Benefits of wearing a helmet

[david k]

That's why you use the scientific literature where they explain what they did, how they did it, the results they got and the conclusions they draw so you can assess their evidence and its validity.

So you can look at the paper that really set this all off with claims that helmets saved 85/88% of head injuries and find out that they compared inner city kids riding on the roads mainly without helmets with helmeted suburban kids riding mainly in parks with their parents and then attribute the difference in head injuries exclusively to the helmet wearing. Then you can take the public datasets they used and find that if they had bothered to do the calculation by their methodology they would have found that helmets "prevent" 75% of leg injuries.

You can then read the research on what happened in Australia and New Zealand on what happened when mandatory helmet laws were introduced and helmet wearing rates doubled overnight. And there are a few papers announcing that head injuries fell as a result. You can then find other papers that looked at cycling numbers as well and found they fell by a greater percentage than the head injuries so that the risk per individual went up.

But it seems you have very little interest in doing that reading and evaluation, preferring to disregard it all in favour of your own home grown philosophy while mocking people for having bothered to do the reading and summarise and reference it here.

i think the debate was relatively sensible until mocking of helmet wearers started, then it became a bit of a free for all, its its good for the goose etc.

Your right, theres lots of research that im not going to read, not because im ignoring it, happy to read your summaries but i think putting a helmet is a really simple task and not one i feel the need to investigate in minute detail before making the decision to wear or not. However you dont seem to allow me this decision without complete analysis, many people wear cycle helmets, i doubt they have all analysed the data. Why you keep making a simple decision a complex one is beyond me

 

[lukesdad]

My 2 boys are 4 and 6 both had the MMR jab, what s the wrong answer ?

Lets take the reduction in helmet use by teenagers in Australia shall we ? Firstly a few hundred subjects in one location isa snapshot. If I were to conduct a similar survey in this country to get a true reflection where would i do it ? In London, Birmingham ,Manchester ? That would be a very small percentage not very conclusive. Or would I do it in mid wales or the Scottish Highlands a very large percentage far more enlightening, but that would be far too expensive and too much like hard work.

My take on this would be down to peer pressure. Its a bit like the answer when questioned why do people not ride a bike, and give the answer is its too dangerous, when everybody knows the real answer is they re too damned lazy.

By the way I think you give scientists far too much credit for proving the earth was round.

 

[lukesdad]

i think the debate was relatively sensible until mocking of helmet wearers started, then it became a bit of a free for all, its its good for the goose etc.

Your right, theres lots of research that im not going to read, not because im ignoring it, happy to read your summaries but i think putting a helmet is a really simple task and not one i feel the need to investigate in minute detail before making the decision to wear or not. However you dont seem to allow me this decision without complete analysis, many people wear cycle helmets, i doubt they have all analysed the data. Why you keep making a simple decision a complex one is beyond me

Hes a scientist, what other reason do you need ?

 

[david k]

You have again shifted the goalposts, and your statement - then stuck your ingers in your ears and refused to discuss this.

You did not mention risk, likelihood or chance - you stated unequivocally that if a single life was saved then helmets should be worn.

Yet now we are saying that only cyclists are worth saving?

Still I didn't expect any better.

Are we back in the area where other group's head injuries are acceptable, hurt less, or affect the families less.

So you expect the right to make your own choice, yet wish to deny that choice when it comes to cycle helmets?

This is the elephant in the room isn't it?

Your original (and now changed) claim that if only one life was saved then helmets should be worn is the issue?

Why do you feel pedestrian head injuries aren't worth preventing?

worth wearing not should be worn

Deny choice? we decided to park discussing compulsion so it doesnt muddy the water, theres an alternative thread on that

i dont feel the risk for pedestrians is the same as cycling. Therefore i wear a helmet when cycling but not walking.

Do you think people who wear helmets when cycling but not walking are hypocrites ??

 

[lukesdad]

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.

You still dont get it do you ? Im am reffering to all potential injuries across the board major minor road mtb etc.

Do you have any idea how often my noggin gets bashed by low branches whilst riding in brechfa forest Somewhere I choose to wear a helmet. No of course you dont. Do you take this into account in your analysis of course you dont.Do you even care ?

A few years ago I fractured my skull in a road accident, not wearing a helmet. Do you take this into account. I assume you must as i ended up in hospital but then I only have your word on that.

 

[Red Light]

My 2 boys are 4 and 6 both had the MMR jab, what s the wrong answer ?

Vaccination rates against measles dropped in the UK from 92% to 84% and as low as 61% in parts of London with herd immunity lost as a result. Measles cases increased 13 fold between 1998 and 2006 and in 2008 it became endemic in the UK. All from people, encouraged by a poorly informed media, voting with their feet.

