Ronaldo Jeremiah wrote:

(Tom Kunich) wrote in message . com...

Tim McNamara wrote in message ...

"psycholist" writes:


People around here don't need any real proof to be convinced that
Lance is a doper, but they need proof that a helmet makes sense to
wear.

Nah, lots of us want proof on both counts.

As a significant comment on the pertinent article - they claim that a
helmet seems to save some 15% of youth fatalities.


An important distinction - they say this about *helmet laws*, not
helmets. The actual effect for helmets themselves may be higher if we
account for noncompliance, which may be substantial in this case (or
not, but still the distinction needs to be made).

In other words, requiring kids to wear helmets does not mean every one
of them will. This study appears to be examining the effect of the
legislation, which can only approach and never exceed the effect that
would be attained by perfect compliance.

Based on my quick skimming of the article, it appeared they did not have
any direct data on changes in ridership resulting from the introduction
of helmet laws. They claimed that there was no such effect based on not
seeing any increase in pedestrian fatalities (which might be expected if
cyclists switched to walking instead) or in motor vehicle miles. I'm
skeptical of their conclusions since even a pretty substantial reduction
in ridership with previous riders now getting rides from parents would
have only a very minor impact on total motor vehicle miles driven and
might not be detected in the statistics. Also recreational (i.e just
for fun) riding by juveniles may have been replaced by other activities
such as playing video games, etc.

Previous studies have shown substantial reductions in ridership upon the
introduction of helmet laws and such a reduction could easily account
for all of the observed 15% decline in fatalities even if helmets were
totally ineffective. Locally (northern Cal.) there was an obvious
reduction in the number of bicycles in school bike racks immediately
following the introduction of the juvenile helmet law and the numbers
have remained lower than they were before.

Their discussion of cost/benefit ratio appeared to assume the only cost
of the helmet law was the monetary and inconvenience cost of the
helmets. But if ridership decreases then there are also the health
benefits of cycling that are lost as a consequence of such laws.
Hillman's study for the British Med. Assoc. indicated that for every
year of life lost due to cycling accidents there were 20 years of life
gained due to the beneficial effects of the cycling-related exercise. A
helmet law that results in reducing ridership by as little as 5% would
therefore have a net detrimental effect on overall years of life even if
helmets were 100% effective in reducing fatalities (which is clearly not
the case).