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Sledding athletes are taking their lives

nytimes.com

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Re: Sledding athletes are taking their lives

#81

Post by jbverschoor »

onion2k wrote: post #78
trianglem wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, sport is dangerous and we must accept this. Otherwise this is a slippery slope and will result in banning sinple things like a slide in soccer or something.

That's nonsense. We can assess risks and determine the probability of injuries and the severity of them, and issue bans accordingly. "If we ban X then W, Y and Z are next" is just fearmongering. There's no reason why we can't ban something without banning other things that are much less dangerous. Most "slippery slope" arguments are so obviously fallacious I'm surprised people still try to use them.

Horseback riding Is super dangerous

Re: Sledding athletes are taking their lives

#82

Post by t0mas88 »

inamberclad wrote: post #18

Those g numbers are insane. I would appreciate an FFT instead of a time-series graph but this is far beyond even a rocket launch.

There is a huge difference between a prolonged G-force (like a rocket launch or a fighter jet turning) and an instant reading (helmet hitting ice). A prolonged G-force in human performance studies in aviation is defined as 1 second or longer. A reading of more than +10g in the Z-axis will black out almost all humans. While instant readings as high as 200g have been measured in a survivable car crash.

Falling from 1m and stopping in 1cm gets you an instant reading of 100g. And yet that doesn't sound very deadly at all.

Re: Sledding athletes are taking their lives

#83

Post by tgv »

matz1 wrote: post #22
gnramires wrote: post #19

This seems totally unacceptable. We should stop having this sport in the Olympics (implicitly supporting this madness) -- of course athletes are free to do as they chose, but we cannot encourage such pointless self-destruction and misery. An alternative to save the sport is completely redesign it to limit maximum accelerations. Usually injuries follow power laws so I doubt even that much reduction would be necessary…

>pointless self-destruction and misery. Maybe its pointless for you, fair enough but it can be meaningfull for other people, i myself think it's interesting.

But that's no reason to make it an Olympic sport, thus encouraging people to take more risks.

Re: Sledding athletes are taking their lives

#84

Post by cheeze »

xkcd-sucks wrote: post #14

Anecdotally, I have a friend on a national skeleton team. He says he's a bit dopey but it's okay because he has a girlfriend to take care of him, and attributes it to lateral acceleration and breathing difficulty. This is after maybe 5 years at longest

> but it's okay because he has a girlfriend to take care of him

Is that okay?

Re: Sledding athletes are taking their lives

#85

Post by jhanschoo »

trianglem wrote: post #73
gnramires wrote: post #19

This seems totally unacceptable. We should stop having this sport in the Olympics (implicitly supporting this madness) -- of course athletes are free to do as they chose, but we cannot encourage such pointless self-destruction and misery. An alternative to save the sport is completely redesign it to limit maximum accelerations. Usually injuries follow power laws so I doubt even that much reduction would be necessary…

No, sport is dangerous and we must accept this. Otherwise this is a slippery slope and will result in banning sinple things like a slide in soccer or something.

The current environment is already a chosen position on a slope. Gymnastics and figure skating have illegal moves. All sports ban some drugs due to their adverse health consequences.

What is considered too dangerous is a constant conversation and continually revised. Your position that we should stand at the top of the slope (allow unbounded danger in sport) is something that most of society feel is extreme.

Re: Sledding athletes are taking their lives

#86

Post by alephu5 »

nimih wrote: post #26
pengaru wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except measuring G-forces acting on a helmet doesn't directly relate to the forces acting on the head within it.

Why not? To me (a layperson in the physics of helmets and brains), they would seem to be quite directly related, especially when the cause of the gees is not related to an impact.

The whole point of a helmet is to absorb impacts. It's designed to dampen rapid accelerations so your head doesn't have to.

Re: Sledding athletes are taking their lives

#87

Post by [deleted] »

gnramires wrote: post #19

This seems totally unacceptable. We should stop having this sport in the Olympics (implicitly supporting this madness) -- of course athletes are free to do as they chose, but we cannot encourage such pointless self-destruction and misery. An alternative to save the sport is completely redesign it to limit maximum accelerations. Usually injuries follow power laws so I doubt even that much reduction would be necessary…

[deleted]

Re: Sledding athletes are taking their lives

#88

Post by mellow2020 »

mam2 wrote: post #62
etrautmann wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The helmet is a light mass, which can move relative to the head, and experience drastically higher g-forces for very short times. Sampling an accelerometer at kHz rates as a helmet is vibrating (without translating all of the vibrational energy into the head), will measure larger peak G's than the head experiences. For this reason, when studying head impact for football players, they mount the accelerometers in the m…

That sounds like r/imsosmart ... a simple low pass filter would be sufficient to negate the effects you talk about

Maybe, but if I had the option of recording something with noise, then filtering it out, and recording it without or with less noise to begin with, I'd always go for the latter. Never shun improving the initial data, regardless of what neat things you can do after that.

Re: Sledding athletes are taking their lives

#89

Post by tomaszdiesel »

puranjay wrote: post #79
Swizec wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So funny thing about unacceptable and lateral g-force — this is a big part of why F1 cars aren’t V10 engines anymore. They were getting too fast and the decision was between g-suits and slower cars. FIA chose slower cars (also more fuel efficient, yay). Now it’s a few years later and cars have again advanced to the point that drivers pull more than 5 lateral G in some corners. It’s kinda bonkers. I wonder if somethin…

And to think that the sport that actually did Schumacher in was skiing - something millions of people do casually every weekend. My point is that while there has to be a thrust on safety, even the mundane can be unsafe enough; you can't overstress safety

where i live (especially in my local region) tourism is huge. especially in winter. and IMHO skiing is one of the most dangerous winter activities you can do. i honestly always bring this up because i think skiing is wrongfully seen as a "casual activity".

having worked in a hospital for some time, you wouldn't believe how many accidents we receive in winter just because of skiing accidents. it's by far the worst time to be working in a hospital and i'm not exaggerating. it's truly insane how easy it is to get injured in a major way while skiing.

you can be the best freaking skiier in your whole ski club, and still get taken out by a single stupid idiot who doesn't know his limits or just doesn't care for the safety of others.

Re: Sledding athletes are taking their lives

#90

Post by onion2k »

jbverschoor wrote: post #81
onion2k wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's nonsense. We can assess risks and determine the probability of injuries and the severity of them, and issue bans accordingly. "If we ban X then W, Y and Z are next" is just fearmongering. There's no reason why we can't ban something without banning other things that are much less dangerous. Most "slippery slope" arguments are so obviously fallacious I'm surprised people still try to use them.

Horseback riding Is super dangerous

Lots of activities are dangerous. The main problem is that danger is a function of probability (eg how likely are you to get hurt doing that thing), and people are terrible at estimating probability. While horse riding is dangerous in the sense that when you get hurt it's likely to be severe, it's not that dangerous because the probability of being hurt is quite low. Among the millions of people who go horse riding each year very few get badly hurt. What the article is suggesting is for the relatively small number of people who participate in bobsledding a significant number are getting brain injuries.
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