Are Helmets Completely Worthless as a Safety Device for a Bike Commuter?



On Mar 7, 7:19 am, SMS <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
> If you look at the FARS data, normalized for the different level of
> helmet usage, you do see a statistical benefit in fatalities in helmet
> use. However you also see that while helmet wearers had a lower fatality
> rate, they also had a higher rate of serious injuries. The logical
> conclusion is that some of the fatalities of the non-helmet wearers
> would have instead been serious injuries if they had been wearing a
> helmet. These were not double-blind studies, they were simply accident
> report data. The AHZ's response to the data is that the claimed level of
> helmet use in the general population was underestimated, and thus the
> injury and fatality data cannot be normalized based on helmet usage
> rates.


Steven M. Scharf should give sources for the data he's talking about,
and give some specifics, preferably including actual numbers. As it
is, we have only a fog of non-specifics, filtered through a guy who
has steadfastly refused to address specifically cited counter-data
provided by others.

Oh, and it would be good to desist from claims like "The AHZ's
response is that..." Quit calling names, quit building straw men, and
let your opponents speak for themselves.


> Certainly it's a possibility that helmet usage rates were not
> accurately reported, though there is no evidence that this was the case.
> It's not a perfect study, you get what you or you get nothing.


???

> I'm an engineer, and I go by the data,


Then let us see the data you're "going by." Or at least tell us
exactly where to find it, and exactly what data you're claiming to pay
attention to.

> I'd have more trouble arguing for helmets at all, if they were proven to
> be completely ineffective. But they haven't been. No one has presented
> any evidence that they are ineffective, only that their effectiveness is
> limited, something that we all can agree on.


Of course we agree they have _some_ level of protection. Making that
fact a cornerstone of your viewpoint is extremely silly, since
anything you're likely to wear any place on your body has _some_
limited evel of protection.

Stick to the issues. a) Are existing bike helmets doing what's
promised in the real world? And even more basic, b) are the serious
injuries we're being "threatened" with likely enough to occur during
ordinary cycling, that the promised protection is even necessary?

From the reams of data I've seen, cited, linked and have on file, I'd
say the answers are a) absolutely not, and b) absolutely not. Serious
head injuries for ordinary cyclists are extremely rare (more rare than
for pedestrians), and helmets do not seem to have reduced them by any
significant amount. Or as someone once said in these forums, "Bicycle
helmets are an ineffective solution to an imaginary problem."

Regarding "ordinary cycling": we've gotten stories about racing and
mountain biking (where "if you don't crash, you're not trying hard
enough"). I'm willing to discuss helmets for those activities, but I
think that discussion should be separate from the very normal act of
riding a bike on a road for utility or pleasure.

I'll add comment on Scharf's list in another post.

- Frank Krygowski
 
On Mar 7, 12:26 pm, [email protected] wrote:

<snipped for clarity>

>  Quit calling names, quit building straw men, and
> let your opponents speak for themselves.


Physician, heal thyself!

<snipped for brevity>
 
On Mar 7, 7:19 am, SMS <[email protected]> authoritatively
proclaimed:
>
> We can all agree that:
>
> a) There is a range of impacts where the helmet makes the difference
> between injury and death, or minor injury and serious injury. The only
> question is how wide that range is and how often impacts in that range
> take place.


I'll agree with that, keeping in mind that the width of that range may
be "negligible."

>
> b) If you are involved in a head impact crash you'll fare better with a
> helmet than without one, except in crashes serious enough to cause death
> no matter what.


Not necessarily. There are certainly crashes where helmets were hit
violently when a bare head would have been missed. In particular,
high-speed glancing blows to a helmet may cause damage a bare head
would not have suffered. I've seen no proof that this happens in a
significant number of cases, but the possibility rebuts Scharf's point
"b."

> c) Head impact crashes are sufficiently rare that riding without a
> helmet does not present an undue risk.


