culture of fear
 

When I were young, there was a concerted push by helmet manufacturers (Bell in particular) to bring about the mandatory helmet laws that we have now. Much of the propaganda being used in their campaign was based around personalising injury - lots of gory anecdotes - and overemphasising injury statistics.

The reason they ran their campaign was first and foremost profit. They're a manufacturer of a safety product, and they're hardly going to sell their product if people perceive the activity to be safe now, are they? Much of the bike industry got on board as well, for much the same reason. Just do the math - at that point there were fortunes to be made in selling crappy stackhats to all and dundry, and a whole lot of bike shops did quite well.

Alas it's a shortsighted thing to do, much like selling the farm for the profit. You end up with fewer people engaging in the activity because you've poisoned it. The helmet manufacturers don't give a damn - they just do the rinse-repeat thing in the next market (UK, US, wherever) using us as a shining example.

culture of fear
 

On 31/05/2011 2:19 PM, suzyj wrote:
Alas it's a shortsighted thing to do, much like selling the farm for the profit. You end up with fewer people engaging in the activity because you've poisoned it. The helmet manufacturers don't give a damn - they just do the rinse-repeat thing in the next market (UK, US, wherever) using us as a shining example.

I have come off my bike a few times and so far I have noticed that none
of my injuries have been around the cranial area. Yes, a coupla of the
injuries have been facial and the helmet would have been useless in
those cases anyway.

Looking at it from your perspective, one does wonder if helmet laws are
pointless in the first place and taken in conjunction with the Horton
article, the "construction of fear" contention seems very real. I dunno.

culture of fear
 

In aus.bicycle on Tue, 31 May 2011 14:46:02 +1000
Geoff Lock glock@home wrote:
On 31/05/2011 2:19 PM, suzyj wrote:
Alas it's a shortsighted thing to do, much like selling the farm for the profit. You end up with fewer people engaging in the activity because you've poisoned it. The helmet manufacturers don't give a damn - they just do the rinse-repeat thing in the next market (UK, US, wherever) using us as a shining example.

I have come off my bike a few times and so far I have noticed that none
of my injuries have been around the cranial area. Yes, a coupla of the
injuries have been facial and the helmet would have been useless in
those cases anyway.

Individual outcomes can never be predicted, only population outcomes.

And so far, there's no good population outcome information. That's
because there was no good measurement of exposure before the helmet
law and no good measurements after.

There was a widely circulated study showing a large drop in cyclist
numbers after helmet compulsion with the head injury rate of cyclists
holding steady. (And the head injury rate of pedestrians dropping)

The exposure data was some headcounts done in one area of Melbourne
before and after. Not really enough.

There's some data that cycling numbers are increasing, but injury
rates are difficult because while you would *think* that would be
measureable, lots don't get as far as hospital and those that do may
or may not be classified correctly. (eg if someone comes off on a bush
track, is that a road accident? Check the definition of "road related
area, it's not easy to know and it's down to whoever is coding at the
time)

Like most "road safety" debates, this one is mostly about emotions
rather than facts and way too much "what about the children" and so
on. Not to mention politicians will never repeal legislation unless a
big donor wants them to.

Me, I think repealing it would be very sensible because then we could
have CBD bike hire schemes as successful as the one in London. While
there is helmet legislation hire bikes will not work.

Zebee