Another little nugget for the helmet debate!

andrewjoseph

I read an article about helmets causing neck injuries in 'minor' accidents (where the impact alone may not have been enough to cause the injury).

Some helmet shapes, in some instances, can cause the head to twist more than would normally be expected.

Some manufactures have come up with a 'skin' that apparently helps reduce this.

google for helmet skins or supmink.

I've been glad of my helmet on the many occasions I've fallen off, I've broken several helmets but never broken my head, not even a scratch.

If it didn't stop people getting on bikes, I'd be in favour of compulsory helmets, in the same way as I'm in favour of banning smoking. Some people need help doing what's good for them.

CyclingBantam

andrewjoseph wrote:

I read an article about helmets causing neck injuries in 'minor' accidents (where the impact alone may not have been enough to cause the injury).

Some helmet shapes, in some instances, can cause the head to twist more than would normally be expected.

Some manufactures have come up with a 'skin' that apparently helps reduce this.

google for helmet skins or supmink.

I've been glad of my helmet on the many occasions I've fallen off, I've broken several helmets but never broken my head, not even a scratch.

If it didn't stop people getting on bikes, I'd be in favour of compulsory helmets, in the same way as I'm in favour of banning smoking. Some people need help doing what's good for them.

But all the research shows it does and that is the largest point of this discussion.

thelawnet

jehannum5 wrote:

WTF? How is it possible that there is an argument? I am a crit care nurse working in a neuro ICU, and a guy who rides to my shift. I can't see a reasonable argument about wearing helmets.

Not wearing a simple device that slows the kinetic energy imparted onto the skull and transmitted to the nerves in the brain seems like a simple intelligence test to me.

You can take the research as you will, look at the physics of the matter...and then come to a shift with me and see the devastation that results from head injuries.

Yes it's personal choice (unless compelled by law) but I shivered at the comment by some dude who didn't give a rats whether his kids wore helmets.....

I don't.

Even though my son has permanent scarring on the top of his forehead.

From falling over in the garden.

I see lots of kids on bikes putting themselves at substantial risk through inexperienced riding, and they have got helmets on. It's insane. Proper cycle safety is provided by safe riding, not through magic plastic hats.

The comment that ...oh it makes my head bigger therefore more likely to strike the road!!!! Jeezus... come on people...... There is no argument that doesn't result from cosmetics.

There are plenty of arguments, which you can easily Google and rebutt at your leisure.

Why don't you wear a helmet when driving? You get far more car occupants admitted to your ICU than cyclists.

bearfraser

"Titanic" life boats, well the lack of was apparently down to aesthetics of making the ship look good and of course cost. Do the same factors apply to those who dont wear helmets ????????

Hoopdriver

I think that is probably a lot of it. THat and a kind of childish petulance - I don't wanna, I don't hafta, and I won't!

Logic doesn't enter into it at all

EKE_38BPM

thelawnet wrote:

...Even though my son has permanent scarring on the top of his forehead...

Thats OK, chicks dig scars.

meanredspider

andrewjoseph wrote:

I read an article about helmets causing neck injuries in 'minor' accidents (where the impact alone may not have been enough to cause the injury).

.

And yet, from all the anecdotal stories that have appeared on here about people being "saved" (to some extent or another) by their lids, not one of someone to whom this (or anything else bad from what I've seen) happen to them.

CyclingBantam wrote:

But all the research shows it does and that is the largest point of this discussion.
.

Except there's no qualitative element to this. My wife has cycled 3 miles in the last 5 years. If helmet compulsion were introduced and she had no lid, she'd have stopped "cycling". Big deal. Yet - shock horror - she'd be a statistic. Health impact = 0. I wonder how many people who actually cycled enough to gain any health benefit actually stopped because of helmet compulsion. Any "research" showing the reduction of miles cycled (rather than the number of people with a bike in their shed now no longer used)?

snailracer

CyclingBantam wrote:

andrewjoseph wrote:

...
If it didn't stop people getting on bikes, I'd be in favour of compulsory helmets, in the same way as I'm in favour of banning smoking. Some people need help doing what's good for them.

But all the research shows it does and that is the largest point of this discussion.

No they don't - there are always confounding factors and issues with interpretation that muddy every safety study ever conducted.

