“how did we survive?”
Ask anyone not wearing a helmet that got hit by a car or smacked their head on the concrete after going over their handlebars. Oh, right, you can’t.
This type of person cannot fathom that their singular experience is not representative of everyone else’s experience. Conservatism in a nutshell.
Friend got hit by a car when on bike, went flying, rolled over the car, smacked into the road.
Got up, checked bike first, sighted and started dragging it’s carcass back home.
…but to be honest, dude was kinda indestructible and totally the exemption in every dangerous situaiton.
Ask anyone not wearing a helmet that got hit by a car or smacked their head on the concrete after going over their handlebars. Oh, right, you can’t.
I mean, you can. Falling off your bike isn’t universally fatal. Even bad injuries aren’t unrecoverable - especially when you’re young and resilient and you’re body is still growing.
But imagine telling a 12-year-old to take off their helmet and pads and go plow themselves into a tree, because it builds character. Why would anyone voluntarily subject themselves to this? Why would anyone advocate for this?
You’re not building up some kind of robust spirit of mind or body. You’re not growing as a person. You’re just being hazed.
I hit my head on the pavement bicycling drunk while my helmet was sitting on my desk at work. Ask me how fun the two weeks after that concussion was.
Multiple concussions from sports as a kid. It’s great to never know if my memory issues and depression are a result of that or if I was just fucked from the start.
I got hit by a car while biking without a helmet! Toppled up onto their hood and slid off once they came to a complete stop. Totalled the bike. I just got really fucking lucky and didn’t hit my head. Would not advise.
I was just lazy and didn’t go back up to my apartment once I got down and realized I had forgotten the helmet, because it was “just a short ride to the park”. Never again.
I’ve been hit by cars before on my bicycle. Six times.
You know what it was, every single time? The driver was turning right, and looking for oncoming traffic from the left. I tried to cross, and didn’t know they hadn’t seen me. Ran over my front tire, or just knocked me over.
I’m damn lucky those were all extremely slow speed collisions and they stopped as soon as they heard me scream. But honestly? Fuck cars. I shouldn’t have been forced to cross at the sidewalk to begin with. And they should have been looking for pedestrians anyway.
All the non-conservative boomers were fucking murdered.
They survived with head trauma and voted for trump.
When I was 7 years old in 1982 I fell off my bike and got a concussion. I was unconscious for a whole day. Not every child survived injuries sustained during those decades. I’m lucky I did.
Ya a whole day pretty bad. You’re lucky you woke up, pretty sure that was a coma. If your out for 20 - 30 mins you pretty much received brain damage.
I was a pretty intelligent kid with all my wits, and that accident happened in the 2nd grade, and I remember in the 4th grade being a wiz at geography lessons, same year my teachers chose me to be the “class president” and in 5th grade was invited to special early morning classes for gifted writers at the high school campus, so I guess my brain remained intact after the 2nd grade concussion. I also remember in 4th grade writing about my “concution” and my teacher talked with me for a minute about it, she was concerned & interested, and told me the correct way to spell “concussion.” 😄 I’m 50 now & still remember so much, so I guess my brain’s alright.
I have had a concussion as an 11 year old, and have absolutely zero memory of what happened or how. It probably involved my bike, since that was outside when I somehow stumbled back home (which I also don’t remember).
My brain goes from two or three days pre-concussion, to having the absolute worst time with my parents waking me every hour at night for no clear reason and my arm being broken. I think I have some vague delirious memories from that, but none of them make sense, and maybe I inveted them afterwards.
It was not a fun time, and a helmet would have probably prevented that. There’s no permanent damage, i think, but that was extremely lucky.
Many didn’t.
I knew a kid in high school who was hit by a car while riding his bike in the days before kids wore helmets.
He was fucked up. He survived, but it was “learning how to walk and talk again” survival.
I also had a teacher in college who wasn’t wearing a helmet when he flipped his bike and landed on his head. He was alright as long as you think regular, crippling migraines are alright.
Right after I graduated middle school, three guys were riding in the back of an El Camino that took a curve too fast. All but one were killed quite nastily. Driver too. That was 1972, and the sole survivor still isn’t doing well. So much for the good Old Days when kids were free.
Ask this Joneser about all this shit boomers get nostalgic over. I’ll tell you the real story.
“Holding hands meant so much, baby”.
What was there to actually like, other than a future?
had a teacher in college
Did he experience the head injury as a child? Or was he riding a bike without a helmet while he was a teacher in college?
It had happened years before, but it happened when he was an adult.
My ma (Boomer) likes to talk about how her and her siblings used to chew on road tar like gum and than she laughs about it, har har. Whenever I mention something I’m being cautious about with my kids.
She also had lung and breast cancer, could be unrelated but maybe it didn’t help.
