Be prepared for an accident

[presta]

I stand by what I said.

None of those amount to any significant campaign.

And to compare against that, how many MPs can you find who are calling for helmet use to be made illegal?

if you wake up in hospital and find you were unlucky enough to have had just that kind of collision then the fact that you were statistically right to not wear it
won't be a lot of comfort

But what about the helmet wearer who wakes up in hospital to find they wouldn't have crashed in the first place if they hadn't been wearing it.

I notice that those flippin' doctors are at it again:

What is it about Neurosurgeons and their obsession with protecting people's heads? What do they know about the relationship of head injuries to wearing helmets? I've heard that it's the same as panel beaters not knowing anything about car crashes.

What do neurosurgeons know about the effect of a helmet on the probability of having a crash?

A simple question is asking people how they would ride on a busy roundabout without a helmet. The answer is usually....very carefully. The following point is that the helmet will unlikely help them in a collision with a heavy vehicle but they just admitted they ride less carefully wearing a helmet.

Sometimes when you ask someone how they would ride if you confiscated their helmet they'll tell you that they wouldn't ride at all, which proves the point in about as stark a form as you can get. (Although it's usually lost on them.)

one or two publicity seeking MPS putting forth Private Members Bills with no chance of success.

Farage and Trump had no chance of success up until the point when they did.

Other thing is that brain injuries are sometime not fatal - but could be said to be worse in some ways

I which case a helmet could be turning a fatal injury into a crippling one.

Why do you think that is? Are they all in the pay of big helmet? I think we should be told..

I already have told you, it's because they're ignoring the red area of the diagram I posted above. Considering that Prof Gerd Gigerenzer has shown that doctors are very unreliable when it comes to interpreting statistics, that's probably because it hasn't even occurred to them that it exists.

Here are a few findings from Gigerenzer's research into the ability (or inability) of doctors, and patients to correctly interpret medical statistics.

Firstly, the right and wrong way to communicate risk (note which one I used in the diagram above):

Here's the reliability data for HIV tests, along with the advice given to patients:

People with a 50% chance of being HIV positive were committing suicide because they were being told it's a dead cert.

Here are a few relevant quotes from the paper:

"the most difficult operation for the physicians was to convert 1 in 1,000 into a percentage: One out of four physicians got it wrong"

"Most psychological, legal, and medical articles on patient–doctor communication assume that the problem lies in the patient’s mind....but rarely is it considered that many doctors might be statistically illiterate"

"asked for advice on PSA screening.....Only 2 of the 20 urologists knew the relevant information and were able to an￾swer the patient’s questions....The majority...could not answer most of the patient’s questions"

"several physicians claimed to be innumerate and in their embarrassment felt compelled to hide this fact from patients"

"only 1 out of 21 obstetricians being able to estimate the probability of an unborn actually having Down syndrome given a positive test"

"The number of physicians who found the best answer, as documented in medical studies, was slightly less than chance (21%)"

Or alternatively, read Gigerenzer's book.

Mathematician Prof. Hannah Fry made a Horizon programme about just this subject not so long ago after she had cancer herself, because she was so concerned about the levels of statistical illiteracy and the consequences for people's health. One woman still insisted on having chemotherapy even after it was explained that it was virtually pointless though.

 

[MontyVeda]

Not really a valid point
Yes - I agree that it is likely that walkers - and especially car drivers - would also benefit from wearing a helmet - based on research I have seen

but if will help cyclists then that is a valid thing to do
and if pedestrians are more resistant then that is a different point and does not invalidate cyclist being encouraged to wear them

I believe it's absolutely a valid point.
You either have a passion for giving your noggin extra protection or not.

The activity makes no difference.

I also believe that wearing a cycle-style hat in the home would be wholly beneficial since most head injuries occur in the home, but I'm not going to argue that people start wearing one.