IMO, the main issue with the oft-quoted Australian studies is that the absolute numbers of people who cycle there are tiny - only about 1% of commuting there is by bike. Therefore, it only takes a tiny proportion of commuters to switch, for reasons not necessarily related to the enforcement of helmet laws, to massively change the number of bike commuters. For example, a change in the number of bike commuters from 1% to 1.5% may seem to be a massive 50% rise, but is only 0.5% for commuters as a whole. If, for example, buses got cheaper, a lot of commuters would switch from bikes to the bus - most commuters are not "dedicated" bike commuters, they simply choose what's currently the best choice for them. The Australian studies are thus very susceptible to uncompensated, confounding factors because of low bike use: it is hard to pick out the signal from the noise, because there isn't much signal and lots of noise.

The numerous American studies which show lower rates of bike usage in states with helmet laws are also questionable - it just so happens that those states are coastal states which are more "developed" and thus have busier roads with more traffic on them - and I could reasonably claim it's the busier traffic that puts off cyclists.

Conclusion from "medical" studies can, by definition, never be conclusive, at least not to the standards medical researchers themselves consider "conclusive". That is because you can't do a "double-blind" controlled study when it comes to helmets - it's obvious when you're wearing one, both to yourself and others, and that likely affects cyclist and motorist behaviour.

CyclingBantam

meanredspider wrote:

andrewjoseph wrote:

I read an article about helmets causing neck injuries in 'minor' accidents (where the impact alone may not have been enough to cause the injury).

.

And yet, from all the anecdotal stories that have appeared on here about people being "saved" (to some extent or another) by their lids, not one of someone to whom this (or anything else bad from what I've seen) happen to them.

CyclingBantam wrote:

But all the research shows it does and that is the largest point of this discussion.
.

Except there's no qualitative element to this. My wife has cycled 3 miles in the last 5 years. If helmet compulsion were introduced and she had no lid, she'd have stopped "cycling". Big deal. Yet - shock horror - she'd be a statistic. Health impact = 0. I wonder how many people who actually cycled enough to gain any health benefit actually stopped because of helmet compulsion. Any "research" showing the reduction of miles cycled (rather than the number of people with a bike in their shed now no longer used)?

People don't always stop, it is the people who don't start because of having to wear a helmet. There is no point us arguing the validity of every single peice of evidence as it is a pointless argument. I can't 'win' in the same way you can't.

The same 'common sense' that dictates wearing a helmet may prevent some injuries tels you that if you make helmets compulsary, less people will cycle.

SimonAH

Stop!! Please just stop!!

Everytime I visit this forum and see this same crappy no-win argument going on for page after page after page it makes me want to leave and never come back.

Nobody can conclusively win either way - you may as well argue about whether Punk or Ska were more musically valid. Nobody is being convinced or having their opinions changed in any way - all you are doing is getting increasingly fluffed up at each other.

I repeat, Please, for the love of Mike, stop posting - let this 'king thread die and talk about more interesting things.

CiB

SimonAH wrote:

you may as well argue about whether Punk or Ska were more musically valid.

Punk, no question. That's just an unarguable fact. I don't recall Buster Bloodvessel & his mates doing anything as exciting as Holidays In The Sun. Or Bodies for that matter.

Next - Waitrose, or Sainsburys? I'll give it till 10 past 3 for the Alan Coren quote to appear then post it myself.

snailracer

SimonAH wrote:

Stop!! Please just stop!!

Everytime I visit this forum and see this same crappy no-win argument going on for page after page after page it makes me want to leave and never come back.

Nobody can conclusively win either way - you may as well argue about whether Punk or Ska were more musically valid. Nobody is being convinced or having their opinions changed in any way - all you are doing is getting increasingly fluffed up at each other.

I repeat, Please, for the love of Mike, stop posting - let this 'king thread die and talk about more interesting things.

Stop?? But it's like the Eton Wall game - no-one ever scores a goal, but the futile struggle builds character. You have to pay good money for that sort of education.

alfablue

SimonAH wrote:

Stop!! Please just stop!!

Everytime I visit this forum and see this same crappy no-win argument going on for page after page after page it makes me want to leave and never come back.

Nobody can conclusively win either way - you may as well argue about whether Punk or Ska were more musically valid. Nobody is being convinced or having their opinions changed in any way - all you are doing is getting increasingly fluffed up at each other.

I repeat, Please, for the love of Mike, stop posting - let this 'king thread die and talk about more interesting things.

It may not be all about winning.

Futile as it may seem, I think there is some psychological need for this thread (and the frequent other incarnations of the same topic). Practicing the different arguments / reading them will help people formulate their own views, and very occasionally we may get new evidence, new interpretations or new views. Surely this is the obvious place for such discussion, regardless of its possible futility.

shouldbeinbed

Hoopdriver wrote:

Shouldbeinbed - Que?

Seat belts on planes aren't about crash safety? Really?

