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Lumifer comments on Wear a Helmet While Driving a Car - Less Wrong
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The numbers of traumatic brain injury (TBI) cases caused by falls are of about the same magnitude as TBI caused by motor vehicle accidents (CDC data, the relative frequency depends on age).
Would you recommend putting on a helmet as soon as you get out of bed in the morning for people in their 40s and older?
For some reason your link is not loading for me, but here is another CDC link: Percent Distributions of TBI-related Emergency Department Visits by Age Group and Injury Mechanism . Falls are big causes of TBI for the under four crowd and the over 65 crowd. The 5-14 and 45-64 groups also fall a lot... but only about half as much. But, also look at this: Percent Distributions of TBI-related Deaths by Age Group and Injury Mechanism.
Oh my god, look at 0-4-year old assaults, both ED visits and deaths. (Assault is the leading TBI-related cause of death for 0-4-year olds.) Some of those falling 4 year olds were assaulted.
Yes. You don't want to be a child of someone with low IQ and anger management problems.
Or worse, a step-child.
I suspect a large fraction of TBIs due to falling are related to icy winter weather; putting on a helmet when you go outside in the winter doesn't sound like a bad idea at all.
I suspect another large fraction of TBIs is due to falling in baths and showers. Still a good idea to put on a helmet?
Have them look like swim caps and drill holes so water can flow? I don't see the problem, it looks like a definite win for elderly people at the very least.
It's certainly worth investing in a non-slip mat for your bathtub / shower.
Actually... why are bathtubs made of ceramic, instead of rubber or something soft? Cost? Durability / ability to handle water?
My guess would be maintenance -- cleaning soft surfaces is difficult. Moreover, wet rubber is very slippery so it will have to be textured and that will make it basically impossible to get clean.
An alternative might be removable soft bumpers.
Especially if it looks like a ski cap.
Per unit of time, I suspect you are much more likely to get a TBI while in a car than when awake but not in a car. I intend to wear my helmet in the winter when I go on long walks. I suspect that we would be better off if there was a social norm of everyone wearing helmets all the time. I have considered whether I should wear my helmet when I'm at home. (I'm over 40.) If the helmet was invisible I would wear it all the time.
No, you mean that there will be some decrease in injuries/deaths. Whether we would be "better off" requires considering the cost part of the equation as well (not to mention picking the metric for "better").
For example, a similar social norm of never ever going swimming would also result in a decrease in deaths. Would it make us "better off"?
I would agree with the social norm of never ever going swimming. In fact, I have a very hard time understanding why people are so willing to basically immerse themselves in an environment so deadly to human beings. I certainly never do it myself.
There is a difference between "I don't want to do X" and "I don't want other people to do X".
Desiring your peculiarities to become social norms is ill-advised, I'd say. You might find other people's peculiarities to be not to your liking.
Sorry for being unclear. By saying "better off" I did intend to take into account the cost of wearing a helmet. Currently, this cost would be high because others would think less of the wearer. When I was young, no one wore a bicycle helmet, now not forcing your kid to wear one would, in my neighborhood at least, be considered bad parenting so it's more costly for a parent to not make his kid wear a bike helmet than to force him to use one.
I don't think that the (dis)approval of neighbours is the largest cost component, but there is a bigger issue.
In doing the cost-benefit analysis that involves uncertainty, a major factor is risk aversion. When you say "we would be better off" you imply that a particular level of risk aversion -- similar to yours, in this case -- would be optimal in some way. Why do you think so?
For example, my risk aversion seems to be noticeably lower than yours. On the basis of which criteria do you think that your level of risk aversion is more suitable as a social norm than mine?
I'm guessing that the utility of the average American would be higher if the social norm was (a) you are weird if you don't wear a helmet most of the time when awake, then what we have today which is (b) you are weird if you do wear a helmet most of the time when awake.
Some helmets are more acceptable than others. I've had people say things like "You know you are inside now" to me when I take the elevator to my office and still have my bike helmet on. I do take it off when I get to my office. In contrast, hard hats are generally seen as reasonable to wear for certain people even when they are not on a construction site. The presumption is that someone wearing a hard hat does work in construction or something similar and just didn't want to take the hat off, I suppose.