I can't think of a single example where someone was immediately ridiculed for being pro-helmet. In my experience we have all been extremely patient with new people like that - it's only when people clearly have no intention of considering the evidence that this might happen.
metro article on helmets
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I can't think of a single example where someone was immediately ridiculed for being pro-helmet. In my experience we have all been extremely patient with new people like that - it's only when people clearly have no intention of considering the evidence that this might happen.
lukesdad
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So other than Red Light (not sure about Adrian) can we agree that the jury is out on which is the safer and stop using it as a diversion tactic ?
Getting back to Cunobelin and his informed choice, before the a descision is made on minimising, an individual will want to know the risk for their set of circumstances. Now with pedestrians it would appear that this has been taken into account. So why hasn't it been with cyclists,or has it ? I would have thought it to be fairly fundamental to know where the injurys are taking place. From the EU report it would seem most fatalities and serious injuries are occuring in high population areas. What we don t know is, are they commuters leisure cyclists or mtbers
(note the smiley Red Light ). By the way for serious injury I think riding on the highway is far more risky than downhilling but thats a question of competence and external factors. Most mtbers for instance IME wear helmets.I would suggest this is because they have made an informed choice and come to the conclusion they are far more likely to suffer a minor head injury than a major one, but without the evidence I can't be sure.
These omissions in studies make me suspicous there is an agenda to try and keep all groups of cyclists "onside" in the helmet debate. After all if the evidence pointed that helmets were benificial in MTB, then why not for all cyclists ? Even a lot of cyclists perceive mtbing to be far more dangerous than other forms of cycling, which IMO is not the case.
Getting back to Cunobelin and his informed choice, before the a descision is made on minimising, an individual will want to know the risk for their set of circumstances. Now with pedestrians it would appear that this has been taken into account. So why hasn't it been with cyclists,or has it ? I would have thought it to be fairly fundamental to know where the injurys are taking place. From the EU report it would seem most fatalities and serious injuries are occuring in high population areas. What we don t know is, are they commuters leisure cyclists or mtbers
(note the smiley Red Light ). By the way for serious injury I think riding on the highway is far more risky than downhilling but thats a question of competence and external factors. Most mtbers for instance IME wear helmets.I would suggest this is because they have made an informed choice and come to the conclusion they are far more likely to suffer a minor head injury than a major one, but without the evidence I can't be sure.These omissions in studies make me suspicous there is an agenda to try and keep all groups of cyclists "onside" in the helmet debate. After all if the evidence pointed that helmets were benificial in MTB, then why not for all cyclists ? Even a lot of cyclists perceive mtbing to be far more dangerous than other forms of cycling, which IMO is not the case.
lukesdad
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How about this ben ? It was only yesterday after all.
No. We can agree that the risk is similar - very small.
Getting back to Cunobelin and his informed choice, before the a descision is made on minimising, an individual will want to know the risk for their set of circumstances. Now with pedestrians it would appear that this has been taken into account. So why hasn't it been with cyclists,or has it ? I would have thought it to be fairly fundamental to know where the injurys are taking place. From the EU report it would seem most fatalities and serious injuries are occuring in high population areas. What we don t know is, are they commuters leisure cyclists or mtbers
These omissions in studies make me suspicous there is an agenda to try and keep all groups of cyclists "onside" in the helmet debate. After all if the evidence pointed that helmets were benificial in MTB, then why not for all cyclists ? Even a lot of cyclists perceive mtbing to be far more dangerous than other forms of cycling, which IMO is not the case.
That seems quite odd, as most groups seem to have a pro-choice or pro-helmet position - I don't think there are any seeking to discourage helmet use, and the majority of cycling groups are anti-compulsion.
As far as I can tell the evidence quite clearly shows that the main risk of KSI is a collision with a motor vehicle.
If you class any kind of criticism as being ridiculed, then you're too sensitive.
lukesdad
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Here we go again off on a tangent, you guys crack me up, you asked for the example and yeah Im too sensitive, happy ?
Now back to my previous post, you claim to be the evidence based cyclist, lets have some for injury's in different cycling disciplines shall we ?
Not everybody commutes in london don't you know ?
They need to make an informed descision based on their activities and set of circumstances.
I would simply dispute that your example was a case of someone being ridiculed.
As far as I know any injury on a bicycle is automatically called a road accident I think, so will get included in the TfL stats. However, the police STATS19 database only includes highways, so will exclude cycle paths and offroading.
This report tries to combine the data usefully. http://www.worthingrevolutions.org.uk/sites/worthingrevolutions.org.uk/files/PPR445.pdf and there is a table in there that states that 83% of cycling KSI is with a collision with a motorised vehicle, and 16% are no collision accidents.
However, I can't see an easy way of determining in what discipline a helmet might be useful. I've got a gut feeling that I'm more likely to come off at low speed (pretty much the only situation where a helmet might prevent injury) doing MTB, so I would be inclined to wear one then. But it would depend on the conditions and type of trail. I never wear one on the road.
I'm glad you agree that people should be free to make an informed choice, and informed is the key word. That's what I'm trying to do here - point out where the evidence produced doesn't stand up.
Of course. You need to bear in mind that compulsion is pushed with the erroneous position that helmets are effective, so it's important to counter that view in order to fight the threat of compulsion.
They are similar (and both extremely low) if you use the statistics you are using but you are comparing apples and oranges. The statistics you are using are comparing all serious injuries to cyclists on the road with only those serious injuries to pedestrians resulting from being hit by a vehicle. They completely omit any injuries that pedestrians have without a vehicle involved. The serious injuries from pedestrian only accidents are 5-6 times the pedestrian-vehicle accidents.
But I am happy to agree that the injury risk to pedestrians and cyclists are both so low that a helmet is not warranted for either.
The indications are that downhilling is much more dangerous. One hospital alone has been seeing 10 injuries a week from the Seven Stanes site. Even if we were to assume they were all only minor injuries, it would take 2.5 million miles of cycling on the roads to generate that number of injuries and I would bet that cyclists at Seven Stanes only clock up a very tiny fraction of that mileage per week. One of the reasons suggested for the large number of injuries is that inexperienced mountain bikers think they are safe because they are wearing a helmet, try stuff that they would not try without a helmet, come a cropper and find the helmet doesn't protect them in the way they thought it would.
[QUOTE 1811248, member: 45"]And the other reasons are? Wouldn't want you to be applying any bias would we?
It's a fair comment. Let's not be selective and then complain that others are.[/quote]
Which bit of "One of the reasons...." are you having trouble understanding? You are free to list as many of the other reasons as you wish.
It's a fair comment. Let's not be selective and then complain that others are.[/quote]
Which bit of "One of the reasons...." are you having trouble understanding? You are free to list as many of the other reasons as you wish.
lukesdad
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Competence hence the refference in my original post. Seven stanes is an excellent example of people out of their depth. Whether wearing a helmet or not . You do know the difference between downhilling and other forms of mtb don't you ? There aren't many casual riders who'd attempt a proper downhill course.
lukesdad
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I ll assume for one moment we are using your definition of effective,what would that be, a motorcycle or fomula one style helmet something of that standard ? Compulsion presumably wouldn't be such an issue for you then ? Or do you avocate rescinding the helmet law for motorcyclists as well ?
Whats your view norm seeing as you support bens position ?
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