.
However, in the wider scheme of things making helmet wearing compulsory will likely be to the detriment of the entire population. Wear a helmet, just don't tell anyone else they should   1

Except you have precisely the square root of zero proof of that do you? Helmets are not tested for motorvehice impact forces, why, because it would show not only that helmets would be destroyed more often than not but the actual reduction in forces would be negligible simply because the foam would not be depressed in anything like that at low speed/low energy impacts. what with all the increased helmet wearing in this country serious injuries have outstripped cycling increases massively, that's despite driver education, more segregated infra, despite the 'safety in numbers' thinking, this is replicated globally anywhere that helmet laws/increases in wearing, even Denmark ffs!

I look forward to your presentation to local authorities/police forces to promote helmet wearing for children on fooot and in cars, oh wait, did you forget that more children die of head injury alone in motorvehicle crashes (In England and Wales) than the total number of child cyclists in the UK, what do you think the numbers are for child head injury deaths elsewhere, what about adults, what about the serious head injury numbers, care to have a guess like your guessing on the what a helmet will protect against?

Out of the 1.3million reported head injuries annually to UK hospitals (this is a big under estimation of head injuries BTW) and circa 161,000 hospital admissions, what % of those are from people on bikes?

I'll give you a hint, even if we take the 161k as the absolute figure for serious head injuries, (which it can't be because not all serious head injuries are going to be admitted for one thing and it must be fairly serious to be reported at all so it's closer to half a million SI) that still makes cycling head injuries across both adults and children, most of which will be the fault of a criminal around 0.5%. And you think this is the only group that should be targetted despite the facts saying helmets should going by your theory make a massive difference elsewhere.

Well?

You and your type are dangerous and should be exposed as such, you restrict freedoms, you aid impose unlawful rules, you aid impose bias and discrimination from those that are supposed to anything but, you aid exclusiion of participation, you aid ill health and pollution and you aid those that cause the massive harm to have responsibility removed and pushed onto victims of their actions.

Your type are disgusting, not just short sighted but determined to impose your outdated rules so that everyone suffers.

get fucked!

Well done. The injury was most likely caused by hitting the ground. Sure the car pushed him there, but the injury was likely from hitting the ground. A hlemet would likely have protected him from the worst effects of that. And you have precisely zero evidence to the contrary. 

I don't support mandating helmet wearing, so the rest of your post is simply you spitting your usual, pointless, mis-directed bile. 

I promote the freedom to chose. 

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Pitbull Steelers | 5 years ago
1 like

I think you'll find i did mention them, but i'm not going to bicker over it. 

Believe what you want i'm not really interested in arguing over the words opinion speculation or assertion to be honest. I've shared my thoughts on the matter and will leave it at that. 

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Pitbull Steelers | 5 years ago
0 likes

So then are people not allowed to give their opinion on what might or might not have been the outcome if the laddie had been wearing a helmet ? 

It seems not, going by some of the comments on here, but hang on, aren't they giving their opinion on someone else giving their opinion......hmmm interesting. 

It might be right, it might be wrong, we'll never know but freedom of speech is still legal in this country, of course though thats just my opinion.

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Hirsute replied to Pitbull Steelers | 5 years ago
1 like

Pitbull Steelers wrote:

So then are people not allowed to give their opinion on what might or might not have been the outcome if the laddie had been wearing a helmet ?

You seem rather confused.

When you say opinion, you mean speculation. You know,  given we don't even know the circumstances. 

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Pitbull Steelers replied to Hirsute | 5 years ago
1 like

hirsute wrote:

Pitbull Steelers wrote:

So then are people not allowed to give their opinion on what might or might not have been the outcome if the laddie had been wearing a helmet ?

You seem rather confused.

When you say opinion, you mean speculation. You know,  given we don't even know the circumstances. 

Nope, no confusion from me - the Cambridge English dictionary on the word opinion is

"We use opinion as a noun to mean beliefs or judgements about someone or something. When it refers to the beliefs or judgements of individuals"

There you go, it is the opinion of the Police officer and the mam or the opinion of many on here.