Lets take the reduction in helmet use by teenagers in Australia shall we ? Firstly a few hundred subjects in one location isa snapshot. If I were to conduct a similar survey in this country to get a true reflection where would i do it ? In London, Birmingham ,Manchester ? That would be a very small percentage not very conclusive. Or would I do it in mid wales or the Scottish Highlands a very large percentage far more enlightening, but that would be far too expensive and too much like hard work.

There is a wealth of date taken in multiple states by different methods. The 200 figure relates only the the subset that showed the biggest drop in cyclists, not the overall data. A bit like pulling out accident blackspots on the road from the national database.

My take on this would be down to peer pressure. Its a bit like the answer when questioned why do people not ride a bike, and give the answer is its too dangerous, when everybody knows the real answer is they re too damned lazy.

Not sure how peer pressure on cyclists skews counts made by independent observers who were probably never spotted by the cyclist (or if they were spotted, it was too late and the cyclist probably had no idea what they were doing a census survey on).

Oh, and there has been quite a bit of research on why people do not ride a bike and "to damned lazy" is not a significant factor.

By the way I think you give scientists far too much credit for proving the earth was round.

Really? Pythagoras was the first to propose it and Aristotle was the first to produce evidence for it. Before that most of the world believed it was flat. Erathtosthenes was the first to calculate the radius of the earth from astronomical observations (and got it right within 16%) as well as the distance from the earth to the sun and the tilt of the earth's axis. The round world became the dominant belief as a result of their work and observations.

It wasn't until the Copernican Revolution that the geocentric model was replaced by the heliocentric model of of the universe, based on the scientific studies of Copernicus and Kepler.

 

[Red Light]

You still dont get it do you ? Im am reffering to all potential injuries across the board major minor road mtb etc.

Do you have any idea how often my noggin gets bashed by low branches whilst riding in brechfa forest Somewhere I choose to wear a helmet. No of course you dont. Do you take this into account in your analysis of course you dont.Do you even care ?

A few years ago I fractured my skull in a road accident, not wearing a helmet. Do you take this into account. I assume you must as i ended up in hospital but then I only have your word on that.

If you are saying that helmets should be worn because they might prevent minor bumps and scrapes then that puts them in the same category as gloves, knee and elbow pads. Hardly something to plead with people to use, make mandatory or make other than a matter of personal choice.

If you fractured you skull that would have been recorded as a serious injury in the national statistics databases - HES and STATS19. You don't need my word for it - you can read the rules for recording road accident injury data the police and hospitals are required to use.

If you had worn a helmet and not fractured your skull such that nobody thought it worth reporting then the national statistics would have shown one less serious injury/head injury for that year i.e. the effect of your wearing a helmet would be effectively recorded by a reduction in the national figures. If that were a one off then it would go unnoticed in the statistical noise but if the pattern was repeated in other cyclists having accidents like yours and walking away from them because that year they had all been made by law to wear helmets for the first time, then you would see a noticeable and statistically significant drop in the number of recorded head injuries. Their non-reporting would be visible in the statistics.

 

[lukesdad]

Well I think I got the right answer on MMR

You dont understand peer pressure amongst teenagers ?

Lets face it whose going to admit to being to god damned lazy anyway ! Would it be even listed in the choice of answers ? Of course they run in the park or swim the channel.... I dont think so. People tend to lie a little when faced with their own self guilt. Or has that not occured to you ?

As for the earth being flat they were only theories, until proved by others physically sailing round the globe.

 

[Red Light]

You dont understand peer pressure amongst teenagers ?

Does it matter what peer pressure does? There are many reasons why people give up cycling when forced to wear helmets including peer pressure imagined or real. The fact is large numbers of them stopped cycling when forced to wear helmets so unless you can solve the problem of social peer pressure the helmet compulsion is where you need to look for solutions.

Lets face it whose going to admit to being to god damned lazy anyway ! Would it be even listed in the choice of answers ? Of course they run in the park or swim the channel.... I dont think so. People tend to lie a little when faced with their own self guilt. Or has that not occured to you ?

You have little understanding of sociological surveying. "Are you lazy?" "No" "Oh alright then, can't be laziness" But of course for you the problem with bipolar disorder is no doubt people won't pull themselves together and cheer up

As for the earth being flat they were only theories, until proved by others physically sailing round the globe.

Aristotle proved it by observing that different stars were visible from northern and southern hemispheres, something that should not happen on a flat earth. Eratosthenes proved it scientifically by experimental predictions and observations. Magellan proved nothing - he could have sailed round the edge of a flat earth to get back to where he started. On your basis it was not proved until earth was photographed from space.