I’d like to add that neither of my parents believed that second hand smoke was “real” either. So I got blasted with carcinogens from birth until I moved out at 17. I’ll be lucky if I don’t get cancer.
I thought that was just my father.
He also told me many times how that was their chewing gum.And also the bottle of mercury they used to pour down a slide.
Oh, and also the tradition of melting lead on Christmas and pouring it into water, getting prediction of the future.getting prediction of the future
Does molten lead in water magically spell out “you’re gonna get cancer” ?
Now I need to find out how deep this tar chewing goes…
The worst part of WWIII will be the second wave boomers, who will trigger WWIV when they age out of relevancy.
Or they call CPS or slowly crush the kid under their F150 extended cab.
Also I knew a skateboarder who got severe brain trauma, so idk wear a fucking helmet because your head didn’t evolve to fall on concrete at 20 mph.
I survived because mom made me take judo at like a rather early age, I think I was like around six or seven. But practicing falling down safely. Ukemi.
Ukemi (受け身) refers to the art of safe falling and breakfalls in Japanese martial arts, such as judo and aikido, literally translating to “receiving body”. It is a critical skill for absorbing the impact of throws or takedowns, protecting the head and body, and ensuring training safety.
Like I didn’t even know I had that skill, but since these electric scooters and bikes and whatnot have come super popular and I’ve owned a few myself, I’ve been in way more falls and crashes than I was as a kid. Even somewhat serious ones.
But I never hit my head, and just found myself on the ground slightly winded.
In one I apparently made it sone 3m into the air, I remember seeing a car drive in front of me and then ground-sky-ground-sky-ground-sky. Luckily the dude wanted to call the cops (as he was blaming me for his wannabe tuned bmw got a bit smashed). Cops came and noted how it wasn’t my fault. The other dude had to pay a few hundred euros to me for ribs and whatnot.
Anyway how I’ve survived, literally, is intuitively shielding my head and falling the right way. Without even knowing it. I just realised after like a half a dozen crashes that it can’t be luck.
I should really start wearing a helmet.
But practicing falling down safely. Ukemi.
Ukemi (受け身) refers to the art of safe falling and breakfalls in Japanese martial artsJust as advice, you don’t even need to go to martial arts class to get this; various activities have tutorials on falling “correctly”, even theater! Even if you (the reader) don’t get a formal lesson, let me share the basics :
- Be aware of your surroundings
- Bend your knees when you fall, absorbing the impact
- Roll to transfer the vertical momentum to horizontal momentum
- Curve your back to assist on point 2 (NB : do not do funky things on your back if you are about to smack your back INTO something)
Better yet, have a spotter (someone who is there to make sure you don’t fall off whatever thing you are on).
I learnt the last one from trampolining and indoor climbing.
Oh sure, I’m not saying it’s just judo or martial arts or anything.
My point is that I’m thankful my mom made my 7-year old ass listen to someone who taught falling safely, as I fell quite frequently. And for some 20 years I did not realise just how strong the effect of the conditioning had been. Which was very good.
I’m sure you’d agree that someone just reading the instructions even if they’re perfect, would have a hard time achieving doing them on the first time. That those kind of things, tucking your chin and exhaling on impact, really only become familiar once you’ve drilled them again and again and again and again. I don’t exactly like repetition, and that judo course as a kid is one of the only things I’ve ever repeated before I was like 27. (Nowadays I do rewatch a lot of shows, I didn’t used to do that)
yep, the reply isn’t so much for you, just reminding people that various activities can offer this, and it’s more accessible than one may think.
They also love fondly remembering their friend Little Stevie who tragically died aged 12 in 1957 in a helmet-less bicycle accident.
How many of us STILL have scars from falling off our bikes last century? I bet some of us even still have road gravel in our bodies.
I have two very visible on my chins from those meat grinder petals on bikes back then. And a dark place on my right arm due to trying to ride a wheelie way too fast on sandy pavement and sliding on same sandy pavement for a good 20 ft on that arm. Basically like taking an angle grinder with a sanding disc to my arm for several seconds. Fun times….
Fun fact: Shortly after this photo was taken, the girl was attacked and devoured by the Bat Boy-faced puma following her.
Is it ironic that all the survivors also happen to be the ones who don’t understand survivorship bias?
But isn’t that also survivor bias in a way? Because those who understand it, don’t post stuff like this and therefore don’t get noticed. Is like the joke “How do you recognize a vegan? They tell you – every five minutes”. People told me the joke, not knowing that I’m a vegan, because I didn’t tell them because why would I.
Irony or just the effects of moderate nonfatal tbis perhaps amongst the survivors?
Guarantee if you took a picture of that same street today there’d be a lot more than two cars. That probably a played a big role.
I mean…have you seen the size of cars then and now? Or the number of cars then vs now?