I agree, although I'm speaking of ordinary road riding. Mountain
biking should be discussed separately.

> d) Skilled riders are less likely to be involved in a head impact crash
> than unskilled riders.


I'd say that's too simplistic. If you mean riders who are skilled and
diligent while riding on the road, and who do not assume extra risks,
OK.

But in a situation where a skilled rider says "I can handle this
steep, icy, potholed downhill at speed" and a novice says "I'm going
to use a safer road and go slower," that's probably not true. What
actually matters is more complicated: the relationship between a
rider's risk taking and his skill level.

> e) The perceived risk of unrelated activities has no bearing on the
> protection that bicycle helmets provide or do not provide.


Absolutely wrong. The fundamental fact is, appropriate protection for
an activity should be judged based on the level of risk of an
activity. And the _only_ reasonable way to judge the level of risk of
an activity is by comparison with other activities.

> f) The number of accidents wear a helmet prevents serious injury or
> death is sufficiently small that helmets should not be made compulsory.


Absolutely agreed.

> g) Compulsory helmet laws give the impression that bicycling is more
> dangerous than it actually is.


Absolutely agreed.

> h) When speaking against compulsory helmet laws, take both your
> audience's and your adversaries' frame of reference into consideration.
> If you start up with driving helmets, gas masks, walking helmets, and
> gardening helmets then you'll look like a fool, and lose, because the
> other side will be using statistical data and emotion. You may think
> that the statistical data is skewed, or that it doesn't present the
> whole picture, but you'll have a hard time disputing it.


The only thing I'll say about the pontificating advice is: Steven M.
Scharf has never, to my knowlege, demonstrated that he's fought a
proposed helmet law, let alone done so successfully. And despite his
inflated self-importance, his debate skills haven't been proven
superior to his opponents in these discussions.

His pontification should probably be restricted to the subject of
drinking coffee while bicycling - the _only_ topic about which he's
shown special knowlege.

- Frank Krygowski
 
On Mar 7, 10:45 am, [email protected] wrote:
>  And despite his
> inflated self-importance, his debate skills haven't been proven
> superior to his opponents in these discussions.


Friday's usenet irony winner!

E.P.
 
On Mar 7, 12:45 pm, [email protected] wrote:

<snipped for clarity>

>  And despite his
> inflated self-importance, his debate skills haven't been proven
> superior to his opponents in these discussions.



As Irony Meters shatter all across cyber-space.... ;-)
 
On Mar 7, 10:57 am, Ozark Bicycle
<[email protected]> wrote:
> On Mar 7, 12:45 pm, [email protected] wrote:
>
> <snipped for clarity>
>
> >  And despite his
> > inflated self-importance, his debate skills haven't been proven
> > superior to his opponents in these discussions.

>
> As Irony Meters shatter all across cyber-space.... ;-)


Beat you by six minutes. :)

E.P.
 
On Mar 7, 1:08 pm, Ed Pirrero <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Mar 7, 10:57 am, Ozark Bicycle
>
> <[email protected]> wrote:
> > On Mar 7, 12:45 pm, [email protected] wrote:

>
> > <snipped for clarity>

>
> > >  And despite his
> > > inflated self-importance, his debate skills haven't been proven
> > > superior to his opponents in these discussions.

>
> > As Irony Meters shatter all across cyber-space.... ;-)

>
> Beat you by six minutes.  :)
>
> E.P.


You Da Man, Ed!
 
On Mar 7, 12:01 pm, [email protected] wrote:
> On Mar 7, 8:51 am, Jay <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Feb 20, 6:37 pm, "Jay" <[email protected]> wrote:> Dear RBT Bike Experts:

>
> > > The only reason I would even consider wearing a helmet...is to attach steer
> > > horns, such as these:

>
> > >http://store.hornandleather.com/hl16br.html

>
> > Dear Usenet Administration:

>
> > Could you please cancel my thread? I think it has gone on long enough.
> > Everyone has had their say, and now it is time to move on to more
> > pressing bike business.

