Paramount

Mark Shroyer said:

G.T. said:

Operative word being "minimal". If you are worried about
scratches or even wounds requiring stitches than by all means
wear a helmet. But it's laughable to expect a thin styrofoam
helmet to protect your brain from serious injury.

You're right, it might not save me from serious injury. But the
ability of a helmet's styrofoam padding to reduce the impulse
delivered to my head could very well could turn a serious injury
into a minor one, or a minor injury into something I can get up
and brush myself off from. And that's good enough reason for
me.

--
Mark Shroyerhttp://markshroyer.com/

Dear Mark,

If helmets do indeed reduce serious injury, then we should expect to
see a reduction in the rate of serious injuries (presumably head
injuries) when mandatory helmet laws cause helmet use to rise from
less than 50% to nearly 100%.

That is, if bullet-resistant vests are supposed to reduce bullet
wounds, then we expect to be able to see the rate of bullet wounds
dropping significantly when soldiers are required to wear the vests.

Can you tell us of any whole-population studies that show the effect
that you hope for?

That is, has any country, state, or province that enacted mandatory
bicycle helmet laws seen a significant drop in the rate of serious
head injuries and deaths for bicyclists shortly after the helmets
became mandatory?

If you're not familiar with the question, you may want to do some
reading.

Here's one site place with considerable detail on the matter:

http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk/web/public.nsf/Documents/cycle_helmets

Guy Chapman would be delighted if you could point him to a new study
or evidence.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

Quoted message said:

If helmets do indeed reduce serious injury, then we should expect to
see a reduction in the rate of serious injuries (presumably head
injuries) when mandatory helmet laws cause helmet use to rise from
less than 50% to nearly 100%.

I'm not interested in studies on the statistical effectiveness
of helmet laws at reducing head injuries across a political
jurisdiction. That introduces a whole additional set of
unpredictable variables and in any event fails to directly
answer the only question I'm interested in...

....which question is whether a properly worn helmet will reduce
my chances of sustaining a head injury, or the severity of that
injury, should I eat asphalt. Studies of hospital admissions of
bicycle accident victims controlled for helmet usage suggest
that the voluntary use of helmets does provide considerable
protection against brain injury. I suspect your response to
this may be "but such studies don't isolate potential
confounding factors", and you would be right (although if you're
genuinely worried about confounding factors in *these* studies,
it would make me question why you suggested I look at studies on
the safety effectiveness of helmet laws of all things); but
short of lining random people up with and without helmets and
knocking them off bicycles in a controlled environment, that's
about the most conclusive kind of data we're going to get.

Given what evidence we do have -- and given that tests show
that, all other factors being equal, a helmet can significantly
reduce the impulse delivered to one's head in the event of a
fall -- I will continue to feel confident in my choice to use a
bicycle helmet, until such a time as equally conclusive evidence
emerges showing an overwhelming /negative/ effect of helmet use.
And I'll respect everyone else's decision to wear or to not wear
a helmet, as he or she individually chooses.

--
Mark Shroyer
http://markshroyer.com/

Mark Shroyer said:

Quoted message said:

If helmets do indeed reduce serious injury, then we should expect to
see a reduction in the rate of serious injuries (presumably head
injuries) when mandatory helmet laws cause helmet use to rise from
less than 50% to nearly 100%.

I'm not interested in studies on the statistical effectiveness
of helmet laws at reducing head injuries across a political
jurisdiction. That introduces a whole additional set of
unpredictable variables and in any event fails to directly
answer the only question I'm interested in...

[snip]

Dear Mark,

If helmets make a significant difference, why wouldn't that difference
show up in real life studies of large populations?

If someone claims that anti-lock brake systems will reduce accidents,
shouldn't accidents be reduced?

Isn't the actual effect the only question in which we are interested?

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

Quoted message said:

Mark Shroyer said:

I'm not interested in studies on the statistical effectiveness
of helmet laws at reducing head injuries across a political
jurisdiction. That introduces a whole additional set of
unpredictable variables and in any event fails to directly
answer the only question I'm interested in...

