Another little nugget for the helmet debate!

meanredspider

Your post above is so much nonsense, I don't know where to begin.

Get a bike, learn to ride safely, get some good lights, learn how to ride in traffic, THEN get your helmet.

This, for instance. WTF?

And the comparison with wearing a lid as a pedestrian is bollox. I travel up to 45mph on my bike and average over 15mph - and gyroscopic forces are mostly what keep me up. It's entirely different from walking and far closer to riding a moped. And, guess what moped riders are required to wear? When I'm walking or even running, as much as I like to think I do, I don't generate enough speed to hurt myself. I rarely run in the road. Need I go on?

His lecturing people about helmets is what's condescending

Hardly. He's a man who believes a helmet has saved his live. He'd be very selfish to keep this knowledge to himself.

I still abhor the ridiculous 'get a bike wear a helmet' culture that we have in this country

I thought you said helmet wearing was 1-in-3 or less?

...and so it goes on

meanredspider

thelawnet wrote:

There is clear data on helmet wearing as it's a matter of simple observation, and studies have been done by the government. Statistics on hitting your head, helmets in accidents are of course a matter of interpretation and are as relevant as endless 'helmet saved my life' anecdotes.
.

Exactly. It's very clear how many people wear helmets but completely unclear how many helmet-wearing people die versus those that aren't (except the stuff from the states that seemed very clear). I don't see your point.

as for the "endless 'helmet saved my life' anecdotes" - that's the evidence that they are worthwhile - whether they saved lives or just prevented nasty injuries. Very few of these stories fit your "risk-taking" profile.

Your argument about risk could equally apply to seatbelts - I've never needed mine in 47 years nor have any of my family. Complete waste of time just making driving seem dangerous....Same for the fire extinguisher in my race car. Or the smoke alarms in my house. Or the axle stands I use. I could go on and on. The point is that you use all these things hoping you won't need them. It doesm't infere any of these risks are any more or less - you could live life without any of these and almost certainly get away with it.

thelawnet

meanredspider wrote:

Your post above is so much nonsense, I don't know where to begin.

Get a bike, learn to ride safely, get some good lights, learn how to ride in traffic, THEN get your helmet.

This, for instance. WTF?

That's not a step-by-step list of instructions, just pointing out that even if you do want to wear a helmet, it should be very low on your list of priorities, but for some reason you get people riding cluelessly on the edge of the road, wearing a helmet, with no lights, because they've succumbed to the helmet propaganda and have the idea that a helmet magically makes them safe or prevents accidents.

And the comparison with wearing a lid as a pedestrian is bollox. I travel up to 45mph on my bike and average over 15mph - and gyroscopic forces are mostly what keep me up. It's entirely different from walking and far closer to riding a moped. And, guess what moped riders are required to wear? When I'm walking or even running, as much as I like to think I do, I don't generate enough speed to hurt myself. I rarely run in the road. Need I go on?

Some random news articles for you

http://news.stv.tv/scotland/west-centra ... -with-van/

http://www.thisisstaffordshire.co.uk/ne ... ticle.html

Surely helmets would have reduced these injuries???

His lecturing people about helmets is what's condescending

Hardly. He's a man who believes a helmet has saved his live. He'd be very selfish to keep this knowledge to himself.

Because nobody knew what helmets were for before. :roll:

I still abhor the ridiculous 'get a bike wear a helmet' culture that we have in this country

I thought you said helmet wearing was 1-in-3 or less?

It is (http://www.trl.co.uk/online_store/repor ... n_2008.htm), but that it is that low is miraculous in the context of the emotional blackmail used to try and get cyclists to wear helmets (see for instance this case). I see bikes parked out on the street with 'be safe, wear a helmet' stickers on, we get regular 'helmet saved my life' stories, when cyclists get killed by lunatic drivers their slimy lawyers try to pin the blame on the victim if they didn't have a helmet on. There is definitely a helmet blackmail culture in this country (cf. Holland where I only saw some full team kit club cyclists wearing them).