>
> > Thanks!

>
> > Your loyal Usenet customer - J.

>
> Alternately, Mr. Administration, could you e-mail to Jay detailed
> instructions on how to stop reading a thread in which he's not
> interested?    ;-)
>
> - Frank Krygowski- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
>

Oh, I'm not reading much of this. I am having too much fun with my new
digital toy.

But I do feel guilty about starting this thread. People are spending
so much time trying to convince others, who are never going to change
their mind. In that respect, helmet threads are as bad as 'party doll'
threads...oops! I did it again!

J.
 
On Mar 7, 12:28 pm, Jay <[email protected]> wrote:
> But I do feel guilty about starting this thread. People are spending
> so much time trying to convince others, who are never going to change
> their mind. In that respect, helmet threads are as bad as 'party doll'
> threads...oops! I did it again!


I changed my mind a couple of years ago based on threads like this.
Until that time I thought it was obvious that helmets reduced serious
injury and death a lot. I discovered that the best data showed no
benefit... but I've still been wearing a helmet. Now I'm considering
that I might as well leave it at home. I keep wondering if someone
will present a convincing case that I should wear one... but so far
the data seems stacked the other way, IMO.

What is a party doll?
 
On Mar 7, 2:17 am, Michael Press <[email protected]> wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>,
>
>  [email protected] wrote:
> > People on foot trip, fall, hit their heads, and die, obviously with
> > much lower impacts that seen in bicycle crashes. Whether the injury is
> > fatal is often more a matter of unpredictable luck concerning what the
> > head hits, which part of the head hits, and whether the head rotates,
> > not whether the impact is gigantic.

>
> I knew someone, young, healthy, standing talking to
> friends felt faint, collapsed, struck her head on the
> pavement, brain swelled up, she died, just like that.


Are you sure she didn't have an aneurysm? That would explain the
fainting and the swelling. The "young and healthy" part seems
inconsistent with spontaneous fainting. In any event, a whack to the
head certainly can be fatal -- even one that seems pretty minor (e.g.
hitting your head on a cupboard door). Minor impacts, however,
usually cause slower bleeds that can be treated if the symptoms are
recognized. The "I bumped my head and died" scenario is extremely
rare, IMO. This thread has gotten to the point, though, where we can
get arcane and talk about the incidence of people who have serious
injury when the wind blows through their hair. -- Jay Beattie.
 
On Mar 7, 12:40 pm, Ron Ruff <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Mar 7, 12:28 pm, Jay <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > But I do feel guilty about starting this thread. People are spending
> > so much time trying to convince others, who are never going to change
> > their mind. In that respect, helmet threads are as bad as 'party doll'
> > threads...oops! I did it again!

>
> I changed my mind a couple of years ago based on threads like this.
> Until that time I thought it was obvious that helmets reduced serious
> injury and death a lot. I discovered that the best data showed no
> benefit... but I've still been wearing a helmet. Now I'm considering
> that I might as well leave it at home. I keep wondering if someone
> will present a convincing case that I should wear one.


Well, scalp lacerations do bleed rather freely, and can be messy and
unsightly.

The lids I wear have visors, and that keeps the sun out of my eyes. I
guess you could say that helmets help prevent eye injury. ;)

E.P.
 
Ron Ruff wrote:
> On Mar 7, 12:28 pm, Jay <[email protected]> wrote:
>> But I do feel guilty about starting this thread. People are spending
>> so much time trying to convince others, who are never going to change
>> their mind. In that respect, helmet threads are as bad as 'party doll'
>> threads...oops! I did it again!

>
> I changed my mind a couple of years ago based on threads like this.
> Until that time I thought it was obvious that helmets reduced serious
> injury and death a lot. I discovered that the best data showed no
> benefit... but I've still been wearing a helmet. Now I'm considering
> that I might as well leave it at home. I keep wondering if someone
> will present a convincing case that I should wear one... but so far
> the data seems stacked the other way, IMO.