Quoted message said:

If helmets make a significant difference, why wouldn't that difference
show up in real life studies of large populations?

If someone claims that anti-lock brake systems will reduce accidents,
shouldn't accidents be reduced?

Isn't the actual effect the only question in which we are interested?

Yes, the actual effect is the only question in which I am
interested. You may wish to read the parent article again, in
which I plainly stated that the "actual effect" I am looking for
is decreased incidence of brain injury, or decreased severity of
injury, in those who voluntarily and correctly wear helmets --
of which population I am a member. I'm not interested in
whether helmet laws reduce the incidence of brain injuries in a
given jurisdiction; in fact, I'm against helmet laws. I'm only
interested in whether I, personally, am at lesser risk due to
wearing my helmet.

Again, as pointed out in the parent article, studies designed to
measure this specific effect have shown, albeit not entirely
conclusively, that voluntary helmet usage significantly
decreases the risk of brain injury in accident victim cyclists,
all other things being equal. You, on the other hand, suggested
that I look at studies on the effectiveness of bicycle helmet
laws at reducing incidence of brain injuries. This is a flawed
approach; in addition to "not directly answering the only
question in which I am interested", it introduces several
possible confounding factors including, off the top of my head,

1. The actual effectiveness of bicycle helmet laws in promoting
the use of bicycle helmets

2. What effect such laws have on the percentage of cyclists who
wear helmets incorrectly

3. The effect of helmet laws on how many people ride their
bicycles and the demographics of those riders

4. How helmet laws can alter the road behavior of cyclists and
even drivers

as well as any number of other variables that we may not be
aware of.

My point throughout this entire subthread has been that I wear a
bicycle helmet because, if anything, wearing a helmet
voluntarily and correctly may reduce the severity or likelihood
of brain injury should I be knocked from my bicycle in an
accident. Therefore, the only statistics relevant to my point
are those regarding accident victim cyclists who also wore their
helmets voluntarily and correctly, controlling for as many other
variables as possible.

Data about the effectiveness of helmet _laws_ are murky waters,
and trying to conflate the effectiveness of the properly worn
helmet itself with that entirely auxiliary issue is disingenuous
at best.

--
Mark Shroyer
http://markshroyer.com/

Mark Shroyer said:

2. What effect such laws have on the percentage of cyclists who
wear helmets incorrectly

FWIW, I've heard of several cases where a helmet either flew off
before impact, or didn't provide protection at an impact location
where it should have. I suspect that quite a few people ride around with
one balanced on their heads, but don't do up the strap.

Michael Warner said:

FWIW, I've heard of several cases where a helmet either flew off
before impact, or didn't provide protection at an impact location
where it should have. I suspect that quite a few people ride around with
one balanced on their heads, but don't do up the strap.

To clarify: they're mandatory here.

Mark Shroyer said:

...which question is whether a properly worn helmet will reduce
my chances of sustaining a head injury, or the severity of that
injury, should I eat asphalt. Studies of hospital admissions of
bicycle accident victims controlled for helmet usage suggest
that the voluntary use of helmets does provide considerable
protection against brain injury. I suspect your response to
this may be "but such studies don't isolate potential
confounding factors", and you would be right (although if you're
genuinely worried about confounding factors in *these* studies,
it would make me question why you suggested I look at studies on
the safety effectiveness of helmet laws of all things); but
short of lining random people up with and without helmets and
knocking them off bicycles in a controlled environment...

Kewl - where do we sign up? 😉

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
The weather is here, wish you were beautiful

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

Mark Shroyer said:

the odds of me being hit by a car or knocked to the
pavement while in pedestrian mode are much smaller than the
chances that the same thing could happen when I'm riding my
bicycle on the shoulder of the road.

Ahh, now you are sounding reasonble insofar as your are beginning to
use actual "odds" in your thinking.

