On Thursday, February 14, 2019 at 4:40:07 PM UTC-8, James wrote:
A pack of rabid Mandatory Helmet Law zealots in Australia (Raphael
Grzebieta, Jake Olivier (former USian), and some other clown who's name
eludes me), recently published a paper that looks at the ratio of
cycling fatalities per head of population in comparison with pedestrian
fatalities per head of population, before and after MHL-Day (1990-91).

They claim some 36% decline in cycling fatalities that are a direct
result of the MHL protecting cyclists from death.

They fail to acknowledge *any* reduction in participation due to the MHL
putting people off riding a bike, and IIRC they suggest there is no good
evidence that MHL puts people off riding a bike.

"In the absence of robust evidence showing a decline in cycling exposure
following helmet legislation or other confounding factors, the reduction
in Australian bicycle-related fatality appears to be primarily due to
increased helmet use and not other factors."

https://academic.oup.com/ije/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/ije/dyz003/5307412?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Just yesterday I was made aware of a recent study from a large USian
hospital, who examined some 1454 cycling ER cases. 14% wore a helmet.
35% of the helmeted cyclists suffered serious head injuries. 34% of
non-helmeted cyclists suffered serious head injures. There was no
difference in mortality (1% for both groups).

https://chembiopublishers.com/IJARO/IJARO180008.pdf?platform=hootsuite


How can both studies be correct?

--
JS

The paper I wrote showed no measurable difference between pedestrian fatalities and cycling fatalities before and after the advent of helmets. And practically everyone here started wearing helmets. I think that you can still find this one by searching Tom Kunich and bicycle safety helmets.

I did one as well on head injuries of motorcyclists before and after the massive use of helmets when I was the director of safety for the American Federation of Motorcyclists and again it showed nothing. But the claim then was that the extreme speeds of motorcycles were far beyond the scope of helmet protection. But helmets did work well on the track because virtually every crash was a slide-out. I think that after 5 years of racing that there were no fatalities on a road racing tracks and some of them such as Sears Point were pretty dangerous tracks.