...and so it goes on

Indeed

thelawnet

meanredspider wrote:

[
Your argument about risk could equally apply to seatbelts - I've never needed mine in 47 years nor have any of my family. Complete waste of time just making driving seem dangerous....Same for the fire extinguisher in my race car. Or the smoke alarms in my house. Or the axle stands I use. I could go on and on. The point is that you use all these things hoping you won't need them. It doesm't infere any of these risks are any more or less - you could live life without any of these and almost certainly get away with it.

Well no, after seatbelt laws were brought in, fatalities fell in every single case, all over the world. It was and is a 'no-brainer', there is no downside.

Cycle helmet laws have not brought about a similar outcome, in fact injuries increased in Australia after the laws were introduced;there are moreover plenty of individual downsides to helmet wearing, which I won't go over again as they've been rehashed so many times before.

meanredspider

thelawnet wrote:

Some random news articles for you

http://news.stv.tv/scotland/west-centra ... -with-van/

http://www.thisisstaffordshire.co.uk/ne ... ticle.html

Surely helmets would have reduced these injuries???

Possibly - but it's a risk-benefit analysis like everything in life. Many/most helmet stories don't involve a motor vehicle. Mine prevented a nasty facial abrasion when I skidded and fell off on a diesel spill. You obviously don't think the benefit is worth paying 50 quid for and that's entirely up to you. I don't wear a lid running or walking. I do when I'm snowboarding and racing.

thelawnet

meanredspider wrote:

thelawnet wrote:

Some random news articles for you

http://news.stv.tv/scotland/west-centra ... -with-van/

http://www.thisisstaffordshire.co.uk/ne ... ticle.html

Surely helmets would have reduced these injuries???

Possibly - but it's a risk-benefit analysis like everything in life. Many/most helmet stories don't involve a motor vehicle. Mine prevented a nasty facial abrasion when I skidded and fell off on a diesel spill. You obviously don't think the benefit is worth paying 50 quid for and that's entirely up to you. I don't wear a lid running or walking. I do when I'm snowboarding and racing.

It's not a financial thing at all, I actually have a helmet in the garage bought for a sportive, I just don't want to wear one.

meanredspider

thelawnet wrote:

Cycle helmet laws have not brought about a similar outcome, in fact injuries increased in Australia after the laws were introduced;there are moreover plenty of individual downsides to helmet wearing, which I won't go over again as they've been rehashed so many times before.

I'm interested that there's so much evidence from countries where laws have been introdiced but none where they haven't - this I don't understand. Could it be that, only after the law was introduced, formal reporting became the norm (after all, it's the law to wear a helmet) and so numbers appeared to go up. The stats (or lack of them) have to cut both ways.

I don't see any anecdotal stories of the individual downsides. I see lots of clutching at straws stuff (one study about cars being closer - by IIRC 3cm or similar, and something about cycling in numbers being safer - the evidence of which I've not seen - in fact, the most friction seems to be where there are lots of cyclists)

meanredspider

thelawnet wrote:

It's not a financial thing at all, I actually have a helmet in the garage bought for a sportive, I just don't want to wear one.

well - if you do have an accident (and I genuinely hope you don't) you'll feel pretty silly with it hanging there.

I had a big crash in my race car on a track day. It was only a matter of luck that my car didn't go up in flames. My fireproof overalls were hanging in the cupboard at home because I didn't want to appear the flash git in the racing gear on a trackday. I'd have felt bloody stupid not wearing them had the fuel tank split.

thelawnet

meanredspider wrote:

I don't see any anecdotal stories of the individual downsides. I see lots of clutching at straws stuff (one study about cars being closer - by IIRC 3cm or similar, and something about cycling in numbers being safer - the evidence of which I've not seen - in fact, the most friction seems to be where there are lots of cyclists)

Anecdotally I don't like wearing a helmet, I think they look silly, are uncomfortable and take up too much space. I also don't like giving the impression that I'm taking part in a dangerous activity by cycling to the library.