But I have to ask three questions.

First, do you actually know the odds or have good information on them,
or are you speculating?

And second, if the odds of getting hurt cycling are minisclue, and the
odds of getting hurt in a similar way walking are, say half that, do
the differences really matter. That is, if the chance is
(speculating), one in ten million for every hour of exposure in one
activity and one in twenty million in the other, are those differences
worth diffrences in behaviour?

And thirdly, if you own a helmet already, why not use it walking?
You've already got on and you never know - it could save your life
some day.

Quoted message said:

(taking into account the social
stigma which would be attached to wearing a helmet while on
foot, I admit

Oh, "good" reason I guess. But if you care abou safety as much as you
do, why don't you work to do somethign about it in walking? Think
about it -- you could be pioneer. Or, say, in terms of wearing
helmet in a car you could wear it while out alone and other people
don't see you.

Quoted message said:

has decided that I don't wear a helmet walking
around, but I usually do on my bike.

It's an irrational decision based on a flawed perception of risk and
on a distrubing sort of social pressure and attitude that cycling is a
risky adventure. That view of cycling as especially risky is
funadmentally anti-cycling and you're supporting that.
--
JT
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Mark Shroyer said:

John Forrest Tomlinson said:

Mark Shroyer said:

Not in this case. Nor in most actual (as opposed to
hypothetical) accidents that I've known people to be involved
in.

How do you know this?

I've seen no evidence to suggest that the hard plastic covering
a bicycle helmet, even if cracked, would provide significantly
more friction (and thus torque) against the concrete curb than
his hair and skin did. On the other hand, neither of my two
acquaintances whose helmets have hit the ground have experienced
such ill effects.

But you're the one arguing the hypothetical scenario that a
helmet would likely have caused rotational head trauma; what's
your evidence.

I haven't mentioned rotational head trauma -- read more carefully.
You're attributing what someone else wrote to me.

Nevertheless, in fact I think it's possible. But I don't really know.
What I do know is that there is little or no evidence that helmets
reduce the rate of serious injuries on aggragate over many accidents.
That suggests one of two things -- either the helmets don't over
protection from impact and/or they are increasing some risks while
reducing others.

Personally I wouldn't speculate about something that complicated from
two incidents. I'd try to find better info. Here is one source of
better info:
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk/web/public.nsf/Documents/maxi-faq-helmets?OpenDocument
--
JT
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Mark Shroyer said:

Quoted message said:

can I call you an anti-helmet fanatic?

No, because even if somebody really wants to wear a helmet in
his or her car, I don't feel some compelling need to convince
him or her otherwise simply because it isn't the decision that
*I* personally would have made.

So what people in this group have tried to convince you not to wear a
helmet while cycling? Who are the anti-cycling helmet fanatics?

You hold the same views about car helmets that I and most helmet
skeptics in this group hold about car AND bike helmets -- that they
are not really important in the larger scheme of risk.

So if there are "anti-bike helmet fanatics" here you are surely an
"anti-car helmet fanatic" in the same way.

--
JT
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On Thu, 5 Jul 2007 22:40:55 -0700, "Bill Sornson" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

obviously a newbie to these flame wars. The
AHZs (anti-helmet zealots) refuse to listen to reason.

Used to wear a bike helmet every time I rode my bike. I thought it
was very important. Then I read a lot about helmets via usenet, and
also travelled to another place in the world where helmets are rarely
used on bikes. My understanding and attitude changed and now I think
helmets are not very important for most forms of road cycling.

