Mellow Monday
"Forget that grass fellas,
' Dusty & Sammi'
'Sammi'
' Mellon'
Railroad tracks. This is fascinating.
Be sure to read the final paragraph; your understanding of it
will depend on the earlier part of the content.
The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4
feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number.
Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them
in England, and English expatriates built the US railroads.
Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail
lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad
tramways, and that's the gauge they used.
Why did 'they' use that gauge then? Because the people who built
the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they use d for
building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.
Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well,
if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would
break on some of the old, long distance roads in England,
because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.
So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the
first long distance roads in Europe (and England ) for their
legions. The roads have been used ever since.
And the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed the initial
ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying
their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial
Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.
Therefore the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet,
8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an
Imperial Roman war chariot. Bureaucracies live forever.
So the next time you are handed a specification/
procedure/process and wonder 'What horse's ass came up with
it?’ You may be exactly right. Imperial Roman army chariots
were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two
war horses. (Two horse's asses.) Now, the twist to the story:
When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there
are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main
fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRB's. The SRB's
are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah. The engineers
who designed the SRB's would have preferred to make them a bit
fatter, but the SRB's had to be shipped by train from the
factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory
happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRB's
had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider
than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now
know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.
So,a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the
world's most advanced transportation system was determined over
two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass. And you
thought being a horse's ass wasn't important? Ancient horse's
asses control almost everything... and
CURRENT Horses Asses are controlling everything else.
However mighty its force
Had never achieved its lordly plan
Without the aid of a horse.
- Ella Wilcox
Thursday’s Final Thoughts
On
The Matter of Helmets
I was sent this comment by 'jme' of Glenshee Equestrian and it really is too long to put in the comment section, so I decided to give the comment its own space. I must say I do agree with her completely and hope that by posting this it puts an end to any further discussion and disagreement with Julian. I’d like to go on record and simply say that we just are at a place where we can agree to disagree. Thank you all for your comments and participation in the last few posts on helmets. Safe riding to you all.
This was going to be a comment, but I blabbed on for too long.
To be serious for a moment, I agree with most of what Julian said, but I also read both Julian’s post and comments here, and he did specifically compare english vs. western riders, claiming english riders were poor riders and western riders were good. He even went so far as to zero in on a specific geographical region where better riding originates - the American West. That leaves me out. I must be an especially shitty rider because I ride english, I’m from the East Coast, AND I wear a helmet.
No one is disputing the unconscious potential for “risk compensation” – I’m sure it can happen. But just how much does it actually contribute to serious accidents caused by reckless riding or driving? I don't think the studies have shown it makes any significant difference, except in the reverse – that those accustomed to the protection of safety gear feel more vulnerable and act more cautiously without it. But that fact does not prove the inverse. People who have never used safety gear and suddenly have it may feel slightly emboldened, but not to the degree, that it would cause anyone to act irresponsibly, enough to recommend NOT wearing a helmet, or to suggest that doing so puts us in danger! “Safety equipment, ultimately, has done little good or even no good at all.” That’s absurd. It is like saying, “I had better not wear a helmet lest I feel too confident and take too many risks!” Rubbish. An individual decides just how much risk they are willing to tolerate, and then adds protective gear on top of that, not the other way around. If you honestly think that way, riding safety is the least of your worries. And those of us who are well accustomed to our helmets, having worn them from our first ride onward, are well past that learning curve, I am sure.
Having suffered serious neck and spine injuries, I’m a cautious, safe and responsible rider because I don’t want to break my neck. I also don’t want to fall and have my loose horse get in traffic or otherwise hurt. These concerns moderate any recklessness that a helmet might theoretically induce. The helmet is just icing. None of us with any sense relies on it for our total protection; it simply has a useful function. But for someone who works as a health and safety officer, Julian’s disdain for helmets is shocking, to say the least. That he goes on to suggest that the reason riding accidents occur is because people rely too much on their helmets is, to be frank, preposterous. Riding accidents happen for a number of reasons; if one happens to occur because of poor riding skills or training, it will occur with or without the rider wearing a helmet. I’m the first to agree that there is some horrific riding out there (that’s basically what my entire blog is about!) but I blame general ignorance and an industry of professional trainers who make their money by selling people a line of bullshit about their riding abilities to keep them coming back for more. “Stroke the ego” is the motto of most. What has a helmet to do with that? People (hopefully) learn their lessons and limitations when they fall – a helmet helps ensure they live to put those lessons into practice. Sure, some never learn, but that’s a flaw of the individual psyche, not of general safety practice. What Julian refers to as the “Safety Taliban” is merely a recognition of this flaw and an attempt to save ignorant people from themselves. I’m all for natural selection, but I think the point GHM was making is that children are not able to make these choices for themselves. If some adults need to be treated like children as well, that’s their problem - until they cause ME an accident. I can’t tell you how many times bad riding of others has put me and my horses in danger. But, because I, personally, am an accomplished and responsible rider, I don’t need a helmet? I’m not willing to take that chance, thank you.