LOL, so the enormous body of data that shows lower injury and fatality
rates for those that wear helmets convinced you that there was no benefit?

I think the problem may be that you're looking only at the data on the
anti-helmet websites, of which there are many.

In reality, the proper view should be "I don't wear a helmet because the
chance of an accident where it would make a difference is small," or "I
wear a helmet despite the fact that the chance of an accident where it
would make a difference is small. But don't pull a Frank and just write
off all the data because it might not support your actions.
 
Somebody, quick! Give poor Krygo a lollipop stick to lean on.

On Mar 7, 6:45 pm, [email protected] wrote:

> The only thing I'll say about the pontificating advice is:  Steven M.
> Scharf has never, to my knowlege, demonstrated that he's fought a
> proposed helmet law, let alone done so successfully.


And this, Krygo, is how we know you know you've lost the argument,
when you start assassinating the character of someone whose debating
skills and command of persuasive facts you cannot match.

> And despite his
> inflated self-importance, his debate skills haven't been proven
> superior to his opponents in these discussions.


Projection. Poor Krygo.

> His pontification should probably be restricted to the subject of
> drinking coffee while bicycling - the _only_ topic about which he's
> shown special knowlege.


And a limp sneer. Poor, poor, Krygo.

> - Frank Krygowski


I have already commented elsewhere on the untruth of your remarks,
Krygo; here I merely want to jeer at them, to show you how it is done,
because you clearly need a lot of help.

Andre Jute
Boing, boing. Boing, boing.
 
On Mar 7, 2:40 pm, Ron Ruff <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Mar 7, 12:28 pm, Jay <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > But I do feel guilty about starting this thread. People are spending
> > so much time trying to convince others, who are never going to change
> > their mind. In that respect, helmet threads are as bad as 'party doll'
> > threads...oops! I did it again!

>
> I changed my mind a couple of years ago based on threads like this.
> Until that time I thought it was obvious that helmets reduced serious
> injury and death a lot. I discovered that the best data showed no
> benefit... but I've still been wearing a helmet. Now I'm considering
> that I might as well leave it at home. I keep wondering if someone
> will present a convincing case that I should wear one... but so far
> the data seems stacked the other way, IMO.
>

Consider risk and convenience. Don't feel like wearing it? Don't. Wear
it for a club ride. Wear it mtbing on singletrack. Skip it on the way
to the store.

Soccer moms don't wear Nomex hose in their minvans.
 
On Fri, 7 Mar 2008 13:17:01 -0800 (PST), Jay Beattie
<[email protected]> wrote:

>On Mar 7, 2:17 am, Michael Press <[email protected]> wrote:
>> In article <[email protected]>,
>>
>>  [email protected] wrote:
>> > People on foot trip, fall, hit their heads, and die, obviously with
>> > much lower impacts that seen in bicycle crashes. Whether the injury is
>> > fatal is often more a matter of unpredictable luck concerning what the
>> > head hits, which part of the head hits, and whether the head rotates,
>> > not whether the impact is gigantic.

>>
>> I knew someone, young, healthy, standing talking to
>> friends felt faint, collapsed, struck her head on the
>> pavement, brain swelled up, she died, just like that.

>
>Are you sure she didn't have an aneurysm? That would explain the
>fainting and the swelling. The "young and healthy" part seems
>inconsistent with spontaneous fainting. In any event, a whack to the
>head certainly can be fatal -- even one that seems pretty minor (e.g.
>hitting your head on a cupboard door). Minor impacts, however,
>usually cause slower bleeds that can be treated if the symptoms are
>recognized. The "I bumped my head and died" scenario is extremely
>rare, IMO. This thread has gotten to the point, though, where we can
>get arcane and talk about the incidence of people who have serious
>injury when the wind blows through their hair. -- Jay Beattie.


Dear Jay,

Attorneys should be familiar with the fact that far more people die
from ordinary slip and fall accidents than die while bicycling.