--
JT
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On Thu, 5 Jul 2007 22:48:36 -0700, "Bill Sornson" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Ted Bennett said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Quoted message said:

On Jul 4, 11:37 am, Tim McNamara <[email hidden]> wrote:
>> The short answer is: it's a beer cooler. On your head. Designed
>> for
> impacts of about 10 mph. Faster than about 14 mph it's not very
> useful. As a result, a helmet is probably of greater benefit for
> children than adults- children are more likely to be riding a bike
> within the limitations of a helmet- low speed and low head eheight
> fromwhich to fall. A helmet might keep road rash off your head,
> which is nice, but it's not likely to add much in terms of brain
> protection- a bit perhaps in straight line impacts and nothing to
> prevent shearing injuries of the brain. Interestingly, the
> decisive factor in the severity of brain injuries is not the trauma
> itself but the things that happen afterwards- cytotoxic edema in
> which a number of brain-damaging chemicals are released into the
> brain as the blood-brain barrier is disrupted.

your stats and arguements lie- propoganda. the basic fact of the
matter is that helmets protect at speeds much greater than the 10mph
you cite. I guess you ride at about 10 mph for that type of reasoning
to seem valid to you. I've "used" 3 helmets- and certainly if I
wasn't wearing one "I" would not be here now. You may go ahead and
ride without one as you wish, hopefully, you will never need to be
wearing one- but all it takes is just that one time and it could
make the difference-

At least one of those incidents seems to have done some damage.

Why, because you /disagree/ with him? Brilliant.

Sorni, you've made exactly the same sort of joke about someone who
said they don't wear a helmet cycling.

--
JT
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Mark Shroyer said:

I'm not interested in studies on the statistical effectiveness
of helmet laws at reducing head injuries across a political
jurisdiction. That introduces a whole additional set of
unpredictable variables and in any event fails to directly
answer the only question I'm interested in...

...which question is whether a properly worn helmet will reduce
my chances of sustaining a head injury, or the severity of that
injury, should I eat asphalt. Studies of hospital admissions of
bicycle accident victims controlled for helmet usage suggest
that the voluntary use of helmets does provide considerable
protection against brain injury.

You're picking the wrong set of studies to look at. You're picking the
studies that incorporate the most other variables instead of the one's
that reduce them/
--
JT
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On Jul 4, 11:48 am, "David L. Johnson" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Johnny Sunset aka Tom Sherman said:

head impacts wearing said foam hats. Bicycle helmets are designed to
protect rider's head's in low-speed falls, nothing more.

Yeah. Works for that, though. Won't help if you head-on into a Mack
truck, despite the claim of "saving lives".

--

David L. Johnson

The lottery is a tax on those who fail to understand mathematics.

I don't give a hoot if people wear helmets or not. However, I was in
two bike accidents in which I hit the helmet, and the helmets cracked
both times and my head was left intact. In one occasion, my head hit a
car and the helmet cracked in half. I passed out and woke up 4 hours
later in the emergency room. I got a replacement helmet and a
certificate that read "saved by the bell".

The other occasion, my helmet hit the ground and I felt it bouncing up
and down before sliding on the pavement. On that occasion, my helmet
saved skin too and it cracked.

I have no way of knowing the extent of my injuries had I not been
wearing a helmet. I know that there would have been direct impact w/
my head and at least, more serious injury could have happened. I
believe that the injuries would have been likely very serious. so, I
wear a helmet pretty much all the time.

OTOH, my brother who is not a cyclist came to visit me this week. On
7/04, we went out for a ride and he asked if he could wear my helmet.
I let him use it and rode w/o a helmet. I have very short hair and
ended up burning my head under El Paso's 100 degree heat and sun.

I am one of those that ,while not fanatic about people wearing
helmets, believe that helmets can save people from much more serious
injury. This is only from personal experience.

Andres

On Jul 6, 6:32 am, John Forrest Tomlinson <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

On Thu, 5 Jul 2007 22:40:55 -0700, "Bill Sornson" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

obviously a newbie to these flame wars. The
AHZs (anti-helmet zealots) refuse to listen to reason.

Used to wear a bike helmet every time I rode my bike. I thought it
was very important. Then I read a lot about helmets via usenet, and
also travelled to another place in the world where helmets are rarely
used on bikes. My understanding and attitude changed and now I think
helmets are not very important for most forms of road cycling.

