Safety Hats?

H&S is worrying about children's skulls, cultural issue (H&S is something separate imposed by others) you highlight is even more concerning!

haemorrhages, 800 a year!

We have bump hats for children, up to parent if they wear them.

This is somewhat reminiscent of the cycling helmet debate.

A lot of people were reluctant (rightly) to concede that wearing a helmet would be a good idea for some people some of the time, in case some meddling beaurocrat decided that everyone must wear one all of the time. That helped polarize the arguments which didn't help anyone.

Unfortunately both the risks of head damage and bureaucrats are real.

Personally, I feel that everyone should be aware or made aware of the risks in life then left to make their own decision. I'd apply that inter alia to buoyancy aids as well. The only flaw in my argument I can see is that youth might be peer-pressured into not-wearing. Free to choose after the age of 16? Alright, 18...

Try telling that to David Fenech at WSC. He got a crack from the boom so hard that he went to hosptial; there they told him that a repeat episode could leave him with brain damage. He always wears a hard hat now - originally a kayaking helmet, now a hard-shelled baseball cap something like this:

http://www.seton.co.uk/setoneurope/catalog/0/20/200113-2%203 11994-3.html

There are times when the unexpected happens and you get a clout. No point in being macho if your brain can't pick the shifts any longer.

As for not teaching you to duck, that's nonsense - you actually learn to duck lower: yes your head does become a bigger target but you still want to avoid it being hit by the boom...

Of course, I don't actually wear one (!) but that's really only because i've not come across one to buy, or indeed looked on the web for one till now. Wish I'd had one last Sunday when I dived inside an Osprey at a mark on the wrong line - boom wouldn't come across at first pull, then just as I was focussed on steering inches away from the mark, it did. My crew was applying pressure to my bleeding ear from the wire for a bit after that; macho but dumb.