Benefits of wearing a helmet

[lukesdad]

All youve heard me comment on is the content and validity of studies and papers that have been quoted by one side or the other.

Most have been by people who believe helmets offer no benefits.

As I have allready said this is undertsandable as there is little data to support the otherside of the arguement. This is due to incidents where helmets may or were of benefit not being reported, and why would they. These individuals are just thankfull the helmet may have done its job. They also dont seem to have an axe to grind.

Other than a throwaway line about tax benefits to myself. (joke) you have not heard anything about compulsion or the benefits a helmet may or may not give.

But I will tell you one thing. Id take personal experience I have had or others i trust over academic studies any day of the week.

 

[lukesdad]

I've read them on both sides but there is not much point writing about all the papers that have results that are suspect. I pick out the ones where the results look reasonably sound. And those generally are not supportive of helmets just as papers on homeopathy are not supportive of anything beyond placebo effect. That tends to happen in science although not exclusively - see the helicobacter pylori story for an example where a lone scientist overturned the whole subject area.

Of course you and david k and angelfishsolo are perfectly welcome to put forward good research that shows that helmets work for discussion and you can critique the methodologies and results in the papers I put forward. But none of you are doing that and david k in particular doesn't even know what papers are out there because he has faith he is right.

So come on lukesdad, tell us what you think is the one best paper for demonstrating helmets work, give us the reference and why you think its good and lets discuss it in the time honoured fashion of scientific debate.

I hope the above answer may have given you a clue as to what the answer would be to this one

 

[Bicycle]

You can take it into account - the data is there to do it if you wish.

One seldom comes across a scientist who uses the word 'data' as a singular.

It's a small point, but I find that careful readers and mature analysts are often able to identify the number of a noun they use regularly in their work.

I am reminded of the graffito 'Yesterday I couldn't spell engineer and now I are one'.

Keep up the good work on this thread. Endless entertainment; zero cost.

 

[Red Light]

The problem with you is you pick and choose which papers you seem to want to validate. According to your views and agenda. When they are picked to pieces and fall apart you just bury your head in the sand.

P.S I should say that when I first started reading the literature on helmets I was a helmet wearer and made my children wear them. But as a scientist, reading through the literature and finding out just how junk much of the pro-helmet literature was, especially that from medical researchers, and that the careful and thoughtful studies showed little evidence of benefit and some evidence of dis-benefit, I stopped wearing a helmet. When I did so I immediately noticed two things - I felt extremely uncomfortable without it on my head and was much more cautious (risk compensation in action) and motorists gave me a wider berth and more importantly were more cautious around me in general, something I posted at the time and that was subsequently confirmed (at least the first part) by Iain Walker's study. My family cycle without helmet now but only after we had a discussion about it and they were able to make their own informed choices.

So I came at this with no agenda and a view that helmets were good but changed my views based on the evidence. But I have not seen you or others pick any of that evidence to pieces or present any evidence of your own. You just cast wide general aspersions or non-specific ridicule and david k ignores the evidence and you have not come forward with a single piece of evidence for the counter view.

If you want to debate it properly and you know the literature (which I suspect is the problem) you would not keep asking questions like

Does the so called " evidence " of head injuries between cyclists and pedestrians take into account relative ages involved by any chance ?

but would instead say something like "but if you look at the age profile it shows that more than x% of pedestrian injuries are for the over 64 age group compared with Y% in the cycling injuries. If you now adjust the figures to account for the large number of elderly trips and falls walking for under 64 adults comes out safer than cycling" (Actually it doesn't if you know what X and Y is and do the calculation but there you go)

 

[Red Light]

One seldom comes across a scientist who uses the word 'data' as a singular.

Ah, wonderful, the good old grammar flame in place of having an argument to make.

Data these days, like agenda is now almost universally used as a singular noun although there is debate, sometimes heated, about it in scientific circles. Datum (and agendum) are almost never heard. The OED says:

"In modern non-scientific use, however , despite the complaints of traditionalists, it is often not treated as a plural. Instead, it is treated as a mass noun, similar to a word like information, which cannot normally have a plural and which takes a singular verb. Sentences such as data was (as well as data were ) collected over a number of years are now widely accepted in standard English."

I, and many other scientists I know, prefer the modern rather than the rather affected and somewhat archaic plural use when talking outside the scientific community.

 

[Red Light]

I hope the above answer may have given you a clue as to what the answer would be to this one

It did. It said you don't have a clue about the literature or the science and prefer your personal beliefs over the evidence. Which is pretty much as I suspected.

By the way, as I've explained before there are easy methods to sort out whether the "not reported" accidents have an impact on the conclusions on helmet benefits and they do not. But you seem not to be able to grasp that for some reason. There are also plenty of papers out there coming to the conclusion that helmets work and I'm surprised (well not actually) that you cannot name a single one that you think is a good paper with sound science and conclusions in it.

 

[Poacher]

Red Light, you have the patience of a saint.

 

[Angelfishsolo]

The problem with you is you pick and choose which papers you seem to want to validate. According to your views and agenda. When they are picked to pieces and fall apart you just bury your head in the sand.

 

[Angelfishsolo]

All youve heard me comment on is the content and validity of studies and papers that have been quoted by one side or the other.

Most have been by people who believe helmets offer no benefits.

As I have allready said this is undertsandable as there is little data to support the otherside of the arguement. This is due to incidents where helmets may or were of benefit not being reported, and why would they. These individuals are just thankfull the helmet may have done its job. They also dont seem to have an axe to grind.

Other than a throwaway line about tax benefits to myself. (joke) you have not heard anything about compulsion or the benefits a helmet may or may not give.