I don't mean this as an attack on Julian personally (and I doubt GHM meant it that way either.) I like him, and I enjoy his astute observations and thoughtful writings. But we don’t always have to agree. I think we have all stated that he has a right not to wear a helmet if he chooses (though individual facilities also have a right, for insurance reasons at least, to require them.) If he feels the need to justify his position with a persuasive argument, that's ok; he has a right to share his opinion and even try to change ours. What I think some of us (ok, I) took exception to was the part where he suggested people who wear helmets do so because they don't know how to ride properly or pick a suitable mount: “If the level of risk is so high that a helmet is essential then I suggest that it is being used to cover up for other omissions.” Sure, for some, it might be true. But here and in his own post on the subject, he seems to be implying that those of us who wear helmets are fooling ourselves (and “missing the ‘real’ points big time”) because we’re a bunch of over-emotional, irrational, untrained, ‘fraidy-cats who genuinely believe a riding helmet is a substitute for riding lessons and common sense. If he didn’t imply this, then that’s at least what I heard when I read it. But that's a pretty broad generalization to make, and that kind of unhelpful comment can have the effect of making people not want to wear a helmet because they don’t want to be perceived as inexperienced, unskilled or fearful.
Some of us find a helmet “essential” even when there is little to no risk because we know even the quietest horses are unpredictable and even the best riders can fall. Further, while Julian’s horses are lovely and admirable animals, they would not be suitable mounts for every discipline, and not every rider has the luxury of a bomb-proof horse; they are the exception rather than the rule. We ride the horses we have, and we ride the horses we find most suitable for our own personal endeavors. For some of us, that includes more sensitive, athletic, animated or even “hot” horses. I, for one, have specialized in working with “difficult” horses, and have given many a permanent home. Does that mean we all deserve to be injured when we fall off because we haven’t chosen “safe” mounts? Or does it maybe mean the average horse is still a creature of instinct and of a certain nature, and we take that into consideration when training and riding, including how we outfit ourselves on horseback? It doesn’t necessarily mean we neglect training the horse or educating ourselves in correct riding techniques, but it does mean there is a place in the world for “real” horses as well as “ideal” horses. If we all dispensed with our less-than-perfect horses, the slaughterhouses would be full and the stables all empty.
Above all, I think GHM intended this to be an amusing post, not an actual scientific debate. I think she was poking a bit of fun at Julian’s extreme views just as he poked fun at what he considers to be ours. We all know the basic facts. Julian’s obsession with statistics gives the impression that his real-world experience with other types of horses and riding is limited, whereas many of us have seen and experienced a great deal during our lives with horses and rely on that experience, and not cold, empty numbers, when making our choices. Following his numbers the logic here, baffling as it may be, is that, since a helmet is allegedly not likely to save your life in an accident (and may cause you to take unnecessary risks,) you might as well not even bother to wear one! That’s a pretty defeatist – not to mention illogical – statement. But I’d also like to submit that most of us who have had accidents don’t ever bother to report them, so the statistics Julian relies so heavily on are worth little. Most horse people who are not seriously injured (and some who are) never bother to report their injuries. I’ve broken bones, torn ligaments, mangled my neck and back, and destroyed helmets, but I never so much as went to a walk-in clinic, much less my doctor or a hospital. When my helmets were damaged, I just threw them away and bought new ones. Nothing was ever reported. Take just this small sampling of riders who have commented here saying their helmets either saved their lives or mitigated an injury. How many of these riders reported these incidents? I’m afraid the only incidents that are reported are the ones that end in fatality or grave injury despite the helmet, skewing the sample and making these “authoritative” statistics almost worthless. Too often, when the injury is serious enough to warrant a visit to the hospital, a helmet will help but will not necessarily save you. On the other hand, it can prevent a more moderate injury from becoming a major one. I don’t know if a helmet has literally saved my life before. Probably it has. But I know it has spared me much more grave injuries than I might have had on numerous occasions. That’s scientific enough for me. If you ask whether I took unnecessary risks because I knew I had a helmet on, I tell you horsemen take “unnecessary” risks every time they put their foot in the stirrup, with or without a helmet. If helmets had never been invented, I’d still be doing what I do, bareheaded, if I managed to survive this long without one. But I’m glad I don’t have to. Statistics don’t save lives, and yet some of us prefer to rely on them rather than protective gear. That I don’t get.