Ja, being natively of Sweden where we tag at the heels of Holland in
many of our cities when it comes to being born on a bike (gynecology
is exciting in Sweden!), I just don't get it--because the American
problem with cycling is that of behavior. Perhaps helmets do reduce
lacerations, but their inherent goofiness in most regards should make
one look at other risk reduction. Americans, for the most part, ride
like [censored]. Not Bernard Hinault [censored]--that would be pretty
baddass, but like Gomer Fife [censored].So we need to solve the [censored]
problem, and an asshat is certainly out of the question.

Mark Shroyer said:

Quoted message said:

If helmets do indeed reduce serious injury, then we should expect to
see a reduction in the rate of serious injuries (presumably head
injuries) when mandatory helmet laws cause helmet use to rise from
less than 50% to nearly 100%.

I'm not interested in studies on the statistical effectiveness
of helmet laws at reducing head injuries across a political
jurisdiction. That introduces a whole additional set of
unpredictable variables and in any event fails to directly
answer the only question I'm interested in...

...which question is whether a properly worn helmet will reduce
my chances of sustaining a head injury, or the severity of that
injury, should I eat asphalt. Studies of hospital admissions of
bicycle accident victims controlled for helmet usage suggest
that the voluntary use of helmets does provide considerable
protection against brain injury.

No, it proves that helmet-wearers are a bunch of sissies who go get medical
attention (or whose mom takes them to the ER) for minor scrapes and bruises
while non-helmet types only go to emergency rooms when someone else has to carry
them.

Quoted message said:

I suspect your response to
this may be "but such studies don't isolate potential
confounding factors", and you would be right (although if you're
genuinely worried about confounding factors in *these* studies,
it would make me question why you suggested I look at studies on
the safety effectiveness of helmet laws of all things); but
short of lining random people up with and without helmets and
knocking them off bicycles in a controlled environment, that's
about the most conclusive kind of data we're going to get.

Given what evidence we do have -- and given that tests show
that, all other factors being equal, a helmet can significantly
reduce the impulse delivered to one's head in the event of a
fall -- I will continue to feel confident in my choice to use a
bicycle helmet, until such a time as equally conclusive evidence
emerges showing an overwhelming /negative/ effect of helmet use.
And I'll respect everyone else's decision to wear or to not wear
a helmet, as he or she individually chooses.

That's good. Most helmet advocates are completely irrational on that point.

Ron

Michael Warner said:

Mark Shroyer said:

(Not that I agree the government should *require* competent
adults to wear seat belts or use airbags, but I'll save that one
for another thread on a more relevant newsgroup...)

Here in Australia our public health system spends a great deal
of money on saving, treating and rehabilitating people who didn't
wear seatbelts and helmets, so from a purely economic standpoint
it seems reasonable to require people to wear these things.

In Australia (as in the US) your public health system spends FAR more
to treat and rehabilitate people who wouldn't need treatment if they
cycled more.

In the mid-1990s, a detailed examination of the effects of Australia's
mandatory helmet laws (by a team from Monash University, IIRC) found
the overall effect was almost certainly negative; that is, the MHL
cost the public more than it saved.
http://www.officeofroadsafety.wa.gov.au/Facts/papers/bicycle_helmet_legislation.html

And your assumption that the helmet law helped is based on the
underlying assumption that cycling is really dangerous - so much so
that discouraging it is just fine. You've bought the propaganda.

In article <[email hidden]>,

Mark Shroyer said:

On 2007-07-05, John Forrest Tomlinson <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

How about some reality? You're at least as likely to die in a car
so why don't you wear a helmet in a car? I'm asking you seriously?
Why don't you?

Tens of thousands of people are dying in cars every year in the US
and a helmet may help. Do you advocate they wear one? And if not,
why not?