CiB

jamesco wrote:

On Monday my girlfriend had a bike accident (locked the front and low-sided) and struck her head on the ground. Luckily, she was wearing a helmet. How you judge cycling as being dangerous or not is subjective, but it does carry its risks and helmets help mitigate them. I'm very happy she was wearing a helmet.

On Tuesday this week my son came off his bike for the second time in as many weeks, and came home with another pair of torn trousers, another grazed elbow and a sheepish grin again. He'd be better off wearing elbow & knee pads.

Does my anecdote add anything more than yours to the debate?

I've said it before but what bothers me about all this is the sense that there's an agenda going on, the way that the media joyously report on injured cyclists who weren't wearing helmets and pounce on stories like this one, as if there's a need to make the things compulsory for every single cycle ride regardless of context & circumstance, and that come the day (repeating myself here) when some non-entity of an MP decides to make a name for himself by introducing a private members bill to mandate helmet wearing, there won't be enough people willing to stand up and say '"no - cycling is pretty safe actually and doesn't warrant compulsory PPE". And then we all run the risk of being criminalised just for popping to the shops, nipping round a friend's house, guiding the kids to the park etc if there isn't a helmet balanced on the head at all times. Wear one if you like, but be wary of demanding that we all have to wear one all the while. It's not a good thing to want, compulsion. Be wary of what you wish for.

meanredspider

CiB wrote:

Wear one if you like, but be wary of demanding that we all have to wear one all the while. It's not a good thing to want, compulsion. Be wary of what you wish for.

If someone has demanded that we all wear one, I've missed it. Most helmet wearers are against (or, at worst, ambivolent towards) compulsion.

This is what I find a little frustrating about the helmet debate - we always seem to be arguing at cross-purposes. About the only thing that helmet wearers argue is that the do work to some extent at protecting you. We could (do) argue all day about the extent to which they protect you and the scale risk they are protecting you against - but the scale of the anecdotal evidence suggests they DO protect you and there is SOME risk. (We almost NEVER argue for compulsion).

That being the case, those wearing helmets contribute to a broad reduction in head injuries (again, we have argued all day as to the scale). If all helmet wearers stopped wearing helmets tomorrow, head injuries would increase. Not only would the perception of cycling being dangerous increase, the real risk would increase and so would the likelihood of compulsion. Both James Cracknell & the good Prof MIGHT be dead.

So, in my belief anyway, it's not those that are wearing helmets that are likely to cause compulsion, it's those not wearing them that will. The fact that people that DO wear helmets argue against compulsion adds far more weight to the anti-compulsion argument than those not wearing helmets. Individually we have nothing to lose from compulsion so can't be seen to be self-serving.

It's a bit like arguing that people who drive at the speed limit are the ones responsible for speed cameras to argue that helmet wearers are likely to cause compulsion.

thelawnet

meanredspider wrote:

That being the case, those wearing helmets contribute to a broad reduction in head injuries

No.

If all helmet wearers stopped wearing helmets tomorrow, head injuries would increase. Not only would the perception of cycling being dangerous increase, the real risk would increase and so would the likelihood of compulsion. Both James Cracknell & the good Prof MIGHT be dead.

If the good Prof were dead it would make no difference to the perception of cycling at all, another death is sadly just a statistic, but a story like this scares people. As for James Cracknell,. again if he were dead it would be very sad but normal people wouldn't really pay that much attention.

And besides if 1/3 in or fewer cyclists are helmet wearers the scope for injury rises, even assuming that helmets reduce injuries overall, which is not proven, is limited to 'noise', rather than anything scary. Cycling was not scary pre-helmet, and it is not scary in helmet-free countries such as the Netherlands.

What I think people do find scary is cyclists wearing helmets, they see it and they associate cycling with danger. The admission stats of the local A+E department are known only to a few nurses and doctors and the general public doesn't know about them.

It's a bit like arguing that people who drive at the speed limit are the ones responsible for speed cameras to argue that helmet wearers are likely to cause compulsion.