However you are right as well,  from the same dictionary Speculation:

"the act of guessing possible answers to a question without having enough information to be certain". 

In the end they are both very similar, hope that clears it up for you. 

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Hirsute replied to Pitbull Steelers | 5 years ago
2 likes

Pitbull Steelers wrote:

hirsute wrote:

Pitbull Steelers wrote:

So then are people not allowed to give their opinion on what might or might not have been the outcome if the laddie had been wearing a helmet ?

You seem rather confused.

When you say opinion, you mean speculation. You know,  given we don't even know the circumstances. 

Nope, no confusion from me - the Cambridge English dictionary on the word opinion is

"We use opinion as a noun to mean beliefs or judgements about someone or something. When it refers to the beliefs or judgements of individuals"

There you go, it is the opinion of the Police officer and the mam or the opinion of many on here.

However you are right as well,  from the same dictionary Speculation:

"the act of guessing possible answers to a question without having enough information to be certain". 

In the end they are both very similar, hope that clears it up for you. 

Neither of them expressd an opinion, they made an assertion. Also you did not mention them in your post.

You also said "So then are people not allowed to give their opinion on what might or might not have been the outcome if the laddie had been wearing a helmet ? "

 That is speculation as we don't even know the circumstances, and especially if you couch it in terms of "might ot might not".

 

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BehindTheBikesheds replied to Pitbull Steelers | 5 years ago
4 likes

Pitbull Steelers wrote:

So then are people not allowed to give their opinion on what might or might not have been the outcome if the laddie had been wearing a helmet ? 

It seems not, going by some of the comments on here, but hang on, aren't they giving their opinion on someone else giving their opinion......hmmm interesting. 

It might be right, it might be wrong, we'll never know but freedom of speech is still legal in this country, of course though thats just my opinion.

it's not an opinion, it's a statement made out to be fact by someone who should know better than to make claims that are utterly without fact, it's no different to all helmet saved my life/saved me from TBI stories.

From that it propagates into being fact as in a real hard fact, from that we end up with legislation, victim blaming increases, focus of responsibility turns away from those that harm and policw start handing out £200 fines for not wearing a helmet which is more than fines for distarcted driving. You only need look at NSW were a not wearing a helmet fine is the same for speeding, except more people get busted for not wearing helmets as a proportion of those flouting the law. Near miss law, a handful of transgressors in a year, no bell, no ID, no helmet, over a million dollars in fines.

THAT is what these people's so called 'opinion' leads to, it's not just wildly inaccurate but dangerous and ends up costing more lives, ends up killing off cycling instead of making it flourish.and the end result it a massive clusterfuck, just like Australia, NZ and increasingly Canada and other countries with increasing rates of helmet use/law.

If someone said if a women had not been wearing alluring clothing/walking down x street at x time and had an anti rape alarm she might not have got raped, how would you have reacted to a police constable coming out and saying that?

What about if a child is sexually abused, would you come out and publicly say well if only the child had done x/y/z they might not have been abused, no, thought not, because that would be disgusting, so why do some people including those sworn an oath to keep the peace do exactly that, VICTIM BLAME and come out with absolute unproven bullshit but only for one group of vulnerable people, in this instance it's ALWAYS people riding bikes.

Well?

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Beecho | 5 years ago
6 likes

Compulsory hi-viz on bouncy castles!

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BehindTheBikesheds replied to Beecho | 5 years ago
1 like

Beecho wrote:

Compulsory hi-viz on bouncy castles!

doesn't go far enough if you ask me,

This callous victim blaming is insidious and benefits no-one except criminal motorists and the police who then can simply lay the blame at the door of injured or killed people riding bikes as they've ben doing for years. Oh yeah it beenfits the hand-wringers because they'll apparently be justified in their nonsense bullshit.