And what of the life vests, life rafts, escape chutes and oxygen masks? What are they for? Do tell, I'm dying to hear.

And life rafts and vests and lifeboat drills on ships are not about protecting you from harm at the point of sinking? Huh? THey are merely to keep you afloat, you say, until rescue arrives. I'm sorry to disillusion you but if you are not afloat, you will most certainly have harm.

And insurance? No need for that either, I suppose. Waste of time and money and only for the skittish hand-wringing few.

Go back to bed. Get well soon.

oh dear god, glad I'thought better and edited it, shame it was not quickly enough.

please stick to the things I mentioned, you've brought up the other paraphenalia, I never went near it, so spare me that nonsense and your feeble attempt at sarcasm.

and I said they were in part a means of identifying an otherwise unrecognisable hunk of flesh if its still safely strapped into its numbered seat after a fire explosion or a very long fall onto a very hard surface

and I'm still spot on about liferaft analogy. as I stated a liferaft isn't a whole lot of use AT THE POINT OF SINKING its keeping you propped up in the aftermath until help arrives. so it is an entirely spurious analogy for a helmet something that is intended to protect you at the point of impact not for the minutes after until the ambulance arrives.

Insurance???? i didn't even mention insurance, FFS.

you want to go off on mad flights of fantasy about what wasn't said be my guest but don't expect me to waste my time pretending I did just to humour you.

I'm also perfectly well thank you, it's not me hallucinating stuff.

And not for the first time in this route march of futility, god help anyone reading your journalism if they're hoping for anything barely resembling accuracy.

CyclingBantam

Thats no way to speak to him Shouldbeinbed!

He was taught by an "old school sub editor" don't you know.

Hoopdriver

I know you didn't mention insurance. I never said you did. I mentioned it as another case in point. Not one, I notice, that you care to take up.

I don't know if you read much about the Air France tragedy and subsequent recovery of bodies from 12000 feet of water, but they are not looking through the seating plan to identify people - it's all DNA and tough going at that. One more argument against seat belts in your book, I suppose. THey didn't work.

You know nothing whatever about my journalism - who I write for or what I do and so your sad little comment at the end is meaningless; I have irritated you, been (admittedly) snotty in reply to what appear to me to be facile arguments, but nothing I have said is inaccurate - merely open to debate, and in opposition to your viewpoint. That's all.

Hoopdriver

CyclingBantam - does good English and the proper use of grammar bother you that much?

rjsterry

snailracer wrote:

The numerous American studies which show lower rates of bike usage in states with helmet laws are also questionable - it just so happens that those states are coastal states which are more "developed" and thus have busier roads with more traffic on them - and I could reasonably claim it's the busier traffic that puts off cyclists.

Conclusion from "medical" studies can, by definition, never be conclusive, at least not to the standards medical researchers themselves consider "conclusive". That is because you can't do a "double-blind" controlled study when it comes to helmets - it's obvious when you're wearing one, both to yourself and others, and that likely affects cyclist and motorist behaviour.

I think the medical world, specifically preventative drugs and vaccines offer some interesting parallels. One of the things about drugs and vaccines (and any other treatment) is that they all have side effects. The introduction of a particular set of safety measures will also have side effects, both positive and negative. In the case of bike helmets, the side effect might be the increased possibility of rotational injuries, and changes in the way one rides and how close motor vehicles pass, based on the perception of increased safety. Once you look at it this way, it's a lot easier to see why people in different situations come to differing conclusions as to the cost/benefit of wearing a helmet.

That there are various studies which seem to show different or even contradictory results is not surprising. If you think of the conclusion of each study as a single data point, then it's possible to imagine something like a Normal distribution of results, clustered around 'the answer', but by just looking at a few individual studies, we can't tell what that answer is. Going back to medicine, some meta-analysis of the various helmet studies is needed.

CyclingBantam

Hoopdriver wrote:

CyclingBantam - does good English and the proper use of grammar bother you that much?

No, being pompus, picking pointless holes in things others have said whilst at the same time making the same mistakes bothers me that much.

You obviously have a very high opinion of your language skills, quite why you choose to show off on a cycling forum is beyond me though.

For the record, I find your posts quite hard to read as they don't flow very well. It isn't a pleasing style to read. I'm not as intelligent as you though so maybe I'm just to thick.

tarquin_foxglove

rjsterry wrote:

That there are various studies which seem to show different or even contradictory results is not surprising. If you think of the conclusion of each study as a single data point, then it's possible to imagine something like a Normal distribution of results, clustered around 'the answer', but by just looking at a few individual studies, we can't tell what that answer is. Going back to medicine, some meta-analysis of the various helmet studies is needed.