 

[lukesdad]

Red Light. My only beef with you and others like you is, the way evidence you rest your case on is colated and interpreted not the subject matter. I really couldnt give a toss what people wear on their head. That is up to them. What does concern me is the way they may arrive at their descision. You obviously believe the reports etc. I happen to regard them with suspicion. So we ll drop the red herrings shall we ? and let people make their own descisions. Hopefully theyll read the evidence listen to other peoples views and experiences and come to a conclusion one way or the other based on their intelligence and common sense.

 

[Red Light]

Red Light. My only beef with you and others like you is, the way evidence you rest your case on is colated and interpreted not the subject matter. I really couldnt give a toss what people wear on their head. That is up to them. What does concern me is the way they may arrive at their descision. You obviously believe the reports etc. I happen to regard them with suspicion. So we ll drop the red herrings shall we ? and let people make their own descisions. Hopefully theyll read the evidence listen to other peoples views and experiences and come to a conclusion one way or the other based on their intelligence and common sense.

People are quite welcome to go and read the evidence themselves and I would encourage them to do so if they are able. However there is a lot of papers out there so unless you have the time to sit in a library or Shibboleth access to the on-line journals and some knowledge of methodologies and critical review it involves a lot of work and/or cost.

I have I believe filtered out the dross and selected some of the best evidence that people might like to consider. You are welcome to read those papers and come back with challenges to them or put forward other papers you think should be considered. I have already asked you for your best pro-helmet paper but you ducked that one.

So the problem I have with you is you haven't done any of the work, don't know any of the evidence, yet happily stand on the side lines lobbing stones because it conflicts with your personal beliefs.

But there are people who are interested so you are welcome to withdraw from the debate if you have nothing better to add or you could actually go and find out. Of course its completely your decision what you wear on your head but the moment you start challenging the evidence on nothing but your personal beliefs then expect to be challenged and asked to come up with the evidence for your beliefs.

Actually people like you have had some use in the helmet debate nevertheless. Its on places like here and Usenet that the arguments have been honed for the important tasks of opposing compulsory helmet legislation. So in some small way you have helped the case against compulsion.

 

[ufkacbln]

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)

There is always the problem that the data is mutually exclusive in methodology.

Its a bit like looking at Aspirin and seeing whether it cure headaches in hangovers.

The answer is indisputably that it does, but that does not mean that Paracetamol does not work.

However Aspirin may work even better in headaches caused by stress, sun, or any of a multitude of causes.

Refusing absolutely to allow these areas to be discussed is unacceptable.

The discussion should be more open.

Refusing to discuss the other uses because you find it inconvenient and you are uncomfortable with the possible outcome is the worst possible science

 

[david k]

still dont get why you both dont respect the opinion of others (whilst claiming you do), if i and others feel wearing a helmet is beneficial why do you fight that decision so fiercly? after all you say you for freedom of choice yet fight my choice at every available opportunity, often hiding behind fighting against compulsion (which has been put to bed) and a presumed ignorance of facts/data. The majority of people do not consider the amount of data/analysis you claim we should when making a simple decision like putting on a helmet.

 

[lukesdad]

still dont get why you both dont respect the opinion of others (whilst claiming you do), if i and others feel wearing a helmet is beneficial why do you fight that decision so fiercly? after all you say you for freedom of choice yet fight my choice at every available opportunity, often hiding behind fighting against compulsion (which has been put to bed) and a presumed ignorance of facts/data. The majority of people do not consider the amount of data/analysis you claim we should when making a simple decision like putting on a helmet.

Mmm might there be something else at play here. I wonder ?

 

[Red Light]

Mmm might there be something else at play here. I wonder ?

Yes, the fact that both of you try to rubbish the evidence from a position of ignorance of what the evidence actually is and what it says, because it conflicts with your personal beliefs.

As I've said so many times already I don't care what you wear on your heads and whether you think it will save you from a tree branch, a bike accident or a buzzard attack. If you just said you wear one because you want to or because it stops you hitting your head on branches I'd probably say nothing, If you said you wore one because it would save you from head injuries in an accident I would say you might like to look at how effective they really are. If you want to say, as david k has being doing here and in other threads, you wear on because you believe they will save your head in an accident and anyone who says otherwise is talking BS, then I will challenge you.

Neither of you has been able to demonstrate any evidence of knowing about or having read any of the research, I have invited you on several occasions to provide a critique of the research that I have put forward or suggest your own papers for consideration but neither of you seems capable of that. All you appear capable of doing is saying something is rubbish because it conflicts with your beliefs.