Here's a delightfully named legal firm, Slaughter & Slaughter, that
makes a living from such accidents:

http://www.personal-injury-attorney-san-diego.com/PracticeAreas/Slip-and-fall.asp

I knew two women who tripped and fell just walking across the same
courtyard at the Pueblo library.

One woman was taken to the emergency room with blood streaming from
her undamaged nose. X-rays showed that the blood was coming from a
skull fracture up in a sinus, but she was alert and didn't even spend
a night in the hospital--meaning that her fractured skull would not
even count as a serious injury in many bicycling studies.

The other woman who tripped and fell on the same flat courtyard at the
library never regained consciousness and died a week later.

Every year, far more pedestrians suffer traumatic brain injuries from
falls than from bicycling.

Here's a quick summary from the US CDC that points out that falls are
the leading cause of traumatic brain injuries:

"Of the 1.4 million who sustain a TBI each year in the United States:
50,000 die; 235,000 are hospitalized; and 1.1 million are treated and
released from an emergency department."

"What causes TBI? The leading causes of TBI are:
Falls (28%);
Motor vehicle-traffic crashes (20%);
Struck by/against events (19%); and
Assaults (11%)."
http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/tbi/TBI.htm

Cheers,

Carl Fogel
 
On Mar 7, 2:44 pm, landotter <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
> Soccer moms don't wear Nomex hose in their minvans.


Thanks for spoiling a persistent fantasy!

E.P.
 
Ed Pirrero wrote:

> The plain fact of the matter is that between "bumps" and "serious TBI"
> there is a vast gulf of potential head injury. Not merely brain
> injury, but head injury. The helmet protection cutoff is not known.
> By you or anyone else.


One of the resaons the ER statistics and population studies show such a
benefit for helmets is that the impact to a cyclist in a crash, even a
vehicle-bicycle crash, is not usually directly to the head. The cyclist
is decelerating as he/she flies through the air or slides along the
street, prior to their head hitting something. A 30 mph impact to the
bicycle is not a 30mph direct impact the skull. Thus more injuries fall
in the range of impacts that a helmet has a benefit than some people may
think.
 
On Mar 7, 5:40 pm, Ed Pirrero <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Mar 7, 2:44 pm, landotter <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Soccer moms don't wear Nomex hose in their minvans.

>
> Thanks for spoiling a persistent fantasy!


June cleaver spinning out at 200mph?
 
On Mar 7, 3:44 pm, SMS <[email protected]> wrote:
> Ed Pirrero wrote:
> > The plain fact of the matter is that between "bumps" and "serious TBI"
> > there is a vast gulf of potential head injury. Not merely brain
> > injury, but head injury. The helmet protection cutoff is not known.
> > By you or anyone else.

>
> One of the resaons the ER statistics and population studies show such a
> benefit for helmets is that the impact to a cyclist in a crash, even a
> vehicle-bicycle crash, is not usually directly to the head. The cyclist
> is decelerating as he/she flies through the air or slides along the
> street, prior to their head hitting something. A 30 mph impact to the
> bicycle is not a 30mph direct impact the skull. Thus more injuries fall
> in the range of impacts that a helmet has a benefit than some people may
> think.


That conclusion is not supported by whole-population data and is thus
a suspect conclusion. Just because Frank is a jackass doesn't mean
the study he cites is wholly without value.

E.P.
 
On Mar 7, 11:45 am, [email protected] wrote:
> Not necessarily.  There are certainly crashes where helmets were hit
> violently when a bare head would have been missed.  In particular,
> high-speed glancing blows to a helmet may cause damage a bare head
> would not have suffered.  I've seen no proof that this happens in a
> significant number of cases, but the possibility rebuts Scharf's point
> "b."


I'm still 99% sure that a rider with a helmet will tend to be less
likely to *try* to keep their head from hitting the ground. Not a
small factor IMO.