Just zis Guy said:I'd post a link but didn't get sent one, only the document.
Authorship is attributed to Andrew Curran, of BeHIT, which tells you
everything you need to know. I recommend vicious use of irony.
I particularly liked the way they liberally sprinkled emotive case
studies througout the paper. It's a good piece of PR work.
Interesting that they feel they have to at least acknowlege the risk
compensation criticisms, rather than dismiss them out of hand:
Quoted message said:Risk compensation theory
Hypotheses on risk homeostasis and compensation are based on
assumptions that persons adapt their behaviour toward greater or
lesser risk in relation to how they subjectively perceive risk. This
has been one of the arguments used against the introduction of
mandatory cycle helmet wearing. Some opponents to legislation
believe that cyclists who opt to use a helmet may feel safer (that
is, they may perceive less risk of being injured as a result of a
crash), and this may lead them to use more careless cycling
behaviours. Spanish research (where legislation exists for mandatory
helmet wearing) did not find evidence of the existence of a strong
risk compensation mechanism among helmeted cyclists. [Reference 19]
[snip]
Quoted message said:19. Lardelli-Claret P., de Dios Luna-del-Castillo J.,
Jiminez-Moleon J. J., Garcia Martin M., Bueno-Cavinallas A &
Galvez-Vargas R (2003), Risk compensation theory and voluntary
helmet use by cyclists in Spain, Injury Prevention, 9, 128-132
Interestingly, the conclusion of this paper states:
"The results suggest that the subgroup of cyclists with a higher
risk of suffering a traffic crash are also those in which the
health consequences of the crash will probably be higher. Although
the findings do not support the existence of a strong risk
compensation mechanism among helmeted cyclists, this possibility
cannot be ruled out."
A few quotes:
"What are the implications of our findings regarding risk
compensation theory? Clearly, their usefulness in clarifying this
question is limited." (P131)
"These considerations prevent us from making definite statements
concerning the validity of risk compensation theory. Evidently, our
results do not support the existence of a strong risk compensation
mechanism in connection with voluntary helmet use in Spain,
although they obviously cannot rule out that such a mechanism may
operate." (P132)
What the paper actually showed was that people who don't wear helmets
tend to commit more infractions of the rules of the road which lead to
them having accidents. That's the only conclusion they could
reasonably draw from the data.
Of course, the BMJ position paper says nothing which is actually
dishonest about the conclusions, but to quote it at all in this
context is, I believe, meant to imply that the paper supports the case
that risk compensation as a result of helmet wearing does not
occur. The paper makes no such claims.
Phil
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http://www.kantaka.co.uk/ .oOo. public key: http://www.kantaka.co.uk/gpg.txt