[Street] Safety gear
This discussion has an associated proposal. View Proposal Details here.Comments about this discussion:
Started
At Unicon, the safety gear that was required did not follow the rulebook requirements (kneepads).
What safety gear do we actually want to require?
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Helmet.
The feel like the rest should be according to the rider's preference. The problem is some rider would rather have just a knee pad, while some will prefer just shinpads and other the combination of both. Enforcing another part of safety equipment will definitely not please all the riders.
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I also think for Street just a helmet is neccesarry. Everything else should be the riders decision. For example I and lots or other riders prefer to ride without shin&kneepads.
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Im realy surprised that while a Unicon the safty gear was changed because this can end in a liabilty problem in worst case. So that should never happen again! In case the rules are wrong, the host have to change them by an official request 3 month in advance to get an official go for it. The Problem of not having the right safty gear happens mostly in Flat and Street and Trials is on 3rd place. The reason is typically that the riders dont read the rules / don't care about rules while they should do that for many reasons :)
Beside this I think that Flat with just shoes and Street with Shoes and Helmets has good chances to pass. Shinguards are nice to protect you from Pedals but I think in Street there is less risk then in Trials as many riders use plastik Pedals or single sided pined Pedals.
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Just helmet, everything else gets in the way :)
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Whatever the final choice may be, know that safety gear rules in competitions are not just for the competitors, they are also to protect the organizers. As Olaf mentioned about liability, this can destroy the whole hosting organization if something goes wrong. These events are difficult and expensive to put together, and if competitors can't be bothered to wear the required gear, they might be in the wrong place.
In regard to the Unicon Trials comp not complying with safety gear rules, I am relieved that there were no problems, and also relieved that I was not a member of the IUF Board or of the organizing committee. All of those individuals could be held responsible if there is a liability claim. Lawyers in such a situation would go straight to our rulebook, see that we weren't following our own rules, and we would most likely lose in court.
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Concerning the Street competition at Unicon 17, I was aware of the change, but didn't think about 1.3.1. and for some reason, I thought that the discipline director had the right to do so (which, if I remember right, was also accompanied by an IUF representative). It still doesn't excuse what happened, for which I take responsability...
Concerning safety gear, I will refer to my previous comment on High Jump safety requirements here if you don't mind.
I don't think the Rulebook should worry too much about legally protecting event organizers to the detriment of riders' capabilities. I think the Rulebook should only provide the minimum safety gear required for a particular discipline based on the knowledge of the sport of everyone taking part in this current process. The rest should be up to an event organizer, usually guided by the requirements of a third party organization, be it municipality, government, facility, etc. I consider that this varies too much from country to country to be defined here. In addition, the particular case of Street is that it is most of the time held in a skatepark, where either no safety gear is required, or only the helmet is required.
Therefore, I would also agree to change it to helmet only mandatory (and of course if necessary and appropriate, strongly suggest the use of shin guards).
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Couldn't agree more with Hugo.
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Don't worry Hugo, I did changes to the safty gear rules also before and I know how fast it can happen in front of a competition and liability stuff is also very different in every country. However, we have to keep this in mind. I think you are right that we should go for a minimum usefull set of protection gear per discipline. As we add last year that section to all disciplines, it is easy now to check them discipline by discipline and change them if needed. The target should be also to have them in a way that most host can follow the rules without adding additional stuff which is always the most pain for the rider as he is not used to it. The protection gear you find in the rules are know and so you can get used of riding with the required gear. Additional gear is unknown and so a rider maybe dont have it and for sure he is not used to wear it.
Maybe it can be good to make a list which gear can protect from what to make it easy to decide if it is needed or not. So it would be possible to think about injurys that typically happen while a discipline and which gear can prevent it and which one is useless to prevent it. A good sample for absolutely useless gear are the soft kneepads in track racing. Typically they slip away in the moment when you touch the track and then you get burned like hell :) There is no clear definition how they should look like so 98% wear those Volley Ball protectors which make 0 sense. Shinguards (the soft ones) protect a rider mostly from bad pinches by metal Pedals but wont prevent you from braking a leg. So I would see Shinguards more related to metall pedals then related to a special discipline. So it would be good if you can report here what type of injurys you had personally / see in riding Flat and Street to see if for example a shinguard could be helpfull or not in that cases. I wouldnt be surprised that we see mostly inurys that wont be protected by shin / kneeguards.