Well no, exceeding the speed limit is dangerous and harms others. Whether you wear a helmet or not there's never any collateral damage. A better analogy is if car drivers signed up to speed limiting devices in return for cheaper insurance. There would be a precedent for others to be similarly restricted.

greg66_tri_v2.0

thelawnet wrote:

What I think people do find scary is cyclists wearing helmets, they see it and they associate cycling with danger.

thelawnet wrote:

Well no, exceeding the speed limit is dangerous and harms others.

Please try to take this constructively, but you are either (charitably) prone to rash hyperbole or completely wrong headed.

jamesco

CiB wrote:

On Tuesday this week my son came off his bike for the second time in as many weeks, and came home with another pair of torn trousers, another grazed elbow and a sheepish grin again. He'd be better off wearing elbow & knee pads.

Does my anecdote add anything more than yours to the debate?

Nope, it doesn't, because it's a false analogy. Your son didn't strike his head, so a helmet wouldn't have helped; my girlfriend did hit the ground with her head and the helmet prevented a head-injury.

No-one is arguing for compulsion - your head, your choice. We spent 4 hours in the A&E department and would have spent a lot longer there if it hadn't been for that piece of polystyrene, but for yourself, it's your call.

HebdenBiker

I wonder how they got the Dangerous Driving charge to stick, rather than Careless Driving, which is what idiots who mow down cyclists usually get.

She must have been going very fast indeed, or else using her phone or something.

meanredspider

thelawnet wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

That being the case, those wearing helmets contribute to a broad reduction in head injuries

No.

.

If you believe helmets are entirely useless at protecting your head, we have absolutely no common ground and every other part of the discussion is pointless. But offered the choice of having your head bash/scrape something with or without a helmet, are you really telling me you'd pick the bare head? If so, I'll offer you the opportunity to smack me on the helmeted head with a rolling pin if I can do the same to your bare head....

The Rookie

While I can fully understand and accept the fact that helmets are not allways gong to help, net even always when your head hits/gets hit by something, its obvious to a blind man that there are a lot of situations where a helmet will reduce your risk of some injury.

As for wearing helmets making others think its not safe, you must think they are really stupid if they can't have an objective appreciation of the risks involved with cycling without it being so distorted by that image that the assessment is significantly wrong.

Simon

thelawnet

meanredspider wrote:

thelawnet wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

That being the case, those wearing helmets contribute to a broad reduction in head injuries

No.

.

If you believe helmets are entirely useless at protecting your head

That's not what I disputed.. Certainly if you tell me I need to bash my head against a brick wall I'd rather wear a helmet while doing so.

That doesn't tell us 'wearing helmets contribute to a broad reduction in head injuries' [while cycling on the road], given that cyclists do not simply smash their head against the wall, but rather suffer a diverse range of accidents with diverse causes and mitigating factors.

As I understand it, there is conflicting data on whether wearing helmets does or does not produce a net reduction in head injuries.

meanredspider

thelawnet wrote:

As I understand it, there is conflicting data on whether wearing helmets does or does not produce a net reduction in head injuries.

There is NO reliable data (I thought we established that earlier). I the absence of data, we look at other things, one of which you've just recognised: helmets protect your head in impacts. As I've said loads of times before, there's loads of folk on here that believe their helmet stopped them suffering worse injury and not one who believes their lid made matters worse. If stats were available, I'm sure they would show they do reduce head injuries simply based upon this - how can it be otherwise? There's probably no stats about reflective bike clothing reducing accidents yet no-one questions it - why helmets?

The Rookie

Its funny but I recall many of the same ullogical and blinkered arguments being made about seatbelts before they became a legal requirement (yes I'm an oldish fart) and also remember the near step change in the number killed behind the wheel when they were made compulsary......

There is none so blind as those that don't want to see!

Simon

thelawnet

The Beginner wrote:

Its funny but I recall many of the same ullogical and blinkered arguments being made about seatbelts before they became a legal requirement (yes I'm an oldish fart) and also remember the near step change in the number killed behind the wheel when they were made compulsary......