But I will tell you one thing. Id take personal experience I have had or others i trust over academic studies any day of the week.

Amen to that!

 

[Red Light]

Red Light, you have the patience of a saint.

Thank you - its a necessary part of being involved in education. Not everyone gets everything first time and you have to be prepared to help them work through it. The difference I guess is most of them want to learn and understand whereas I suspect we have a group here only interested in proclaiming their beliefs and stoning the unbelievers.

 

[lukesdad]

P.S I should say that when I first started reading the literature on helmets I was a helmet wearer and made my children wear them. But as a scientist, reading through the literature and finding out just how junk much of the pro-helmet literature was, especially that from medical researchers, and that the careful and thoughtful studies showed little evidence of benefit and some evidence of dis-benefit, I stopped wearing a helmet. When I did so I immediately noticed two things - I felt extremely uncomfortable without it on my head and was much more cautious (risk compensation in action) and motorists gave me a wider berth and more importantly were more cautious around me in general, something I posted at the time and that was subsequently confirmed (at least the first part) by Iain Walker's study. My family cycle without helmet now but only after we had a discussion about it and they were able to make their own informed choices.

So I came at this with no agenda and a view that helmets were good but changed my views based on the evidence. But I have not seen you or others pick any of that evidence to pieces or present any evidence of your own. You just cast wide general aspersions or non-specific ridicule and david k ignores the evidence and you have not come forward with a single piece of evidence for the counter view.

If you want to debate it properly and you know the literature (which I suspect is the problem) you would not keep asking questions like



but would instead say something like "but if you look at the age profile it shows that more than x% of pedestrian injuries are for the over 64 age group compared with Y% in the cycling injuries. If you now adjust the figures to account for the large number of elderly trips and falls walking for under 64 adults comes out safer than cycling" (Actually it doesn't if you know what X and Y is and do the calculation but there you go)

Ah ! So youre a scientist

No agenda there then.

You still dont get it do you? For a balanced arguement you need all the facts. Or at least the vast majority. Which neither you or anybody else on here can get anywhere near. At best the reports Ive have read are a snapshot. The Australian one in particular is full of holes on both sides. The particular paper indicated on the reduction of cyclists after the helmet introduction was inept.

I would suggest the best evidence anybody in doubt over the subject would take notice of, would be personal experience of those involved in incidents. Where use of a helmet or lack of had some bearing. There are plenty of examples on both sides on the forum.

If academics were serious about these surveys and reports ( instead of trying to justify their next chunk of funding ) they d get off their arses and go and talk to cyclists at an mtb centre or a cycling festival instead of partial head counts from bits of paper.

By the way thats called research.

 

[lukesdad]

It did. It said you don't have a clue about the literature or the science and prefer your personal beliefs over the evidence. Which is pretty much as I suspected.

By the way, as I've explained before there are easy methods to sort out whether the "not reported" accidents have an impact on the conclusions on helmet benefits and they do not. But you seem not to be able to grasp that for some reason. There are also plenty of papers out there coming to the conclusion that helmets work and I'm surprised (well not actually) that you cannot name a single one that you think is a good paper with sound science and conclusions in it.

I can count.

..and you have explained nothing.

 

[Red Light]

You still dont get it do you? For a balanced arguement you need all the facts. Or at least the vast majority. Which neither you or anybody else on here can get anywhere near. At best the reports Ive have read are a snapshot. The Australian one in particular is full of holes on both sides. The particular paper indicated on the reduction of cyclists after the helmet introduction was inept.

Which paper and what are the holes in it? Lets start getting specific rather than this vague hand waving and casting os aspersions. Reference the paper, explain what you think the biggest hole in it is - you don't need to do all of them.

I would suggest the best evidence anybody in doubt over the subject would take notice of, would be personal experience of those involved in incidents. Where use of a helmet or lack of had some bearing. There are plenty of examples on both sides on the forum.

Ah yes, the earth is flat with the sun going round it, bleeding people makes them get better, bunches of herbs stop them getting ill. All very popular beliefs backed up by the common sense of daily observation until those damn scientists messed it all up with their stupid demands for evidence.

If academics were serious about these surveys and reports ( instead of trying to justify their next chunk of funding ) they d get off their arses and go and talk to cyclists at an mtb centre or a cycling festival instead of partial head counts from bits of paper.

By the way thats called research.

It may be research but its not scientific research and its not objective. Like going into a parents meeting five years ago and asking whether children should be given the MMR jab. You would have got an answer but as subsequent history has shown it was the wrong answer and the objective advice of the scientific community was the right advice.

 

[Red Light]

I can count.

..and you have explained nothing.

Oh, I have explained it but you either don't want to understand it or can't understand it. If reported serious head injuries become unreported minor injuries as a result of the helmet protecting them then if you make the half of the cyclists who didn't wear a helmet wear one by law, then you will see a drop in the reported serious head injuries. You have no need to know how many unreported minor injuries there were, You just need to know that serious head injuries dropped because they either didn't happen or became too minor to report. But somehow you cling on to the idea that because you don't know the unreported number you can't say anything. I even did a little calculation for you to show it mathematically but I notice you preferred to ignore it rather than point out any errors that would if corrected would make it fit with your beliefs.

 

[david k]

Thank you - its a necessary part of being involved in education. Not everyone gets everything first time and you have to be prepared to help them work through it. The difference I guess is most of them want to learn and understand whereas I suspect we have a group here only interested in proclaiming their beliefs and stoning the unbelievers.

funny how i see it the other way round, i dont believe there have been any 'stoning' on non believers , just sharing my/our thoughts