This should end then in the minimum required gear based on real life experience.
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Olaf is right about the effectiveness of volleyball kneepads on tartan (rubberized) tracks. What he may have missed out on is how we arrived at today's definition of kneepad (or knee protection). It was hellishly hard to define without either being too loose, or creating too much hardship for people in countries wihtout easy access to actual cycling leg armor or similar. Also back in those days, we raced on more hard-surfaced tracks, where volleyball-type pads were more useful. They slid better. Proper knee protection for Track should be fastened above and below the joint, and have a hard shell that will slide on a tartan track. It's just really hard to write a generic description of this that works for products available in all countries.
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I rememebr good several trys to define for example the race track knee pads to have them usefull but as you state already, is is very very difficult and once it is done in a better way, some new material and style apear on the market and change the situation (like that soft foam that went into a hard cover protection once you crash). We wont go perfect here but we can try our best to sort out useless stuff and keep the usefull / needed stuff.
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So to wrap this up, we should only have the helmet mandatory for street competition and other gear recommended but not as a written rule?
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I would defer this to the safety gear discussion in the Trials section since these events are very similar in the types of impacts likely to happen. And possibly High and Long Jumps as well, though they are less same. Keep things as consistent as possible, to help riders keep track of what gear is required.
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I would like to see here comments of all the active riders if shinguards a realy a problem for them. To make them only for riders with metal pins mandatory would make it just painfull for the judges.
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I always ride with shinguards, so I may not be the best example in this case, yet I can understand how they can be in the way, especially if you always practice without them and are not used to them anymore. This is however not an excuse, as the point of making rules is that they are available to everyone a while before the beginning of the competition and therefore everyone is equal.
Nevertheless, riders who ride without them do get bad shin injuries, but these are usually only in surface (I'm thinking here about Max Peabody and Colby Thomas, who have some of the worst looking shins, but still keep riding because they don't really feel the pain anymore). The only example I can think of is Chris H. at NAUCC 2011, where his gash got infected, which was a quite long-term process, not really relevant in the case of a Street competition.
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Infected. Eww. We must decide if we care about nasty gouges, or prefer to set an example of maybe a smarter way to treat your shins. Young riders can look to the IUF as a leader saying "Hey, you should protect your shins, even if you've lost any sensation of pain". Or an IUF that says "Yes, it's okay to tear up your shins in our events." I prefer the second example.
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"yet I can understand how they can be in the way, especially if you always practice without them and are not used to them anymore" shouldnt be our problem. Riders know the rules and they dont use shinguards anyway as they think its more cool or whatever. The smarter ones wear them together with long trousers but the shins are below the jeans so they prefer to kill their jeans to hide the shins. Their parents are usually very happy about destroyed trousers :)
Like John I prefer to go for the smart way (that seems to wear shinguards)
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Correction: In my previous post I prefer the first example, not the second one!
And I'll add the suggestion to move the safety gear requirements to Section 1, where all event safety gear can be found in the same place. Then events with the same requirements can be listed together. For example (if we agree to it), Trials, Street and Jumps all require X and Y, rather than having to list all separately.
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You guys talk a lot about kids. While it's important to set a good example for younger generations, these event aren't made for kids, so they shouldn't be our main focus. Past a certain age, you can sustain a certain amount of responsibility and I think wearing shinpads is one of them. Maybe have different rules for kids and adults, or with expert category.
As we've seen at Unicon, most riders didn't wear pads for the first section of street (the small one) but as we moved on to the bigger section, riders protected themselves more.
Hugo mentioned a great point, shinpads will only protect from surface injuries. If we follow that logic, it means riders would require a full face mask, gloves, wrists, arm and elbow pads, knee pads, back protection, rib protection..... While we're at it we should also make ankle guards mandatory so we can reduce the amount of ankle injuries during competition.
