Updated: 16-year-old girl killed in Cambridge named as Beth McDermott

Guyz2010 wrote:

No comment Ousa. I've said my bit. Paragraphs of Yawn show little respect to a sadly dead girl. My comments were never vindictive over the actions of the young girl merely a comment.
As a matter of human respect I will make no further comments on this case.

Good and you should keep your vile comments to yourself in future.

mooleur wrote:

Honestly just leave it out mate, God forbid any friends or relatives end up viewing any of this.
[...]
That is all. Leave it out all of you, seriously.

Absolutely! Notwithstanding the tragedy of the loss of life, a "Dislike" button would show how tiresome some of these inappropriate comments are perceived to be.

stumps wrote:

For gods sake will you two please give it a rest, no one is interested in it. A young girl has very sadly passed away and all we are getting is cheap shots from you both. Have a bit of respect please.

Stumpy. Thanks for your comment. I respect your sentiment. However, you may not be interested in whether the usual victim blaming questions are asked or inferred but I am. In addition I am responding to comments and to the newspaper report quoted, that was very much interested in what this poor girl was wearing on her head and implying that her death may partly have been her own fault.

I happen to think that it is that vile implication which is the offensive one and that is why I have commented on it.

We may be approaching the "have some respect" position but just from differing angles.

oozaveared wrote:

In addition I am responding to comments and to the newspaper report quoted, that was very much interested in what this poor girl was wearing on her head and implying that her death may partly have been her own fault.

Problem is you could say hat is symbolic, of the tragic loss, or symbolic of not wearing a helmet.

Outside of cyclists what would be the interpretation, what was the intention? I guess I am cynical and see it as a reference to no helmet, but I accept that it might not have been meant that way.

As said, leave it for now, hopefully the truth, or at least something resembling it, will come out.

What is the real cause for concern though is what lessons will be learnt, regardless of what is found out, what will change to stop it happening again. Sadly I fear the answer is nothing and in a few weeks, months even years, we will still be reading about another young person dying on the roads.

Guyz2010 wrote:

To 'oozaveard'
No it doesn't say she died of head injuries but it does say the Peugeot had a broken windscreen. Just my best guess at what might have happened. Who the f#*k do you think you are captain no-all.

Point one (what else but a head breaks a windscreen)

as it happens in 1977 I hit the front nearside and went through the windscreen of an oncoming right turning car. The windscreen was broken. I was on my back with my head on the passenger seat and my bike, still attached by the toe clips was on the front bonnet. I had a very bruised knee. No head injury at all. Heads are but one thing that might break windscreens.

Point two (a helmet offers some worthwhile protection)

Helmets offer protection in a range of between 40 and 100 Joules. British Standard (BS 6863) and American National Standards Institute ANSI 90.4 both specify impact protection at 50 Joules. To quantify what that is useful for, we can calculate the Joules in an impact with a basic physics equation, KE = mv2/2 ie mass times velocity squared over two.

That sort of protection is useful for this. Me at 80kg going 15mph (15mph is 6.7m/s.) So that's 80 x (6.7 squared) over 2. or 89.78 Joules. A helmet is good for that. If I were lighter by a few kilos then better still. Just remember the scale of that number.

Right lets add a car. Not a heavy one. Let's go for a nice little Smart Car at 730kg. Now re work that equation still at 15mph.

If that hits you the impact is at 16,384 joules or roughly 163 times more impact than your helmet will protect you against. If the Smart Car is going 30mph, it isn't just double because its exponential. Now the impact will be 65,539 Joules or 650 times more energy transfer more than the best brand new cycle helmet will protect your skull against.

That's just a smart car. Make it at the other end of the car spectrum, say a Range Rover at 2,230 Kg. Say that's doing 45mph and hits you from behind and you are doing 15mph. Impact speed is still 30. But now the energy transfer is 200,209 Joules. That's 2000 times more than the benefit of your helmet.

So your statement that it is just common sense that a helmet gives you a bit of protection that's worth having is just superstition. It's voo-doo physics.

