helmets

On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 00:22:36 -0700, Bill Davidson
<[email hidden]> wrote in message
<1hqJc.1828$9j.1579@lakeread02>:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Anybody who wears a helmet on the bike, but not in the car (a source
of 50 to 100 times more fatal head injuries) is in a fantasy
wonderland of denial

Quoted message said:

Count head injuries per mile travelled per person and those numbers
go in the other direction--by a lot. I've easily travelled 20-30
times as many miles in motor vehicles as on a bike. Total times
hitting my head in motor vehicles: 0. Total times on the bike: 2.

Count head injuries per mile travelled for pedestrians and for
cyclists, and it's higher for pedestrians. Ditto fatalities.

Quoted message said:

This is just more [censored] statistics from the anti-helmet freaks.

Where? I really want to meet more anti-helmet freaks. So far I've
only met one.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University

On Wed, 14 Jul 2004 23:50:23 +0000 (UTC), "PK"
<[email hidden]> wrote in message
<[email hidden]>:

Quoted message said:

his conclusion does not exaclty reverse his position but introduces another
layer of complexity;

Well, since his previous position was "it doesn't happen" it certainly
changed it a fair bit :-)

Quoted message said:

"The results indicate that risk compensation may modify the effectiveness of
PE for children engaged in sports and leisure activities. Conversely, the
findings also suggest that those wearing PE may be a cautious subgroup"

The former explains why increases in wearing rates fail to yield
measurable benefit, the latter explains whjy small-scale prospective
studies show more benefit than whole-population data. The two are not
inconsistent, I think.

Quoted message said:

(btw sample size in the study was 63 6-16 with non severe injury)

Another small-scale study. I wonder why the injury prevention zealots
never use the larger data sets from whole population time series? Oh,
wait a minute... :-)

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University

On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 03:09:29 GMT, Mike McGuire
<[email hidden]> wrote in message
<[email hidden]>:

Quoted message said:

Of course it may not be politic to include an opinion that an early
symptom of an important qualification for organ donation, namely brain
death, is implict in the decision not to wear...

Indeed not, especially as there is no evidence to support the idea
that helmets have any significant effect in preventing serious head
injuries, or indeed the fact that the worst brain injuries are
reckoned to be caused by rotational forces, which helmets can't
mitigate.

Remember, there is no known case where cyclist safety has improved
with increasing helmet use.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University

John Smith said:

Chalo said:

Quoted message said:

I have broken 4 helmets in accidents.

So you assume that when your _styrofoam hat_ breaks, that you have
been spared injury?

Yes. Its a pretty basic concept. A crushable foam absorbs impact and
limits the impact to the thing you are protecting. It is used in
automobiles, particularly professional race cars, who come apart and
otherwise deform in order to protect the occupant.

Speaking of professionals, what is it that you think motorsports
helmet designers are failing to understand when they build their
helmets strong, rather than weak and feeble like bicycle helmets? Do
you think they don't know what they're doing?

Bicycle hats are _symbolic_ helmets, designed to break and give the
_impression_ of having saved the wearer from injury (in order to
stroke his ego/pick his pocket), rather than being designed to give
actual and effective protection to the wearer. If they were intended
for the latter, they would bear much more resemblance to motorcycle,
auto racing, aviation, and skydiving helmets.

There are not a lot of different "right" ways to make an effective
crash helmet. All the good ones are more or less the same, and way
different from a bicycle hat.

Chalo Colina

Raoul Duke said:

"dreaded" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

I would rather crash fifty times with

Quoted message said:

my helmet on than once without it.

After reading your post, sounds like you already have.

It's funny, it seems that it's the Tour that brought out the helmet
nazis this year rather than the end of winter.

Just zis Guy said:

On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 03:09:29 GMT, Mike McGuire
<[email hidden]> wrote in message
<[email hidden]>:

Quoted message said:

Of course it may not be politic to include an opinion that an early
symptom of an important qualification for organ donation, namely brain
death, is implict in the decision not to wear...

Indeed not, especially as there is no evidence to support the idea
that helmets have any significant effect in preventing serious head
injuries, or indeed the fact that the worst brain injuries are
reckoned to be caused by rotational forces, which helmets can't
mitigate.

Remember, there is no known case where cyclist safety has improved
with increasing helmet use.