Except that helmets have been made compulsory in various jurisdictions already, so we are able to judge the efficacy,j and the number killed has NOT fallen. You can't argue that because one piece of safety equipment is effective that another that does an entirely different job must also be effective, it's a silly argument.

There is none so blind as those that don't want to see!

Indeed

meanredspider

thelawnet wrote:

Except that helmets have been made compulsory in various jurisdictions already, so we are able to judge the efficacy,j and the number killed has NOT fallen.

[/quote]

There is NO reliable data. With cars it's pretty easy, you can track registrations, fuel sold, tax, tyres, accidents (insurance claims) etc etc and draw some pretty accurate conclusions. With bikes there's no such data. All these people who stop cycling because of compulsory helmets could well be people like my wife who has done about 5 miles on her bike in the last 5 years. Impact on health = 0. But, the point is, if compulsory helmet wearing was introduced in 6 months, who would have any accurate data on cycle miles, cyclists etc etc? No-one.

Agent57

jamesco wrote:

CiB wrote:

On Tuesday this week my son came off his bike for the second time in as many weeks, and came home with another pair of torn trousers, another grazed elbow and a sheepish grin again. He'd be better off wearing elbow & knee pads.

Does my anecdote add anything more than yours to the debate?

Nope, it doesn't, because it's a false analogy. Your son didn't strike his head, so a helmet wouldn't have helped

What? No, but he did come home with a grazed elbow & torn trousers; hence "he'd be better off wearing elbow & knee pads." What's wrong with that as a parallel?

jamesco

Agent57 wrote:

What? No, but he did come home with a grazed elbow & torn trousers; hence "he'd be better off wearing elbow & knee pads." What's wrong with that as a parallel?

Helmets and other protective gear (except another helmet...) are not mutually exclusive, so there's no need to choose between them. The accident didn't involve CiB's son's head and a helmet would have been irrelevant; so what? It doesn't affect the argument that helmets prevent head-injuries.

There is no parallel here: one accident involved a blow to the head, the other didn't.

Agent57

You're missing the point. I can't tell if that's deliberate or not.

Kieran_Burns

...sigh...

it's like car crash TV isn't it?

jamesco

Agent57 wrote:

You're missing the point. I can't tell if that's deliberate or not.

Maybe I am missing the point! I just can't see how CiB's story is relevant - no head impact, so nothing to do with helmets. My girlfriend hit her head and the helmet prevented injury; CiB's son didn't hit his head. Yes, knee pads would have been more useful in that particular situation, but that shows nothing about the effectiveness of helmets and there's no actual need to choose between them; therefore, the story really is less relevant.

If you were to get thirsty on your ride tomorrow, would you then say that you'd have been better off with a drink-bottle, rather than a helmet???

CiB

Is this still going on?

I don't care for helmets as I take the view that for all the faff involved in having to wear one for every single ride, they don't offer much benefit. My boy backed this up by falling off twice, which if nothing else shows he pays attention in Science as he did a control experiment. For my part me not wearing a helmet doesn't sway injury stats either way as I haven't fallen off in quite a few years and a good few thousand miles.

Glad to see some of you got the point about the boy's tumble.

Clank

Kieran_Burns wrote:

...sigh...

it's like car crash TV isn't it?

I have popcorn - want some?

Shall we get a book running on when JR chimes in with helmet cams?

tarquin_foxglove

The Beginner wrote:

Its funny but I recall many of the same ullogical and blinkered arguments being made about seatbelts before they became a legal requirement and also remember the near step change in the number killed behind the wheel when they were made compulsary..

It made it safer for drivers & front seat passengers but the numbers of rear seat passengers, pedestrians and cyclists killed rose.

This is where the 'risk compensation' argument gets raised. Drivers felt safer & were safer, so drove faster more often with the result that when it went wrong they killed people other than themselves.

Obviously the solution, rather than dealing with the drivers, is protection for everyone... rear seatbelts, road improvements, air bags, railings, helmets, hi-vis etc.