Coyoteboy wrote:
> Because the examples we see elsewhere are from studies with flaws/other
> aims behind their reporting, from what I have read.
Not the case from where I'm looking. Would you cite specific
examples, please?
While the population studies that show no particular benefit are
far from perfect, they're one helluva lot closer to being good
science than the drivel showing us they're a positive benefit.
> Helmets reduce the severity of most
> impacts.
But do they reduce the severity of the dangerous ones? Not
perceptibly in the figures we see from the Real World. And the
non-dangerous ones aren't, well, dangerous. So do you really want
to legislate to mitigate them? You might as well make picking
brambles without gloves illegal...
> Much like seatbelts - sure they can make life worse if they jam
> and the car starts burning, but the number of cases in which they make
> the accident worse is so small the normal benefits, in lower speed
> accidents, means overall it makes sense.
In an accident where all else is equal, yes, but before you've had
the accident the seat belt means that all else is not equal,
because given more safety features people have a habit of driving
worse to make up for the extra safety. The only significant change
in casualties after compulsory seat belt laws tends to be increases
in pedestrian and cyclist casualties.
> I hear lots of "you've no
> proof" from the anti-helmet bunch, but they themselves provide nothing
> but flawed, highly localised/specialised reports as
> "proof" of their point.
Is "all of Austrlia" /really/ "highly localised"? Is "all of the
UK" really "highly localised"? What's particularly wrong with
Hewson's 2005 papers showing no benefit across the whole of the UK
for increases in helmet wearing?
The onus of proof is on those of promoting helmets if they're to be
made compulsory for our safety. Yet the "proof" we are given is of
the standard that says if you compare helmeted kids of affluent
parents riding in parks with their families to unhelmeted kids of
poor parents riding with their peers on downtown streets it's
obvious that wearing a helmet lowers the accident rate
substantially, or if you follow a methodology suggesting 180%
effectiveness for a helmet then despite the fact that's logically
impossible, they must be good. Or that "over 50 children a year"
die cycling in the UK when the figures available when that claim
was made show over 50 in one year out of 10, more often in the 20s
and at one point less than that. There's imperfect work and
there's downright dishonest work, and the pro-helmet case is
dominated by highly selective quoting of the latter.
> I'm not satisfied that there has been sufficient
> investigation solely of the helmet/no helmet issue to draw any
> conclusions, however from personal experience of a large number of
> cyclists both on and off-road I'd say helmets help in most cases, even
> if just to prevent facial/cranial scarring.
So where are all the facially/cranially scarred riders from before
helmets were widespread? Or indeed, given that wearing rates
aren't currently /that/ high in the UK, where are they now? And
how come I see so few scars on heads in NL where helmetless riding
is the norm, and the sort of accident they are designed to protect
against (low speed with no other vehicle involved, read the
specification) is not in any way mitiagted by the fietspad system?
It just doesn't add up.
Your experinece is "of a large number of cyclists", the work done
by the likjes of Hewson on STATS19 casualty data involves a *much*
bigger number, and can detect no benefit from helmet wearing.
And if you're not satisfied that you can draw conclusions, how can
you realistically conclude that "helmets help in most cases", as
you do above? If you cvan't draw conclusions then you can't draw
that one either, and that's no basis for legislation.
And this all ignores the fact that cycling is not demonstrably more
dangerous or productive of head injuries as e.g. being a
pedestrian, especially one that uses stairs. If they don't need
helmets, why do cyclists?
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/
Of course it is always