Guy

Hmm--considerably advanced symptoms. Don't leave home without that donor
card.

Mike

On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 16:42:02 GMT, "AustinMN" <[email hidden]>
wrote:

<snip>

Quoted message said:

No, they have not. There have been several large scale studies showing they
don't. The largest study to ever conclude that they do work has been
discredited by it's original authors (by repeating it). Helmets really
don't work. But the concept is aparently lost on most helmet advocates.

No need to be glum; threads about the North American obsession can be
a great source of amusement. I love seeing the same facile arguments
and puerile attempts at insult being put forth by Johnny-come-latelies
who convincingly seem to believe that they are being both original and
clever. Note that the True Believers will usually identify themselves
quickly by going straight for the invective early on in their first
post to the thread (88% of them, in fact).

In fact, it might not be a bad idea for me to put on a helmet before I
read their offerings in case I fall out of my chair laughing!

Bill Davidson <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<jvzJc.99$6%1.5@lakeread02>...

Quoted message said:

The total bicycle fatality counts have been slowly decreasing for
the last few decades with 2000 being the first year with less than
700 in decades. We haven't been over 900 since 1988 (901) or over
800 since 1997 (811). Helmet usage increased dramatically during
the 1990's but I'm sure that has nothing to do with it.

Total fatality counts for pedestrians have been decreasing on an
exactly parallel slope to those of cyclists for many decades. (Their
absolute counts are much higher, of course.)

It's certain that helmet usage increasing dramatically had nothing to
do with the decrease in pedestrian deaths. And since, in the face of
greatly increased bike helmet use, the trends remain parallel, it
means cyclists haven't gained anything on peds as a result of the
helmets.

The explanation that seems most probable, I think, is increased
medical technology and knowledge. People who try to give all the
credit to helmets must believe CAT scans have no value, and that
physicians know nothing more than they did in 1975.

- Frank Krygowski

On Fri, 16 Jul 2004 06:35:14 GMT, Chris B.
<[email protected]> wrote in message
<[email hidden]>:

Quoted message said:

It's funny, it seems that it's the Tour that brought out the helmet
nazis this year rather than the end of winter.

Inability to distinguish between trundling down to the shops and
descending Pyrennean passes en peloton at 50mph is a key attribute of
the Liddites :-)

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University

On Fri, 16 Jul 2004 06:42:33 GMT, mmcgr <[email hidden]> wrote in
message <[email hidden]>:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Of course it may not be politic to include an opinion that an early
symptom of an important qualification for organ donation, namely brain
death, is implict in the decision not to wear...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Indeed not, especially as there is no evidence to support the idea
that helmets have any significant effect in preventing serious head
injuries, or indeed the fact that the worst brain injuries are
reckoned to be caused by rotational forces, which helmets can't
mitigate.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Remember, there is no known case where cyclist safety has improved
with increasing helmet use.

Quoted message said:

Hmm--considerably advanced symptoms. Don't leave home without that donor
card.

OK, now let's review this. On the one side you have a man who says a
cyclist without a helmet is a dead man riding, on the other side you
have a man who posts proven facts which disprove that case. What is
your justification for discounting at a stroke every sngle whole
population analysis of cyclist head injurty rates?

Maybe you believe, as Thompson, Rivara and Thompson apparently do,
that helmets are more effective against brain injury than against
minor cuts and bruises. If so, surely you can point to a jurisdiction
where reductions in serious and fatal head injury rates have been
achieved through helmet use?

Or maybe you are a mountain biker who has forgotten that "cycling"
covers everything from pottering around the park on a child's tricycle
to extreme downhill? How many different sorts of bikes do you ride,
and what kinds of riding? How many miles per year on and off road?

How do you account for the fact that it took four attempts to prove
any cost benefit for New Zealand's helmet law, and even that was found
only for children under 12 and on the basis of pretending they all
would have worn helmets anyway and ignoring both pre-existing trends
and the fact that they grow?

How do you account for the fact that the head injury rate in the USA
rose by 40% as helmet use rose from 18% to 50%?

How do you account for the fact, acknowledged by the authors of the
law, that Alberta's halmet law was followed by a doubling of the head
injury rate?

How do you account for the fact that the head injury rate in Australia
remained unchanged after compulsion?