I know I'm going a little to far but I'm trying to show that reasons used to enforced shinpads are ridiculous, and if we followed the logic of them we should cover up the whole body of riders.
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After hearing a very long but very detailed but especially scientificly argumented monologue of a cycling friend of me (AKA the benelux importer of Schlumpf before "his" unicycle hub was born), I became very against helmets, and will never force my future kids -or those in a next life- to wear one.
I think spine protectors or wrist fixation in street makes more sense then helmets. That's even after meeting (Olympic champion) Hennie Kuiper after the disaster with his pupil (and Olympic champion) Fabio Casartelli. Google for bloody pictures if you are morbide. I don't expect such event with such an impact in unicycling (sport) anytime soon.
Having no shinguards or not having something on your ankles is less dramatic, and at worst just masochistic.
Is there truly a problem to keep it up to the riders own responsibility? After all it's their own body.
You will need less trauma heli's and such a row of ambulances as at a downhill event.
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About Helmets it is for sure a special thing as I know about the discussions you are talking about and I also know that simply a bad fitting Helmet is often more worse then no Helmet but I think a host or we as the IUF wont win any lawcase based on that theorie as the majority meaning is actually that a Helmet helps (at least it did up from a higher speed as lonbg as it fits and is a full face one). ABout shins I know about two serious injurys based on missing shinguards, one was already discribed above, the other happens in Denmark and the rider was close to get a serious leg damage as he went to late to the hospital.
We talking not about Kids that ride active, it is more about kids observing the riders and see what is considered to be cool. So you can show them that it is cool to get ugly distroyed legs and have a lot of pain several times or you can show them that it is cool to wear shinguards. This was already often discussed in relation to videos as it has the same effect to kids. They do what their heros do so this is the point here.
However, this is a committee about rules and I see no reason to start a proposal and see whats the result. Seems that everyone agree to delete kneepads already So im pretty sure that a rule for Helmets and shinguards will pass easy this and the main committee but maybe also a proposal for just helmets or for nothing can pass, who knows until you try it.
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Sorry to get to this conversation late. All the emails about these discussions just dropped into my inbox all at once about 20 minutes ago.
Hate to play devils advocate here. But I think removing more rules of rider protection is a bad idea. Keep in mind. Rules for wearing protection have very little to do with the riders safety. It has to do with protecting the event and the organizers. It has to do with an insurance agency covering costs if they absolutely have to. Imagine your an insurance agency. The IUF gets insurance for their event. A kid happens to get hurt badly enough in street that a claim needs to be made. The insurance agent asks if he was wearing any protective gear while riding at this event where the injury was caused (probably a skate park). The IUF says ,"No, we did not require any competitors to wear any protective gear other then helmets." The insurance agency asks why we wouldn't require riders wear protective gear in a skate park and decides to not pay out on the claim. Now the rider (or their parents) sues the IUF for damages. Legal fees get racked up. Maybe the IUF is forced to pay the medical bills. It only takes one bad instance of something like this to do damage to an event.
Unicycling is getting riskier and more hardcore. Riders are doing bigger tricks and they are most likely to do this in comp. In my opinion, we should simply change the rules to have a more general requirement for leg protection. Any type type of leg protection should be required be it shin or knee or combo of the two. But removing the requirement for protective gear, I feel, leaves an opening for something bad to happen.
We don't need gloves or elbows. But we all get hit and beat in the legs.
My thoughts:
Street: Knees or shins or better (riders preference)
Trials: Knees or shins or better (riders preference)
Flat: Pads not required but encouraged.
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Totally agree here with Emile. You could hurt yourself everywhere on your body, and you just can't prevent all these possible injuries. You could smash your face onto a rail, you could hit your balls really badly, and for sure you can hurt your shins. But in my opinion competitiors should decide themselves if they wear protection gear (beside helmet) or not. I personally hate riding with shinpads, and for me they don't really do a lot. You're sweating a lot more, they turn around and they velcro gets loose after some time. For me just not comfortable to wear. I ride pedals with really no grip at all, so they are completely flat. When they smash in my shin, I don't get bloody shinpads like Colby Thomas (who still has grip on his pedals). I don't think it is such a pain to have a rule to protect your shins. I'm riding with no shinpads for probably 4 years and I can post a photo of my shins if you want, they look perfect. Prtecting your head with a helmet is much much more important, because when you smash your head reallyl bad on concrete, you can suffer from some serious injury, but having some scars on your shin?!
