More data against H****ts

[Tony Raven]

Publication by the Scottish Executive
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/55971/0015829.pdf

39% of injured cyclists reported they were wearing a helmet at the time
of their accident.

Yet for Scottish cyclists in general 65% never wear a helmet and only
23% wear a helmet on all or most trips. So ~ 23% of the (helmet
wearing) population account for ~40% of injuries.

(Section 6.1, p21)

--
Tony

"The best way I know of to win an argument is to start by being in the
right."
- Lord Hailsham

 

[Mark McNeill]

Response to Tony Raven:

Haven't we seen this before, or am I deja-vu-ing?

[Later: yes, we have, and here it is - http://tinyurl.com/e9loe ]

> Yet for Scottish cyclists in general 65% never wear a helmet and only
> 23% wear a helmet on all or most trips. So ~ 23% of the (helmet
> wearing) population account for ~40% of injuries.

But there are so many confounders! - the figure you quote above may
imply nothing more than that off-roaders are more likely to have
accidents.


IIRC and from a *very* quick glance, the proper conclusions to draw
were:

cycling is pretty safe

cycling on roads is safer than cycling off-road

helmets can prevent minor injuries [by far the top three types of head
and neck injuries reported are abrasions, contusions, and lacerations]

helmet-wearing is associated with limb injuries [a slight positive
correlation, but there are plenty of confounders]

helmets don't make much difference to the severity of injuries [ditto]

the writers of the report take for granted the efficacy of helmets,
which is not supported by their data.

--
Mark, UK
"History teaches us that whenever a weak and ignorant people possess a
thing which a strong and enlightened people want, it must be yielded up
peaceably."

 

[John]

"Mark McNeill" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
r
>
> But there are so many confounders! - the figure you quote above may
> imply nothing more than that off-roaders are more likely to have
> accidents.
>

You clearly don't understand statistics in the urc world.

>
> IIRC and from a *very* quick glance, the proper conclusions to draw
> were:
>

Ah, proper conclusions!, you're getting into the spirit of things. ;o)

 

[Gareth Rees]

Tony Raven wrote:
> Publication by the Scottish Executive
> http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/55971/0015829.pdf
>
> 39% of injured cyclists reported they were wearing a helmet at the time
> of their accident.
>
> Yet for Scottish cyclists in general 65% never wear a helmet and only
> 23% wear a helmet on all or most trips. So ~ 23% of the (helmet
> wearing) population account for ~40% of injuries.

Or else some injured helmetless cyclists are lying.

--
Gareth Rees

 

[Simon Brooke]

in message <[email protected]>, Gareth Rees
('[email protected]') wrote:

> Tony Raven wrote:
>> Publication by the Scottish Executive
>> http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/55971/0015829.pdf
>>
>> 39% of injured cyclists reported they were wearing a helmet at the
>> time of their accident.
>>
>> Yet for Scottish cyclists in general 65% never wear a helmet and only
>> 23% wear a helmet on all or most trips. So ~ 23% of the (helmet
>> wearing) population account for ~40% of injuries.
>
> Or else some injured helmetless cyclists are lying.

It is, of course, entirely possible that the average helmetted cyclist
cycles more miles than the average unhelmetted cyclist. Without data on
that you cannot say whether cycling with/without a helmet is more
dangerous per unit distance, which seems to me the interesting issue.

--
[email protected] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

<p>Schroedinger's cat is <blink><strong>NOT</strong></blink> dead.</p>