How do you account for the fact that the two safest cycling countries
in the world, Holland and Denmark, have negligible helmet wearing
rates?

How do you account for the fact that the pro-helmet road safety
minister in the UK acknowledged that there is no known case where
cyclist safety has improved with increasing helmet use?

Surely you have thought all this through, otherwise you would just be
trolling.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University

Frank Krygowski said:

Bill Davidson <[email hidden]> wrote in message

news:<jvzJc.99$6%1.5@lakeread02>...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

The total bicycle fatality counts have been slowly decreasing for
the last few decades with 2000 being the first year with less than
700 in decades. We haven't been over 900 since 1988 (901) or over
800 since 1997 (811). Helmet usage increased dramatically during
the 1990's but I'm sure that has nothing to do with it.

Total fatality counts for pedestrians have been decreasing on an
exactly parallel slope to those of cyclists for many decades. (Their
absolute counts are much higher, of course.)

It's certain that helmet usage increasing dramatically had nothing to
do with the decrease in pedestrian deaths. And since, in the face of
greatly increased bike helmet use, the trends remain parallel, it
means cyclists haven't gained anything on peds as a result of the
helmets.

The explanation that seems most probable, I think, is increased
medical technology and knowledge. People who try to give all the
credit to helmets must believe CAT scans have no value, and that
physicians know nothing more than they did in 1975.

Of course, tougher drunk driving laws and enforcement have nothing to do
with it either.

Austin

"AustinMN" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Frank Krygowski said:

Bill Davidson <[email hidden]> wrote in message

news:<jvzJc.99$6%1.5@lakeread02>...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

The total bicycle fatality counts have been slowly decreasing for
the last few decades with 2000 being the first year with less than
700 in decades. We haven't been over 900 since 1988 (901) or over
800 since 1997 (811). Helmet usage increased dramatically during
the 1990's but I'm sure that has nothing to do with it.

Total fatality counts for pedestrians have been decreasing on an
exactly parallel slope to those of cyclists for many decades. (Their
absolute counts are much higher, of course.)

It's certain that helmet usage increasing dramatically had nothing to
do with the decrease in pedestrian deaths. And since, in the face of
greatly increased bike helmet use, the trends remain parallel, it
means cyclists haven't gained anything on peds as a result of the
helmets.

The explanation that seems most probable, I think, is increased
medical technology and knowledge. People who try to give all the
credit to helmets must believe CAT scans have no value, and that
physicians know nothing more than they did in 1975.

Of course, tougher drunk driving laws and enforcement have nothing to do
with it either.

Austin

You know, after wearing a motorcycle helmet, it's hard to believe that a
bike helmet is much more than a symbolic gesture to appease the gods or
something.

Mike McGuire <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Base on most of the response, you are clearly using the wrong approach.
Something in the spirit of Jonathan Swift's "Modest Proposal" might be
the thing. Something like

URGENT NEED FOR ORGAN DONATIONS!!!

Non-helmet wearers, let us help you get your organ donation paper work,
living will etc. in order. There is a vast need and many deserving
recipients out there, and it would be a shameful waste to not be able to
give them a well conditioned set of cyclist lungs and heart. They would
be very grateful, and oh yes, please carry your donor card always.

At least Mike's response is cuter than the usual "organ donation"
wisecrack. But it remains an ignorant wisecrack. And Mike, don't get
your hackles up. I meant "ignorant" as in, not knowing the facts.

One of my best friends worked for an organ donation organization for
quite a few years, doing educational outreach. I asked him about
bicyclists and organ donations. He said cyclists are not, and never
have been, much good for organ donations.

For one thing, there are FAR too few cyclist fatalities in a given
year. Anyone can look up the numbers - roughly 750 cyclists die per
year in the US. OTOH, there are 40,000 motorist deaths, and about
6500 pedestrian deaths.

Furthermore, despite the fictions created by helmet promoters, the
typical cyclist death is not an unharmed body with a massive head
injury. There are usually multiple causes of death, and internal
organs are frequently seriously damaged. This is why so many helmet
promotion sites say things about cycling deaths "involving" head
injuries. When you phrase it that way, you can say a person with a
crushed chest and a scratched forehead counts.

But the vast majority of organ donations come from more mundane
things. My friend said stroke victims are a big source, if only
because their numbers are so tremendous. And unfortunately for your
argument, cyclists are less likely to suffer strokes - whether they
wear a helmet or not.