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give it a few more years. Not to say im this amazing rider or anything( not like Raphael ;) but when you get a little older, and not that much older mind you, those shin hits put you down for longer and longer.
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Philips point was already named before, protection of the organizers is a point a rider never see but it exist and can ruin people in worst case.
I agree that shinguards are not needed for riders with unpinned plasitc pedals as Raphi describe, they are needed to protect you from the pins mostly but to seperate this will be pain in the ass.
Another chace I see in relation to the insurance problem would be to set rules with safty gear and the option to ride without it as long as the rider provide a signed document by himself (adult) or his parents that he is totaly responsible for any injuries he get. In thoery this would work but in real live nobody can aprove if those documents are real or just signed by himself or some friends.
So lets try to go for a compromise.
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Yeah there is no problem wearing them if you want to. It is just for the riders who don't wanna wear them. If you get older and "those shin hits put you down for longer and longer" wear shin pads, problem solved. Nobody will hinder you wearing as much protection gear as you want. I've seen riders with full face helmet, back protection, etc. If anybody wants to go for that, it is fine :)
About the document that Olaf mentioned, for sure you cannot prove if somebody faked the signature or not, but a lot of the competitors are already over 18. And if they're not their parents or responsible person has to decide for them. I remember at euc winter a few years ago my brothers and I always had to sign a paper with our parents that the organisation team is not responsible if we are allowed to leave the convention area and do everything on our own risk. It worked there, why shouldn't it work with protection gear too. It's just shinpads. I think it is very rare that parents will decide for their kid to wear shinpads, and the kid doesn't want to wear them and fakes the signature.
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From Hugo's post in the high jump safety gear discussion (20 days ago):
"I can't comment for other event organizers, but in the case of Unicon 17, held in what seems like the worst territory in regards to insurance policies and other ridiculous administrative karp, safety gear was a non-issue for all of our partners. This may be because our insurance policy is provided by a biking federation, which covers BMX, mountain biking, road racing, cyclocross, and so on, which are all more "extreme" than unicycling. Or it may also be that way because unicycling in Québec is still in a gray area and nobody at an insurance company has thought of it as an extreme sport. It doesn't seem like we have fallen in the I-don't-know-this-activity-so-I-will-consider-it-extreme scenario. The IUF Rulebook was always more restrictive than what location managers were asking us."
For event organizers, insurance is rarely a safety gear issue. An insurance company is either going to say yes or no to a unicycle event. Whether we wear shin pads or not will make no difference. It will also make no difference if we get sued. The only place where I can see safety gear fitting into the insurance issue is with helmets, but no one here is suggesting we get rid of helmets.
What we really have to ask here is what the riding and organizing community decides is "safe enough." This is of course a hard question to answer because everyone has different opinions about what is safe. However, as Raphi and other riders point out many times is that you can always wear more safety gear than required.
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"For event organizers, insurance is rarely a safety gear issue. An insurance company is either going to say yes or no to a unicycle event. Whether we wear shin pads or not will make no difference. It will also make no difference if we get sued." -- Yes to the first part, no to the second. If a suit is filed, then every little detail of what actually happened will be on the table, as Philip Sanders described above. It could be a very big deal. Fortunately we have very little experience with this sort of thing happening, and as an organizer I hope you would all want to keep it that way.
That said, the odds are low that the problems in such a legal case would be about shin protection. Knee protection possibly, as there are more dire things that can happen to knees with bad impacts. But IMHO Street is, if anything, slightly more knee-friendly than Trials, and I'd prefer that both Street and Trials have the same safety gear requirements. I would be okay with a "shin, knee or better" requirement.
