How can wearing a helmet offer no protection from injury?

[classic33]

You do understand the difference between opinion, advice and evidence do you not ? Im hardly ever correct, fortunately I recognise this fact now where is this outdated notion you refer to ? All Ive asked for is for some more reliable evidence than Ive been able to gather on helmet use in certain groups. In reply all ive heard is a load of bull about any group but the ones ive mentioned, as Adrian has mentioned its probably of little significance, if so why do you and your pals KEEP BANGING ON ABOUT IT ? I don't care what you do in relation to helmets, as you probably dont care about my choice either. Where I do draw the line is when blanket evidence is used to cover all groups.

You don't even know or have been interested to ask if, where or when I use a helmet have you ? ( The avatar picture is an event which required helmet use by the way just in case it clouded your judgement )

In fact your just another helmet evangelist spouting the party line

Now, now.
You dismissed the question when it was asked by me, go on to ask the same question yourself & then tell me I'm in the wrong, but you are not. We both asked the same question, seperate ways, only you dismissed mine out of hand. I used your own answer as an answer to your question. So in effect you are your own judge & jury. Is this the blanket evidence, used by me, that you are referring to?

Show me anywhere on this site where I have advocated one way or the other, for or against helmet wearing.

Oh, by the way, no judgement on anything you wear has been made from the avatar. Using such simplistic evidence would suggest that I ride a trike more commonly used in the selling of items.

 

[lukesdad]

Now, now.
You dismissed the question when it was asked by me, go on to ask the same question yourself & then tell me I'm in the wrong, but you are not. We both asked the same question, seperate ways, only you dismissed mine out of hand. I used your own answer as an answer to your question. So in effect you are your own judge & jury. Is this the blanket evidence, used by me, that you are referring to?

Show me anywhere on this site where I have advocated one way or the other, for or against helmet wearing.

Oh, by the way, no judgement on anything you wear has been made from the avatar. Using such simplistic evidence would suggest that I ride a trike more commonly used in the selling of items.

Lets go back shall we you asked for advice, I asked for evidence and opinion. That is where I indicated you were wrong in your statement.

 

[lukesdad]

I am using a dataset that is valid, as I have explained twice - unless you have evidence to the contrary that these activities are so dangerous that they fall outside the error band of the data.

To do otherwise is to ignore the data and have a guess on your perception of the risk, which is often a long way off the actual risk for an activity.

To assess the risk you first have the data, any breaking evidence to cover the groups Ive inquired about. Or are you just ignoring the request I made pages ago,as you accuse others doing.

Pot ,kettle,black comes to mind.

 

[classic33]

Lets go back shall we you asked for advice, I asked for evidence and opinion. That is where I indicated you were wrong in your statement.

I'm still waiting for some-one to say when a helmet would need to be worn in my case. If you answer, please say why you think that way.

come on im going out in 8 hrs I need to know if i should be wearing a helmet or not ?

For which your answer of

I dont think anybody with half an atom is going to give you that advice

was used by the pair of us

 

[TheDoctor]

I'm not going to argue this from a purist statistical point of view, but something more pragmatic.
If helmets save lives, then places where helmets are compulsory will see lower rates of injury, yes?
NZ and parts of Australia have helmet compulsion.
They're not safer. Quite the reverse, in fact.
One of the safest places to cycle is the Netherlands. No-one is required to wear a helmet, and very few do.
Still, it's up to you. Do what you like

 

[lukesdad]

You ve missed your first post, then quoted me out of context the first quote of mine you ve used was referring to an earlier post of mine was it not ?

 

[classic33]

You ve missed your first post, then quoted me out of context the first quote of mine you ve used was referring to an earlier post of mine was it not ?

Inserting my first post would still have led to me putting the two questions asked. Once by missen the other by thissen & your answer would still have been used to answer both.
Unless of course your answer was wrong to begin with.

If I were to include all your previous posts on this topic the post would have been a long un'. And anything that came before would by definition, have been earlier.

Edited to include this bit.
Its more like a helmet camera thread now.

 

[benb]

Of course it's quite correct to say that some activities as a pedestrian are more risky than others, just as some activities as a cyclist are more risky than others. However, the point is that overall both activities are low risk, and there doesn't seem to be any evidence that one subset is so overwhelmingly risky that it is distorting the overall dataset.

The reason I bring up pedestrians in helmet discussions is to point out the lack of intellectual rigour when people suggest helmets are necessary on a bicycle.

I want pro-helmeters to examine why they want one group of people (cyclists) to wear helmets, but not another group (pedestrians) when both groups are at a similar (low) risk of head injuries.

There is no logically consistent argument in favour of cycle helmets that does not also apply to pedestrians. So why are only cyclists put under pressure to wear them? Why are people who believe helmets are effective at reducing head injuries happy to reduce injuries in one group of people but not another?

 

[benb]

[QUOTE 2162449, member: 45"]Would you be interested to know what proportion of these pedestrians are injured crossing the road?[/quote]

Not really, as that's utterly irrelevant to the point I was making. Which is, why are people so keen to reduce head injuries in cyclists, but not pedestrians?

 

[Dan B]

[QUOTE 2162492, member: 45"]Yes, I know it's Canadian. But a quick google shows that indeed we're not the waymakers in pedestrian safety research. I'm a bit worried that I might have crossed an unmentionable line though and upset someone. This raises all kinds of questions now. Does this suggest that as a pedestrian I'm safer walking on the pavement than crossing the road? Is someone's head now going to explode?
[/quote]
I'm not sure why that's an interesting question, given that as a pedestrian I cross the road because my intended destination is no the other side, not just because I feel like it. I know that many cyclists are fond of saying "you made the choice to live so far away from work", but are you really suggesting we should all live on the same block as our offices?

 

[Dan B]

[QUOTE 2163037, member: 45"]It is interesting because there are times as a pedestrian when the risks are greater than at others. The risk is fluid, not consistent and related to one statistic.[/quote]
Well, sure, but there are times as a cyclist when the risks are greater than other times: downhilling, cat 4 racing, vs cycling to church in Little Bringlington with a cat in the basket. If you're going to object to the pedestrian risk numbers because they include the elderly and drunks, are you being similarly discriminating about the cycling numbers? It seems that you could, if you wanted, reject such large swathes of the stats on the grounds that they involved people who were, in some respect or other, unlike you, or that they happened in circumstances inapplicable to you, that you'd be left with no guide at all to relative risk simply because none of them had anyone called User as victim or had happened along the roads you cycle on

 

[classic33]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/3242048/Zebra-crossing-road-deaths-treble.html#
Three related articles further down.
Its old data I'm aware, but first result from a quick search.

 

[theclaud]

[QUOTE 2163287, member: 45"]Yes. That's well documented on here.

You could, but I'm not suggesting that. The statistics are valid for what they say. If you have a read back over the last couple of days you'll see that it's been suggested that there's no need for further consideration of level of risk around individual circumstances because we have these overall statistics. I've just been responding to that.

The reality is, for example, that if I was to consider wearing a helmet as a pedestrian it's likely be more useful while crossing a road than walking along the pavement. Or if I was to consider wearing a helmet while cycling it may ("may" because I've seen ped stats but not MTB ones) be more beneficial while MTBing than commuting to work.[/quote]

Substitute "marginally less barmy" for "more useful" and you are somewhere close.

 

[theclaud]

[QUOTE 2163931, member: 45"]I think someone will be along in a minute to tell us that we're both wrong.[/quote]

I wouldn't dare. But I confess I've been following this thread with considerable bafflement. Not about statistics themselves but about how on earth we got here in the first place from what was essentially a rhetorical device.

 

[mickle]

Yoiks.