So if you want organ donors, convince people to give up cycling and
ride in cars.

Of course, that's what helmet promotion horror stories do, isn't it?

Quoted message said:

Of course it may not be politic to include an opinion that an early
symptom of an important qualification for organ donation, namely brain
death, is implict in the decision not to wear...

I'd say people who make insulting arguments without looking up the
facts are closer to brain death, wouldn't you? ;-)

- Frank Krygowski

"John Smith" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

"Frank Krygowski" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

1) You seem to have a great faith in your helmet. You have crashed
enough to break 4 helmets.

Yes. Even though I am a very cautious rider. And the accidents were not
avoidable.

Hmmm. I would have avoided at least three, perhaps four.

Quoted message said:

Accident one. Bicylcling along a paved river path at a relatively slow
pace. Small kid darted out from behind trees. Had choice of kid or tree.
Chose tree.

I'll admit, multi-use paths are relatively dangerous places. If
you've really got one with large (kid-hiding) trees immediately
adjacent, it doesn't meet design codes. I'd recommend staying off it.

If the tree was not immediately adjacent, it sounds like you were
inattentive to me.

Quoted message said:

Accident two. Domino's Pizza driver, who had been sitting in car for a few
minutes, opens door in front of bicycle.

You actually ride within reach of car doors? Sorry, but that would
never happen to me.

Quoted message said:

Accident three. I stop at stop sign and am hit from behind by car that did
not stop.

I'd be interested in the circumstances. This is a _very_ unusual
accident! Still, I tend to be aware of rearward traffic, by use of a
mirror. But it's conceivable this one would have got me.

Quoted message said:

Accident four. Bicycling on Bike Path, Bicyclist going the other way turns
around to talk to friend and suddenly veers into me in head on crash. I
break helmet and walk away.... they are not wearing helmet and go to ER.

Yep, bike paths. Bad places. By the way, what injury took them to
the ER? And what was the outcome?

Quoted message said:

Yes,. you are right. Maybe I would have just "walked away" from those
accidents anyway. But the simple fact is that there are more studies which
say that helemts help than studies that say that they are neutral and a lot
more studies which stay that helmets are, at worst neutral, than studies
that say that they hurt.

I'll admit, you're right about the raw numbers of pro vs. con studies.
To give a little more detail, there are more "case control" studies
examining people showing up at an ER.

Here's how those are done: If you ask those people coming to the ER
"were you wearing a helmet" and compare with whether or not they had a
"head injury," you'll get some nice looking pro-helmet data. To
compute the benefit, you compare the "helmet" people with the "no
helmet" people. You also take care to define "head injury" as any
injury above the neck. Cuts to the ears should definitely be counted.
So should bruised noses, scratched chins, etc. The nice thing, for
helmet promotion, is that when you publish and use the words "head
injury" people will naturally assume truly debilitating brain injury,
not ear scratches. Also, you can pretend that the two groups really
were equivalent - ignoring, say, poor kids who can't afford helmets
being taken in only for really significant injuries, versus richer
kids with good insurance taken in "just in case." What I've described
is the method of most studies on the subject.

OTOH, if you look at large population data things are not so good for
helmet promoters. For example, if you take a country like New
Zealand, where they made helmets mandatory for all ages, you'll have a
sudden increase in the use of helmets - from maybe 15% to maybe 90%.
(They actually enforce their law.) Then if you look at hospital data,
you can check the reason cyclists are admitted. Do this for
essentially all hospitalized cyclists in the country. You can hope to
find a drop in the percentage hospitalized due to head injury.

The trouble here is, you're actually looking at the serious injuries.
And you're looking at the entire population, not just your limited
contrasting rich & poor groups.

Oh, the other trouble is, you won't find any benefit from the surge in
helmet use. We know this, because I'm describing a real study.

You can also count the raw numbers of head injuries after a helmet law
comes into effect. You'll probably see a drop. But just be careful
you don't compare with the actual number of cyclists out there on the
roads, because you'll see an even bigger drop, so it will become clear
the helmets aren't protecting the cyclists, they're just driving them
away from cycling.

So if you want to publish a paper on bike helmet effectiveness to
bolster your academic standing (or satisfy your helmet-company
sponsor) be sure to do it the "right" way. Fortunately, that's also
the much easier way!

