If recent comments from the Northern Brain Injury Association could be summed up in one sentence, that sentence would say the most dangerous parts of our day are those times we take for granted. Where the chance of injury is right in your face, you tend to take precautions. You’d be hard pressed to find someone mountain biking up at Boer Mountain without at least a helmet.
The Cold Smoke drag racing last weekend saw all riders fully geared up and tethered to their sled’s ignition so if the rider become dismounted the sled engine would automatically be killed to make sure no sleds took on a life of their own.
In the summer, most road cycling enthusiasts wear helmets. Rides with the local bike club are helmet-mandatory, and close proximity to highway traffic can’t help but keep a healthy respect for the possibility of getting knocked from your bike in the forefront of your mind.
It’s the everyday dangers that take us by surprise. It’s the things we’re habituated to that can sneak up on us with terrible results.
Any of us old enough to remember when helmet laws were non-existent, or when seatbelt laws were first introduced, will also remember what it’s like to try and break an old habit.
If you grew up riding a bike without thought for a helmet, having someone tell you that it’s now mandatory makes your ego swell up with resistance. I rode safely all my life, why should I wear a helmet now, you might ask?
Downhill skiing and snowboarding are the only high speed sports I can think of these days where resistance to wearing a helmet is still strongly ingrained in many.
There’s no mandatory helmet laws for skiers, and ski-hills don’t force the issue except where it involves direct liability, as in racing programs. A lot of skiers bristle at the suggestion of making helmets on the ski hill mandatory. After all, you sign a waiver with every lift ticket or season’s pass, so shouldn’t a skier be free to ski as he or she sees fit?
We have a natural resistance to being told what to do. The psychology of resistance to things like a prohibition on texting and driving would be an interesting study. Anecdotally, you hear from people that they’re fine texting or talking on the phone while they’re driving, but the rates of accidents involving distracted driving tell another story.
Distraction itself is an interesting concept. It’s obviously risky to take your eyes off the road to send a text or read a Facebook update, but there are everyday distractions that are at least as dangerous.
Traction control, all-wheel drive, airbags, and so on give a sense of confidence when blasting down the highway. This sense of confidence might be the worst distraction there is.
We need to think about basic realities and not be distracted from them by how awesome our toys are. Four-wheel drive overcomes slippery conditions, getting you up to speed in a hurry, but it doesn’t help you stop, which is probably the most important part of the journey/destination equation.
It feels great to have the wind blowing through your hair when you’re skiing on a warm and sunny spring day, but bailing on a patch of ice or being taken out by someone you don’t see coming up behind you can change your day – or your life – for the worse in a heartbeat.
About half of us went out for flu shots this year, many spurred on by the ‘danger’ of the return of particularly nasty flu bug. As Will Lewis with the NBIA pointed out, the rate of brain injuries leading to death in the province outstrips the fatality rate from nation-wide influenza pandemics.
That’s a lot of everyday injury and death flying low under the radar because it doesn’t happen all at once, or can’t be attributed to one phenomenon in particular like a strain of influenza.
From a statistical point of view, we’re smashing our heads on an epidemic level… are we taking notice?