Then there is the typical male accusation that we women are being “emotional,” which also implies “irrational.” That kind of belittling, chauvinistic attitude is not unexpected, but it is uncalled for and uncouth. Are we emotional about life and death issues? Who isn’t? Are we emotional about our horses? I think any good horseman is – you have to love the animals to dedicate yourself to this kind of life, and to treat them fairly and with respect. Those of us who have ridden a lot, or ridden a variety of horses, or challenged ourselves, etc. all know the risks because we’ve all fallen off. If you’ve never fallen, you’ve never pushed yourself to improve, and are no horseman at all. The first school where I took riding lessons actually taught something called the “flying dismount,” at all paces from halt through jumping; it was essentially practice for falling off safely! This, too, has probably saved me injury or worse on numerous occasions; but more than that, it is an admission that falls are a part of riding, and they too should be as safe as possible.
I think we all understand that a helmet is just another layer of protection. Alone it can do nothing, and it’s not infallible. And injuries can occur anywhere on the body not covered by a helmet as well. We get it. My feeling is that, even if you’re riding a perfectly safe horse (not that such a horse exists,) it can still fall, even when properly balanced and on good footing (as has happened to me) someone else can lose control and run into you (this is fairly common in a busy indoor, a horseshow schooling ring and even on the a trail) a piece of tack could break (even the best made tack in good repair can fail) and you might land on your head (as I have done many times in the past;) what could wearing a helmet hurt?
-jacquie
Until next time
Quote of the Day
The horse stopped with a jerk...and the jerk fell off!
Apparently, my ongoing equestrian education is now almost complete due to a few comments from our friend across The Pond. I don't mean to single this commenter out for abuse, and I don't want people to feel like they can't disagree in their comments here, but there is respectful disagreement and then there is being outright argumentative. I felt I had to address his comments made here and on a post of his own. To say the least, he heartily disagrees with me, which is fine, but I need to answer some of his theories or not be able to sleep at night.
Working with that logic, I suppose the same holds true for seat belts and airbags in a car. Clearly, one need not wear a seatbelt if one is a licensed driver, has a properly maintained car and drives under the speed limit on well-paved roads in clear weather. Never mind the odd blowout, a drunken driver using his cell phone, or an obstruction of some sort in the road; for example, it seems it is almost impossible to drive down the road these days without a random overfed, untrained horse ridden by an imbalanced English rider in a helmet and high visibility gear who inevitably loses control and streaks across your path. Even the best driver in the world will be forced to run over such an inept rider – if for no other reason than to teach that rider the valuable lesson that no helmet is going to save her life, and indeed, simply wearing one will probably, counter-intuitively, contribute to her demise through the arcane mechanism of “risk compensation” – aka “bizarro world metaphysics” – in which the wearing of safety gear apparently makes you channel Evel Knievel. In which case, perhaps even a seatbelt is a bad idea? Come to think of it, wasn’t that what made Thelma and Louise drive off that cliff? – The film might have been entitled “Risk Compensation and the Seatbelts of Insanity!” Catchy.
Following this logic, do I drive more recklessly when I wear my seatbelt because I know I’ll be better protected in an accident? I don’t think so. I’m pretty much trying not to crash my car all the time when I’m behind the wheel - not just when I’m not wearing my seatbelt. If I happen to also have an airbag in my car even that does not necessarily cause me to throw caution to the wind, floor the gas pedal, and burn rubber down the highway, doing donuts in the median while flipping off the nearest officer of the law. Even equipped with the airbag, I’m still pretty averse to totaling my car, especially if I happen to be inside it. I have a similar sense of self-preservation when riding a horse. This may sound odd to some of you, but I swear, when I put on my helmet, I’m not thinking, “woo hoo, now I can finally fall off!”
My statement about those awful looking skunk stripe helmets had me thinking after a few of your comments that, if they are the safest, I might just look into them. I hear the Charles Owens company has a helmet with a velvet covering and if these types of helmets are the safest, I may get one, even if I do think I would look like Kazoo. After all, my head can’t afford any more scrambled brains than it already has.
I’m glad so many of you have chosen to wear a helmet and insist your children do so as well. I respect the decisions of those of you who choose not to wear them also, and appreciate hearing your reasons for not doing so. Thanks again for all your comments; they were all interesting and mostly welcome. I hope all of you – those who wear helmets and those who don’t – never need to rely on one! Safe riding and happy trails.
Quote for Today