Quoted message said:

But you have your mind made up, and no doubt it
would be as ineffective to argue this point with you...

There's a lot of that around here, isn't there?

- Frank Krygowski

"Just zis Guy, you know?" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

How do you account for the fact that it took four attempts to prove
any cost benefit for New Zealand's helmet law, and even that was found
only for children under 12 and on the basis of pretending they all
would have worn helmets anyway and ignoring both pre-existing trends
and the fact that they grow?

Actually you should READ that study instead of just looking at conclusions.
Initially, it was predicated on New Zealand's low health care costs, not the
high US health care costs. Secondly, it also says that it understates
various items including the "value" of a life. And, of course, it
acknowledges that Helmets do prevent and reduce injury. It simply says
that in a low health care cost society, the cost-benefit (and without
assigning a specific value to the lost or damaged life) the cost of treating
the head injuries is less than the cost of preventing the injuries.

Scooter the mighty said:

You know, after wearing a motorcycle helmet, it's hard to believe that a
bike helmet is much more than a symbolic gesture to appease the gods or
something.

It's to appease, alright, but not gods. Bike hats are built as flimsy
as they are _just so that they will break_ when exposed to the
slightest impact. This appeases the buyer's desire to be undertaking
a daring and adventurous activity as well as his desire to be
self-preservingly safety conscious.

When one of those fool hats busts, the helmet enthusiast thinks,
"without it I would surely have been seriously injured! How smart I
am to wear a helmet, and how brave I am to venture out into the jaws
of certain peril on my bicycle." Whereas someone who regularly wears
a serious helmet thinks, "of course it broke! The piece o' [censored] is
made of styrofoam and brand-name decals!"

I started to enumerate the major distinctions between proven crash
helmets and bike hats, but decided that anybody who is willing to lay
his faith in such an obviously ineffectual piece of body armor (one
that can be destroyed if you accidentally sit on it, for instance)
probably would not be swayed by additional facts.

Chalo Colina

"Chris B." <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

It's funny, it seems that it's the Tour that brought out the helmet
nazis this year rather than the end of winter.

If you don't want to wear a helmet, that's fine with me. What I object to
is the presentation of psuedo-science as fact and the fact that the
anti-helmet Nazis are going to result in a number of gullible innocents
suffering serious injuries.

"Just zis Guy, you know?" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Count head injuries per mile travelled for pedestrians and for
cyclists, and it's higher for pedestrians. Ditto fatalities.

This is the kind of absolutely insane claim that undermines the arguments of
the Anti-Helmet Nazis. There is not a single study that you can cite which
supports this.

Just zis Guy said:

...How do you account for the fact that the pro-helmet road safety
minister in the UK acknowledged that there is no known case where
cyclist safety has improved with increasing helmet use?

Surely you have thought all this through, otherwise you would just be
trolling.

Guy

Obviously attitudes in this matter are completely hardened and are quite
beyond humor. As to the charge of trolling, probably. As they say over
in rec.outdoors.fishing, Fish On!

Mike

On Sat, 17 Jul 2004 03:58:13 GMT, "john smith" <[email hidden]>
wrote in message
<[email hidden]>:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Count head injuries per mile travelled for pedestrians and for
cyclists, and it's higher for pedestrians. Ditto fatalities.

Quoted message said:

This is the kind of absolutely insane claim that undermines the arguments of
the Anti-Helmet Nazis. There is not a single study that you can cite which
supports this.

Actually the idea that pedestrian fatality rates are higher per mile
travelled is not controversial. Malcolm Wardlaw based a rather
amusing piece in the BMJ on exactly that fact, based directly on the
British Government's road casualty statistics.

The data set with which I am most familiar is for children in England.
Here, the head injury rate (HI as % of all admissions) is about the
same for cyclists and pedestrians - cyclists are not particularly at
risk of head injuries. This data set also includes the rather
interesting fact that more children in England are admitted to
hospital for head injuries resulting from assault than from cycling.

The major determinant of whether there will be a head injury is the
involvement of a motor vehicle, not a bicycle.

And notwithstanding your falling foul of Godwin's law, I only know of
one person who is actually anti helmet. I know an awful lot who are
implacably opposed to the propaganda used by those who promote
helmets.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University