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hawkinspeter | 5 years ago
2 likes

At the moment, there's also some fuss about "deadly" inflatables after a couple of children have unfortunately died of head injuries (as I recall, one inflatable took off with the kid inside and the other one suddenly popped). However, helmets have not even been mentioned in relation to those cases - double standards?

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David9694 | 5 years ago
0 likes

Anyone feeling brave enough to wade into the discussion on the PC’s Facebook page?

I guess we’re all glad (for the avoidance of doubt, as am I )  that the situation isn’t more serious. It’s clearly fortunate that the pc was on the scene when she was. 

Perhaps an examination of the role of the van and driver will follow and what actually happened will become clearer later on? “A scene of total devastation” and a “potentially fatal road traffic collision” seem unlikely things to have been caused just by a group of lads on bikes: another contributory factor seems likely. 

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don simon fbpe replied to David9694 | 5 years ago
1 like

David9694 wrote:

Anyone feeling brave enough to wade into the discussion on the PC’s Facebook page?

I guess we’re all glad (for the avoidance of doubt, as am I )  that the situation isn’t more serious. It’s clearly fortunate that the pc was on the scene when she was. 

Perhaps an examination of the role of the van and driver will follow and what actually happened will become clearer later on? “A scene of total devastation” and a “potentially fatal road traffic collision” seem unlikely things to have been caused just by a group of lads on bikes: another contributory factor seems likely. 

You must've missed the kids doing wheelies thread then, the resident snobs on here have kids on bikes as being feral, so not beyond the realms of possibility, if you listen to them dumb shits.

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Mungecrundle | 5 years ago
3 likes

There is only one solution. Wait for the lad to heal and then recreate the incident while he is wearing a correctly fitted helmet. See what happens.

In the meantime get well little dude and hope you are back on a bicycle as soon as you want to be.

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Hirsute | 5 years ago
4 likes

"Us as parents can prevent this from happening, all it takes is a cycle helmet, and make it compulsory for us and especially our children for their own safety. Act now before it's too late."

As simple as that.

In her spare time PC Stanton specialises in string theory, anglo saxon history and fluid mechanics.

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alansmurphy replied to Hirsute | 5 years ago
3 likes

hirsute wrote:

"Us as parents can prevent this from happening, all it takes is a cycle helmet, and make it compulsory for us and especially our children for their own safety. Act now before it's too late." As simple as that. In her spare time PC Stanton specialises in string theory, anglo saxon history and fluid mechanics.

 

At which part of a human being forcing its way out of her body did she change from not giving a shite about the safety of children to being an expert.

 

Also, as a Policeman-woman-person, couldn't she do more good by actually enforcing laws that are likely to prevent many of these incidents from ocurring?

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hawkinspeter | 5 years ago
9 likes

Apparently, "he sustained an incredibly serious skull fracture as a result of not wearing a helmet" so being knocked off his bike was merely incidental.

I'd much rather base my opinions on the emotional reaction of a mum rather than look at all the accumulated evidence around helmet wearing from experts, statisticians and helmet designers.

 

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ChrisB200SX replied to hawkinspeter | 5 years ago
3 likes

hawkinspeter wrote:

Apparently, "he sustained an incredibly serious skull fracture as a result of not wearing a helmet" so being knocked off his bike was merely incidental.

Fairly sure it wasn't the wearing nothing on his head (like he's done for most of the rest of his time on this earth) that caused the injury. Why do people like this see being "knocked off" as normal and to be expected?

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hawkinspeter replied to ChrisB200SX | 5 years ago
1 like

ChrisB200SX wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

Apparently, "he sustained an incredibly serious skull fracture as a result of not wearing a helmet" so being knocked off his bike was merely incidental.

Fairly sure it wasn't the wearing nothing on his head (like he's done for most of the rest of his time on this earth) that caused the injury. Why do people like this see being "knocked off" as normal and to be expected?

Metro is owned by DMGT who also happens to own The Daily Heil Mail but I'm sure that fact has no bearing on the standard of their reporting or any hidden agendas.

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