Deaths when not using helmet

[Red Light]

Another interesting study here:

http://www.smf.org/d...les/report.html

Authors conclusion: "This study provides powerful statistical evidence that bicycle helmets, regardless of type, provide protection to cyclists in all circumstances, including crashes involving motor vehicles."

Sadly, this did not evaluate neck or other non-head injuries.

Yes, but interesting for reasons other than the ones you think. If you were familiar with the field you would know how notorious the research of the Harbourview Medical Centre is. This is the group that started the whole helmet thing off with a study that is still widely quoted by the helmet lobby.

That compared kids mainly riding on their own on the roads of deprived inner city areas and without helmets with kids mainly riding in suburban parks with their parents and wearing helmets. They ascribed the difference in head injuries as solely due to the difference in helmet wearing. The paper has been subject to much ridicule and the authors have spent the rest of their careers trying to prove they were right.

Out of interest and because the data is publicly accessible, someone used their methodology substituting leg injuries for head injuries and got the result that helmets protect against 75% of leg injuries.

I suggest you head over to cyclehelmets.org where there go through a lot of this stuff and save yourself from newbie embarrassment

 

[tigger]

I suggest you head over to cyclehelmets.org where there go through a lot of this stuff and save yourself from newbie embarrassment

Yes I'm familiar with that site too. The great limitation with that site is that it doesn't even pretend to be impartial. Admittedly nearly all studies are limited by the subjectivity of the author, as we alll know, but when an agenda is so clearly projected I think it loses all credibility.

 

[Red Light]

A PhD Thesis is a proof put forward by the candidate. As science moves on it is not uncommon for that proof to be overturned by another PhD candidate. It does not mean the original work was flawed unless you take into account the failure to include (at the time) unknowable information.

No it isn't and I've supervised a few PhDs in my time. A PhD is training in the methods of research. The thesis is a demonstration that they have achieved a competency in that together with a piece of original research work in the field. PhD theses are rarely referenced because they are not published as such. What is referenced are the published papers resulting from the research.

 

[benb]

Yes I'm familiar with that site too. The great limitation with that site is that it doesn't even pretend to be impartial. Admittedly nearly all studies are limited by the subjectivity of the author, as we alll know, but when an agenda is so clearly projected I think it loses all credibility.

Do you feel the same way about Snell, or is it only organisations who's agenda you disagree with that lose all credibility?

 

[benb]

Another interesting study here:

http://www.smf.org/d...les/report.html

Authors conclusion: "This study provides powerful statistical evidence that bicycle helmets, regardless of type, provide protection to cyclists in all circumstances, including crashes involving motor vehicles."

Sadly, this did not evaluate neck or other non-head injuries.

I've just read that whole thing, and I can't find out exactly how they decided that helmets protected against head injury.
They say they compared people with head injuries (cases) against people without (controls) but I can find no explanation of how their methods showed what they conclude.

Can you show me where I missed it?

 

[Rebel Ian]

The most relevant part in David's initial post are the words "make your own decision". Thanks, that's what I'll do.

 

[Red Light]

Yes I'm familiar with that site too. The great limitation with that site is that it doesn't even pretend to be impartial. Admittedly nearly all studies are limited by the subjectivity of the author, as we alll know, but when an agenda is so clearly projected I think it loses all credibility.

Sites looking at the health effects of smoking or Darwinian evolution are not impartial as you are defining* it either. If the evidence is strongly on one side an impartial site will reflect that. I studied this long before cyclehelmets.org came into being and had already reached the same position long before they had, as did many cycling scientist friends who looked into it.

* which is it agrees with your views.

 

[tigger]

Do you feel the same way about Snell, or is it only organisations who's agenda you disagree with that lose all credibility?

Everything. Of course this is going to be a pro helmet article otherwise it wouldn't be published on the Snell site... My response was to Red Light's suggestion and inference that a cyclehelmet.org would offer superior research. It does not, it merely houses reasearch which fits their public agenda. If you want to try and be impartial you need to sift through all of it - hence why I am familiar with it...

 

[tigger]

Sites looking at the health effects of smoking or Darwinian evolution are not impartial as you are defining* it either. If the evidence is strongly on one side an impartial site will reflect that. I studied this long before cyclehelmets.org came into being and had already reached the same position long before they had, as did many cycling scientist friends who looked into it.

* which is it agrees with your views.

Exactly... so 2 opposing schools will never agree... which tells us how pointless this whole helmet debate is....

 

[benb]

Everything. Of course this is going to be a pro helmet article otherwise it wouldn't be published on the Snell site... My response was to Red Light's suggestion and inference that a cyclehelmet.org would offer superior research. It does not, it merely houses reasearch which fits their public agenda. If you want to try and be impartial you need to sift through all of it - hence why I am familiar with it...

So the study you posted as support for your argument from the Snell site is fine, but counter evidence on cyclehelmets.org has no credibility?
Is that really your position?

 

[TheDoctor]

If anyone's interested, I can show a large positive correlation between numbers of people drowning and sales of Cornettos...

(Handy Hint - correlation does not equal causation)

 

[benb]

Exactly... so 2 opposing schools will never agree... which tells us how pointless this whole helmet debate is....

We don't have to agree, only agree that the evidence in favour of helmet use is inconclusive, certainly falling well below that required to make a case for compulsion, and that the claims made for the efficacy of helmets is massively exaggerated, and therefore the decision to wear a helmet can only be based on personal choice and not evidence. Furthermore, we can all agree that compulsion would be a disaster for popular cycling.

Then we can all unite together as an anti-compulsion group.

 

[Red Light]

Do you feel the same way about Snell, or is it only organisations who's agenda you disagree with that lose all credibility?

Snell are financed by the helmet manufacturers and their whole premise is that helmets work. Even though they are a not-for-profit organisation, they make their money by researching, testing and accrediting helmets. Now if they accept helmets don't work, that kind of negates their reasons for existing. There is quite a bit of controversy about them in the motor bike field too - see this New York Times article

It was founded by the way in memory of a racing car driver who died of head injuries despite his helmet.

 

[tigger]

So the study you posted as support for your argument from the Snell site is fine, but counter evidence on cyclehelmets.org has no credibility?
Is that really your position?

Thats a fair point, no the studies on cyclehelmets.org have credibility in the same way as the one on snell's does. What I mean is we can't view cyclehelmets.org per se as a complete authority as it only has studies which support its agenda, in the same way as studies on pro helmet ot whatver sites will only support their agendas.

 

[tigger]

Snell are financed by the helmet manufacturers and their whole premise is that helmets work. Even though they are a not-for-profit organisation, they make their money by researching, testing and accrediting helmets. Now if they accept helmets don't work, that kind of negates their reasons for existing. There is quite a bit of controversy about them in the motor bike field too - see this New York Times article

It was founded by the way in memory of a racing car driver who died of head injuries despite his helmet.

Yes, but this isn't Snell's own study, merely one agreeable to them...