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"About the document that Olaf mentioned, for sure you cannot prove if somebody faked the signature or not, but a lot of the competitors are already over 18. And if they're not their parents or responsible person has to decide for them. I remember at euc winter a few years ago my brothers and I always had to sign a paper with our parents that the organisation team is not responsible if we are allowed to leave the convention area and do everything on our own risk. It worked there, why shouldn't it work with protection gear too. It's just shinpads. I think it is very rare that parents will decide for their kid to wear shinpads, and the kid doesn't want to wear them and fakes the signature."
I agree and after thinking about it a while I would say the parents sign would be only needed for U16 riders. With 16 you can start driving cars / motorbikes in many countrys which is MUCH more dangerous for yourself and others then riding without Shinguards. So if the Government think a 16 yers old human is old enough to protect himslef and others while driving a car, we should be fine with it also. A Helmet would be the minimum required then and shin / knee protection just recomended.
A more easy option for the host could be to force Helmet and Shinguards for Junior riders and just Hekmet for Senior ones. (U15 / 15+)
About insurance issues I guess it would impress them more if we have a paramedic guy beside the competition are to be able to act fast if needed. I remember a Unicon where we had not one of them while Street, we even dont had Ice. Maybe it is in general a good idea to add the need of a paramedic to the safty rules instead of to much protection gear. Maybe a good balnce between riders and hosts needs and always very helpfull in case of serious injurys.
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Can we get a summary of opinions from actual riders here? Then we can create a proposal.
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There is no better way to get the opinion of riders by asking them , and listening to them. Another way would be just to see how things went at EUC.
trials: all riders wear helmet, most don't wear leg protection, but some wear shin pads, and few knee pads.
street: all riders wear helmet, some wear pads, some don't
high jump: only helmet
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My opinion is that shin guards are purely preference. As stated, pinless plastic pedals really aren't something to be concerned about. People that used pinned/semi-pinned pedals in flat/street are usually beginners and they tend to wear shin guards anyway. For trials and high jump, you never remove both your feet from the pedals so the chance of you hitting them is very low. In regard to requiring helmets, I think street and trials are a given. Flatland should obviously never require a helmet as well. However, I believe that since high jump is only over a bar, requiring a helmet doesn't really make sense. Essentially its flatland; you jump from the ground to the ground. If high jump was onto pallets, that would be a different story as people fall off upside down sometimes. As for kneepads, I think that they are never necessary. They inhibit movement and many riders do not practice with them for this reason, resulting in frustration in competition.
Obviously riders can choose a level of protection they prefer, but in summary I don't think safety gear should be required with the exception of helmets for street and trials.
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Alex, apparently you have never worked with an insurance company on liability insurance for sports. The higher you go off the ground, the higher the liability. This is backed up by the laws of physics, so it's harder to argue than some other insurance "truths". Based on your presentation above, Evil Knievel didn't need a helmet either since he was jumping from the ground to the ground also. :-) He makes a great example since he was most famous for his crashes.
Rider opinions are great to have; know your audience. Just a reminder that the riders don't create these events, they don't take the financial risks, they don't buy the insurance and they aren't at risk of very serious consequences if there are lawsuits. As always, riders are free to choose whether or not to wear the required safety gear, whatever that may be, or not compete. If kneepads are required for an event, everybody else is wearing them so you're all equal in that respect. If you choose not to use them for practicing, you may be at a disadvantage.
I don't mean to argue for kneepads here; I'm just keeping up the reminder of why insurance is needed, and who is at risk if we make the wrong choices (not the riders).
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You're right, I have never dealt with an insurance company, but then why don't we just require helmets for flatland? Nothing is stopping the rider from jumping as high as they want. The need for helmets comes from the rider engaging obstacles. If its such an insurance problem, why can't we have a paper or something that needs signed saying that NAUCC takes no responsibility in rider injuries? I'm guessing it's not that simple? That Evil Knievel example was pretty blown out of proportion as well. Can we try to stay constructive?
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Brains are important and not worth messing around with. Bones and scrapes can heal. However, I am definitely not a fan of safety gear where it is not necessary.
I am absolutely for helmets in all Urban events other than Flatland.
I think the insurance argument here is less relevant. I care a lot less about my event getting sued than I care about my friends' health and ability to keep unicycling.