[edited]Like this report on cycle helmets from the Institute of Transport Economics in Norway, in which a meta-analysis of the effects of bicycle helmets published in Accident Analysis and Prevention in 2001 has been re-analysed?

Access to full report here....

snailracer

rjsterry wrote:

snailracer wrote:

...
Conclusion from "medical" studies can, by definition, never be conclusive, at least not to the standards medical researchers themselves consider "conclusive". That is because you can't do a "double-blind" controlled study when it comes to helmets - it's obvious when you're wearing one, both to yourself and others, and that likely affects cyclist and motorist behaviour.

...
That there are various studies which seem to show different or even contradictory results is not surprising. If you think of the conclusion of each study as a single data point, then it's possible to imagine something like a Normal distribution of results, clustered around 'the answer', but by just looking at a few individual studies, we can't tell what that answer is. Going back to medicine, some meta-analysis of the various helmet studies is needed.

Unfortunately, doing lots of unblinded, uncontrolled tests does not get nearer "the answer" as far as medicine is concerned, because the placebo effect biases every one of those multiple tests. Which is why double-blind, controlled testing is done for drug development.

Hoopdriver

Cycling Bantam - you mean too thick, don't you, not to thick?

CyclingBantam

Hoopdriver wrote:

Cycling Bantam - you mean too thick, don't you, not to thick?

Point proven.

Too, To, Two. They all mean the same to me. I'm bored now if it has come down to highlighting typo's on the internet. Seems like you have more time on your hands than me as well.

Hoopdriver

You were the one who introduced grammar to the discussion just now, with your snotty aside about my having worked with an old school sub-editor in my younger days. (Did you notice I qualified that gerund with the possessive?)

Until you voiced up I was discussing seat belts and insurance and all that manner of business in a debate about the merits of helmet use in cycling.

tarquin_foxglove

tarquin_foxglove wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

some meta-analysis of the various helmet studies is needed.

[edited]Like this report on cycle helmets from the Institute of Transport Economics in Norway, in which a meta-analysis of the effects of bicycle helmets published in Accident Analysis and Prevention in 2001 has been re-analysed?

Access to full report here....

Interesting conclusion...

According to the new studies, no overall effect of bicycle helmets could be found when injuries to head, face or neck are considered as a whole.

CyclingBantam

Hoopdriver wrote:

CyclingBantam

My language might appear complex to you, and if you have difficulty understanding any of the 'bigger' words in it I am certainly sorry, but I can assure you that those big words and what appeared to you to be complex sentence structures were all used correctly. I have been a journalist for a good many years on some very demanding publications and was fortunate enough to have been taught grammar in school and later to have learned my craft as a writer from an old-school chief sub-editor who was very hot on precision in language, correct grammar and punctuation.

It is a pity these things are not taught anymore in school.

I also know enough - and am sufficiently concerned with accuracy - to quote someone accurately. At no point did I ever refer to anyone as a w@anker, but said that I believed riding without a helmet was dumb.

And I think misquoting someone in print - when the original is there before you - is similarly dumb.

You seem to be just arguing for the sake of it now. Like I say, you are a very clever chap who seemingly chooses to impress people on the internet. Hopefully it is something you enjoy. I have other hobbies so I won't join you on this occasion but thanks for the offer.

Over to you so you can have the last word.

rml380z

CiB wrote:

Next - Waitrose, or Sainsburys? I'll give it till 10 past 3 for the Alan Coren quote to appear then post it myself.

It's 3:40, and where's the quote?
I couldn't wait so had to look it up;
Sainsbury's do a great job - they keep the riff-raff out of Waitrose.

I don't think I can add anything more constructive on this thread

cee

surely though....

Next, waitrose or Sainsbury's is a terrible comparison...you can't buy broccoli in Next.....

Oh wait :oops:

andrewjoseph

CyclingBantam wrote:

If it didn't stop people getting on bikes, I'd be in favour of compulsory helmets, in the same way as I'm in favour of banning smoking. Some people need help doing what's good for them.

But all the research shows it does and that is the largest point of this discussion.[/quote]

Yes, I know.

andrewjoseph

bearfraser wrote:

"Titanic" life boats, well the lack of was apparently down to aesthetics of making the ship look good and of course cost. Do the same factors apply to those who dont wear helmets ????????

I believe it does. many people are put off buying a helmet, because it is extra cost, and for some people, buying a £100 bike is a considerable expense.

Lots of kids I have worked with don't like helmets because they don't look 'cool'.