I'll go ahead and state the obvious: A modern car offers excellent
built-in protection against moderate-speed impacts, including seat
belts, multiple airbags, active head restraints (in Hondas anyway),
and most importantly a solid frame around your entire body with
crumple zones in the front and rear. A helmet doesn't add a whole
lot to that. (It may be worth noting, however, that in motor sports
such as rally racing and NASCAR, where crashes are significantly more
likely, helmets *are* worn.)

Bicycles and motorcycles cannot offer the same level of head
protection as a car, so it's generally a good idea to wear a helmet
on these if you feel there's a risk of you hitting the pavement.

Motor vehicle accidents cause far more traumatic brain injuries than
bicycling. Falls cause more traumatic brain injuries than bicycling.
Gunshot wounds cause more traumatic brain injuries than bicycling.
Assaults cause more traumatic brain injuries than bicycling. Why single
out bicycles?

The answer is that the bicycle helmet industry has made a lot of money
scaring people into wearing helmets because cycling is "so dangerous."
And people believe the marketing which include the utterly specious
claim that wearing a styrofoam hat will reduce brain injuries by 85%.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I'm not saying you should -- I'm just asking. Why or why not? And
if not, what makes cycling so special that it warrants extra
protection?

And don't pretend that the question of whether or not you hit the
pavement is entirely a matter of your skill as a cyclist. On this
newsgroup there are constantly stories of cyclists being hit by
negligent drivers; in those threads, nobody makes foolish arguments
that the cyclist was at fault for not being careful enough.

An anecdote involving my ex-roommate provides a good example.

It's an anecdote, which is different from data. Anecdotes are subject
to all kinds of erroneous conclusions, unfortunately.

Quoted message said:

One other argument I'd like to attack, which I keep seeing pop up in
this and similar threads, is that helmets aren't rated for 30 MPH
collision, ergo if you're riding at 30 MPH then wearing a helmet
won't do you any good. Bull$hit. If you're clipped and fall off
your bike, the speed at which you hit the ground is mostly a function
of the acceleration of gravity from your position on top of your bike
down to the pavement, regardless of your horizontal velocity.

Perhaps you need to look into this further. The most balanced
discussion I know of is at http://www.cyclehelmets.org

Quoted message said:

I don't understand the vehemence of the anti-helmet fanatics in this
thread.

The vehemence is a reaction to the pro-helmet fanatics (of which I used
to be one). There are mandatory helmet laws (MHL) in some states in the
US and in other countries. The most famous example is Australia, which
saw a sharp decrease in people riding bikes and an increase in brain
injuries associated with cycling after passing a MHL.

In article <[email hidden]>,

Mark Shroyer said:

G.T. said:

Operative word being "minimal". If you are worried about scratches
or even wounds requiring stitches than by all means wear a helmet.
But it's laughable to expect a thin styrofoam helmet to protect
your brain from serious injury.

You're right, it might not save me from serious injury. But the
ability of a helmet's styrofoam padding to reduce the impulse
delivered to my head could very well could turn a serious injury into
a minor one, or a minor injury into something I can get up and brush
myself off from. And that's good enough reason for me.

On the other hand, the helmet could *increase* your injuries. You are
thinking solely of a linear strike to the head. However, if you are
riding your bike and traveling forward at, say, 20 mph and thus strike
the ground at an angle. With a helmet, your head is bigger and more
likely to hit the ground. The helmet, being deformable, it more likely
to grab the ground and import a rotational force to your head and neck.
This increases the risk of shearing-force injuries to your brain and to
your neck.

Also, the helmet has to hit the immovable object first, and there's no
guarantee of that. If you watch videos on pro bike race crashes, you'll
see that many times people hit the ground face-first, not helmet-first.

We have seen lots of these arguments before, Mark, and all of them have
countervailing arguments that carry equal weight. It's better to look
at what facts are available. Start here: http://www.cyclehelmets.org/

Quoted message said:

In Australia (as in the US) your public health system spends FAR more
to treat and rehabilitate people who wouldn't need treatment if they
cycled more.

True, but irrelevant. They also wouldn't need as much treatment if they
walked around the block every day.