From: ivan@erich.triumf.ca (Ivan D. Reid)
Subject: Re: Fatal motorcycle accident in Untersiggenthal
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: TRIUMF: Tri-University Meson Facility
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 13:12:00 GMT

In article <1992Sep11.153448.29320@research.nj.nec.com>, 
	behanna@phoenix.syl.nj.nec.com (Chris BeHanna) writes...
>In article <11SEP199203543231@erich.triumf.ca> 
	ivan@erich.triumf.ca (Ivan D. Reid) writes:
>>	My major experience was landing head-first at about 110 km/h.  Admit-
>>tedly into soft ground so I was lucky.  Since then, I probably have a higher
>>regard for modern helmets than most people (after all, that 15 mph figure has
>>been floating around since, what, 1975?).
> 
>	It is still, unfortunately, a relevant figure.  That's 15mph for
>direct impact.  Your head-first landing had a horizontal component of velocity
>of 110km/h, but the vertical component was much, much lower.  Say your head
>fell from the height of about a meter (you seated on your bike).  Then the
>vertical component of velocity that the helmet saved your brain from was about
>16km/h, well under the 24km/h figure that gets bandied about.  The helmet
>also saved your head from getting scuffed up during the 110km/h to 0 process.
>This is one reason why I get very nervous about not wearing a helmet on the
>street--if I go down at any appreciable speed and slide on my head, I'd rather
>wear away fiberglass than my skull.  I still ride bareheaded on occasion, but
>it's only fun for awhile, then I start to think about what might happen, and
>I start enjoying it less and worrying more, so I pull over and put the lid
>back on--enormous boost of confidence instantly.
> 
	Back when I was in school (real school, not university) we used to
have exercises called "comprehension".  We would read or hear passages of
prose, and then have to answer questions about the passages, including some
that required some drawing of conclusions from statements made in the passage.
Unfortunately, Chris, you drew some unwarranted assumptions about my paragraph
quoted above, so I think I'd have to give you an F :-(.  I choose my words
carefully.  Note that I said I landed head first, not that I fell off at 110
km/h.  In fact I was catapulted from the bike due to its having stuck a locked-
up front wheel in a ditch.  I went some way in the air, as did the bike,
before landing head-first in the soft ground (a mixture of sand and sawdust).
This is _not_ like landing on a hard surface; the soft surface deforms and
tends to resist horizontal as well as vertical motion, more so as you dig in,
and I dug in a few inches before starting to tumble.  I'm not claiming that this
is the same as hitting a solid object, and in fact the helmet probably caused
me more injuries than it saved, but the bald statement that "a helmet's no
good above 15 mph" is, to me, outdated.  For more details on my spill, look
for a product review of a Dainese back-protector that I'll try to put up on
Loki's review server.

>>	I have been able to determine that Castellazzi had indeed just
>>"graduated" from a 125 to the 600.  The best hypothesis seems to be that
>>inexperience on such a heavy, powerful bike was a major contributing factor
>>in the accident.
> 
>	I wouldn't blame the bike.  I'd blame the inexperience of the rider
>first.  Infamiliarity with equipment is no excuse the blame the equipment.

	Another F, I'm afraid.  Where am I blaming the bike?  I'm explicitly
hypothesising that inexperience was a major factor.

Ivan Reid, Paul Scherrer Institute, CH.     			ivan@cvax.psi.ch
GSX600F, RG250WD.	SI=2.66     "You Porsche. Me pass!"	DoD #484
Spagthorpe: a mythical English village, home to a cohort of artisans capable
of producing, from ignoble starting materials, complex and wondeful mechanisms
of ultimately questionable utility [SPAG(YRIC) alchemy + THORP(E) village].
Newsgroups: rec.motorcycles