David Bentley wrote:
> Why are you so angry?!
I would guess because the points you raised have been gone over again
and again and again and again and again and again and again and again
and again and again and again and again and again and again and then
some more again after that, and people *still* post these instant "this
is so obvious I don't know it isn't obvious" observations that are no
different from dozens of others that have been shown quite
comprehensively not to be the solution the original poster thinks. It's
a matter of (repeated) public record.
> I did put some thought into the matter. The fact remains that my fall
> was so quick there was no time at all to get my head out of the way of
> the ground. I would have at least suffered a bad cut, possibly
> concussion or worse. Wearing a helmet allowed me to continue the ride.
You have no way of knowing exactly what you'd have suffered. It's the
sort of fall that a helmet is likely to mitigate, yes, but the injury is
not going to be life threatening. You could have the same severity of
fall on an icy pavement (people are killed every year on those, btw), or
potentially much worse by falling downstairs. Do you feel the need to
wear a helmet in such circumstances? If not, why not? Your argument
should be the same for each.
> I never used to wear a helmet until 5 years ago, at my wife's insistence
> as she lost her first husband from a head injury falling a few feet off
> a ladder.
As has been pointed out, in the case of serious injuries (and death is
serious in anyone's book) there is *no* conclusive evidence of helmets
doing *anything* to reduce population figures for serious injuries, so
no conclusion can be drawn about how a helmet might have saved him.
> If helmet wearing is for wimps/people who don't mind getting a hot
> sweaty head why is that about 90% of the roadies I saw in 15 hours of
> cycling over the weekend were wearing helmets? Aren't they on this group?
Roadies have to wear helmets for competition. They also tend to travel
in close packs at speed where the chance of a spill is much greater than
travelling as an individual.
> *Don't get me wrong - I'm not for compulsory helmet wearing*, but I
> think that in certain instances they MUST prevent serious head injury.
How many times do you have to be shown the data reproduced at
cyclehelmets. org that there is *no* effect on serious head injuries
with increased helmet wearing rates?
> fail to understand how wearing one can INCREASE risk of head injury.
That there is no improvement to serious head injury rates with
increasing helmet wearing rates is a matter of public record. This
leaves you two broad possibilities: either they effectively do nothing
at all, or cause as many problems as they solve. How could that happen?
A helmet sticks out more than a head and provides leverage to twist
the neck, the sort of thing which tends to be very much nastier than
mere concussion. That's one possibility. By increasing the effective
size of the head they make it more likely you'll hit your head at all.
That's another factor. We don't know 101% for sure exactly why there's
no net improvement in serious injuries, but we *do* know that there is
no net improvement. It's a matter of public record everywhere there's
data available: you plot increasing helmet wearing against head injury
rates and notice that the former has no bearing on the latter.
> Statistics can very often be made to back up either side of an argument,
> just bear that in mind.
They can be, but it's usually fairly obvious where that happens,
especially for the professional scientists who've read those papers and
don't find them wanting, and have also read the "85% reduction in head
injuries" papers and found very glaring holes in their methodology and
logic.
The simple fact remains: wherever helmet wearing rates have markedly
increased there has been *no* clear improvement in the serious head
injury rates. That someone can't see *why* is not the issue. It is
what happens, and what has always happened. That is what you have to
work with. Just because people didn't understand gravity before Newton
didn't make apples fall up the way.
Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net
[email protected] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/