Tuesday 26 November 2013

Being knocked down by a van* was not the cause of his injuries.

From The Daily Mail:

Miraculous moment 16-year-old cyclist wakes from four-month coma and hugs his father after being hurt in collision because he didn't wear a helmet

* It was a van, I checked.

UPDATE: They've changed the headline, thus ruining my punchline.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Whenever I find this topic coming up amongst fellow Australians ('the rest of the world will catch up to us one day'), I find it's better to agree, but claim that these flimsy little helmets don't go far enough.

Motorcycle helmets should be made compulsory immediately.

Mark Wadsworth said...

UPDATE: they've changed the headline :-(

Bayard said...

Anonymous, are you able to lead onto the idea that compulsory full body armour would be the ideal solution?

Mark Wadsworth said...

B, good idea, they should make cyclists travel inside a large, protective metal frame, supported by a wheel at each corner. That would do wonders for cyclist safety.

This would be very heavy, so I envisage that the metal frame would have a motor or similar connected to two of the wheels to help the cyclist get the thing in motion and help him keep up the pace.

We could call it a "car" or something like that.

Anonymous said...

@Bayard,

as a former motorcycle rider, I am acutely aware of what bitumen can do to soft tissue. When I have drunkenly fallen from my bicycle on the Continent, it's been icy winter, so adequate protection is already in place.

But the "your bloody compulsory helmet doesn't go far enough, children are dying every day because of people like you" is usually enough. When I am told that I am being ridiculous, then I ask why somebody riding 100 yards needs to wear one of those fag helmets.

Go check under the bed before you go to sleep while you're at it.

Bayard said...

Anon, I wasn't having a pop, I was wondering if you indulged in the sport of leading the self-righteous on, getting them to agree to more and more ridiculous ideas before they twig what's going on.

Mark Wadsworth said...

B, he outflanked me there.

When I read his comment I assumed he was one of The Righteous and ignored it. Now I re-read it, it was so dripping with sarcasm, you'd have to wring it out over the sink before you decided to throw it away after all.

twentyrothmans said...

No pop detected, Bayard. The 'Go check under the bed' was directed at my countrymen, not at anyone here :-)

The only way to deal with the Righteous is to out-righteous them, at which point you can call them insensitive, fascist or anachronistic.

This leads to:
* ten-a-day instead of five - random stool sampling of schoolchildren to detect and prosecute non-compliant parents
* Speed limit of 5 mph in built-up areas and 15 mph elsewhere
* (Aus only) Checking children at the beach and in parks for suncream residue - if untreated, parents are prosecuted
* 10% property tax to reimburse the Aborigines
* High visibility jackets must be worn outside between sunset and dawn

Bayard said...

20R, good to hear it. A friend of mine has similar sport "outing" closet racists and anti-semitics.