Now why is this important? It is important because some legislators, and motoring organisations and others think that the solution or even a partial answer to preventing or mitigating cyclist deaths and serious injuries is to focus on helmet wearing, encouraging and sometimes mandating. And the problem with that is not just one of personal freedom ( I don't buy that argument anyway we don't accept it for seat belts etc) it's one of framing the possible solution. If the notion is abroad that the answer to KSI rates are that cyclists wear helmets, but won't or don't then that means that cyclists will appear to refusing to protect themselves against vehicle impacts when they could. But they can't.

The easiest, laziest, route of least resistance, for politicians looking to be seen to do something about KSIs amongst cyclists is to bat on about helmets as if helmets made a big difference. The beauty of this is that the cyclists themselves pay for this and they don't need to do much else and because a helmet is a visible symbol of protection. However, the basic physics of it is that helmet protection is out matched by vehicle impacts, not just by a little bit or in all but excessive speeds or by large vehicles. It's totally and utterly out matched as a meaningful protection by at least many hundreds of times and sometimes by many thousands of times and that goes for impacts even by small cars and even at lower speeds.

oozaveared wrote:

Point one (what else but a head breaks a windscreen)

as it happens in 1977 I hit the front nearside and went through the windscreen of an oncoming right turning car. The windscreen was broken. I was on my back with my head on the passenger seat and my bike, still attached by the toe clips was on the front bonnet. I had a very bruised knee. No head injury at all. Heads are but one thing that might break windscreens.

I can second that. Shortly after I passed my driving test a pedestrian ran out from behind a parked van. I was doing approx 10/15mph (moving off from lights) the individual hit the side of my car bounced off the wind screen and shattered it. They had NO head injury. Police forensics told me his wrist watch must have hit the top edge of the screen. I found out later that this individual was in the habit of doing this and then making a claim. Also a passing police foot patrol saw it all happen and said there was nothing that could have prevented the collision. Again a gross assumption that the damage has been caused by a head.

oozaveared wrote:

That sort of protection is useful for this. Me at 80kg going 15mph (15mph is 6.7m/s.) So that's 80 x (6.7 squared) over 2. or 89.78 Joules. A helmet is good for that. If I were lighter by a few kilos then better still. Just remember the scale of that number.

Doesn't 80 x (6.7 squared) over 2 make 1795.6J?

Velo_Alex wrote:

A child died for crying out loud.

That either side of the helmet debate would use this tragedy to score points is disgusting.

Thoughts with family and friends of the young girl, especially hard to lose someone at this time of year.

I fully agree.

This is not the time or place for a debate/argument over the use of helmets.

wwfcb wrote:

Velo_Alex wrote:

A child died for crying out loud.

That either side of the helmet debate would use this tragedy to score points is disgusting.

Thoughts with family and friends of the young girl, especially hard to lose someone at this time of year.

I fully agree.

This is not the time or place for a debate/argument over the use of helmets.

Which is why the first mention of helmets by guyz2010 "a bobble hat is no helmet" is inappropriate.

Velo_Alex wrote:

A child died for crying out loud.

That either side of the helmet debate would use this tragedy to score points is disgusting.

Thoughts with family and friends of the young girl, especially hard to lose someone at this time of year.

This.

Thoughts with all who knew her.

Caroline Dodgson wrote:

The whole bobble hat thing is drawn from the local news reporting of the death, note how a wicker basket is also mentioned. I think it underlines just how it could have been your daughter, or mine.

This. If the mention - in what we should remember is a local newspaper, not a cycling journal - of a cyclist's bobble hat and basket at the site of an accident is intended to invite any inference on the part of the reader, it's to underline that the victim was an ordinary person riding their bike as a means of transport, not to invite a debate about helmets.

Caroline Dodgson wrote:

The whole bobble hat thing is drawn from the local news reporting of the death, note how a wicker basket is also mentioned. I think it underlines just how it could have been your daughter, or mine.

This is exactly how I read it Caroline.

Cycling is a great activity with great participants, let's all show this girl and her family the respect they deserve at such a tragic time. Such a shame.