Ontario Helmet Law being pushed through

"Just zis Guy, you know?" writes:

On Sun, 06 Feb 2005 06:59:40 GMT, (Bill Z.)
wrote in message :

When I once suggested that Krygowski et al. post a citation to at
least *one* study measuring a benefit for helmet use, no matter how
small, that he thought was valid. He declined, and others on his
"side" of the discussion became abusive at the mere suggestion.

Logical fallacy: burden of proof. We are not proposing an
intervention, the burden of proof lies solely with those who are.

Wrong - your "side" is making statements that helmets are ineffective.
It is up to you to back up that claim. Neither Steven nor I have
proposed any "intervention" (so suggesting that on your part is a red
herring.)

I'll snip the rest of what you say today as well - I'm busy and really
don't have time to deal with your trolling and continual bogus
arguments.


--
My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB

Steven M. Scharf wrote:
Mitch Haley wrote:

As opposed to the League of American Hand-Wringers, which has had
in
place a mandatory helmet law for over a decade. Their magazine will
not
publish a picture of a caucasian touching a bicycle if he/she isn't
wearing
a foam hat, and they strongly encourage affiliate clubs to
discriminate
against unhelmeted riders.


Mitch Haley's comment is generally correct. The League does specify
that helmets must be worn by all cyclists shown in their magazine's
photos. I believe they will allow rare exceptions, especially if the
cyclists are obviously indigenous to some other country - but they are
determined to promote the fantasy that "real cyclists" never ride
without foam hats.


However, regarding Steven Scharf's comment:

Well part of the discrimination is due to their insurance program.
They
offer good rates to clubs, but the company than underwrites the
insurance has the condition that clubs insured through them must
require
helmets on all rides.

Scharf, you are amazing! There seems to be no end to the mistaken
information you give as fact!

No, the League's insurance company does NOT require helmets. And
although the League does strongly recommend helmets, they do not
require them.

Here's a link to the "Safety Checklist" they want clubs to use when
organizing a ride:
http://www.bikeleague.org/members/safeychecklist.pdf
Note they "strongly recommend" but do not require helmet use.

Here's a link to the sample waiver that their insurance company wants
clubs to use: http://www.bikeleague.org/members/sample_waiver.pdf
Note that the word "helmet" does not even appear in that document.

I ran a League-affiliated century ride for seven years. We had many
hundreds of riders each year. I did NOT require helmets, and was never
told to require helmets. And lack of a helmet never caused a problem
for any rider.

It really is time for you to double check your facts before putting
your "World's Greatest Authority" stamp of approval on them!

Bill Z. wrote:


Wrong - your "side" is making statements that helmets are
ineffective.
It is up to you to back up that claim.

Personally, my view on the effectiveness of helmets is this:

The certification standard for helmets involves a test for only linear
deceleration in a roughly 14 mile per hour impact of a headform, less
body, onto a flat surface. I believe that helmets are somewhat
effective in mitigating injuries in crashes that duplicate that test.

However, I believe most crashes that cause significant injury differ
quite a bit from that test. That is, most significant bike crashes
involve impact speeds that are higher than 14 mph. And _most_ cyclists
have their head still attached to their body!

So, not surprisingly, I think that the actual protection of helmets is
largely limited to the tests they are designed and certified to pass.

I don't know why this would seem surprising.



Neither Steven nor I have
proposed any "intervention" (so suggesting that on your part is a red
herring.)

Oh please. Here we are in a thread discussing a mandatory helmet law,
and you and Steven are arguing as hard as you can against anything
anyone says against that law!

On Sun, 06 Feb 2005 16:48:54 GMT, "Steven M. Scharf"
wrote in message
et:

Well part of the discrimination is due to their insurance program.

False. Frank has already shown that this is not true.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

85% of helmet statistics are made up, 69% of them at CHS, Puget Sound

On Sun, 06 Feb 2005 19:40:03 GMT, (Bill Z.)
wrote in message :

Logical fallacy: burden of proof. We are not proposing an
intervention, the burden of proof lies solely with those who are.

Wrong - your "side" is making statements that helmets are ineffective.
It is up to you to back up that claim. Neither Steven nor I have
proposed any "intervention" (so suggesting that on your part is a red
herring.)

My "side" is challenging the helmet zealots to prove their case,
especially in the context of those zealots trying to force their
judgment on others (check the thread title). The fact that they seem
unable to do so, preferring to resort to ad-hominem, reversed burden
of proof, appeals to belief or simply putting their fingers in their
ears and chanting "tra la la I'm not listening" may be seen as
significant.

I am a small part of the group who produce http://www.cyclehelmets.org
- a site you denounce as "not credible" but without citing grounds.
Others who belong to or advise that group include John Franklin,
Britain's foremost cycling expert, Dr Richard Keatinge, a former
consultant epidemiologist, Professor Mayer Hillman, Professor John
Whitelegg, Dr Robert Davis, Professor John Adams and others (and in
the UK the title of professor is not given to any university lecturer
with tenure, my friend Prof. Higson is considered a shooting star
having achieved a professorship at the age of 40, less than twenty
years after his first appointment). You cite as a credible source
http://www.bhsi.org, run by Randy Swart who has said in an email to me
that he will not correct a known wrong figure because it would not be
helpful to those promoting helmets.

You downplay your position here - I wonder why? You are inclined to
argue ad nauseam against those who are sceptical, chiding them as
"anti-helmet" even when there is external objective evidence to
disprove this assertion, while at the same time randomly claiming that
you are not promoting helmets. Anybody who is prepared to spend
literally months arguing the aerodynamic benefit of helmets based on
evidence which says the opposite looks, to the outsider, like a helmet
zealot of the worst kind. If you are not promoting helmets, why do
you spend so much time arguing with those whose knowledge of the
research evidence is clearly so much greater than your own? Why not
leave it to helmet promoters who have at least studied the evidence in
detail? Frank and I are arguing the merits of research evidence from
the standpoint of actually having read it - you have admitted openly
to working only from abstracts in certain cases - denial of this is
pointless, I recently cited the post itself in the archive. Are you
simply arguing for the sake of it? You admitted previously that you
have not read the 1989 Seattle study - the most influential helmet
paper in the world. Have you read it yet? Have you read the papers
cited by the Cochrane review? Have you read all the Scuffham papers,
including the one which you had not read previously because the
library was closed for the holidays?

I'll snip the rest of what you say today as well - I'm busy and really
don't have time to deal with your trolling and continual bogus
arguments.

Translation: "Laa laa I'm not listening". Nice bit of projection,
though - amazing how often you have plenty of time to bandy ad-hominem
arguments, but run out just before you get round to posting actual
evidence.

Congratulations on your skilful steering of the thread away from your
failure to cite evidence for your assertions re high-mileage cyclists
and back into the ad-hominem, where you are evidently at your most
comfortable.

To clarify: your evidence is still awaited for the twin assertions
that high-mileage cyclists (definition of high-mileage not yet given
and also required) have a greater annual crash rate and a higher
helmet wearing rate.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

85% of helmet statistics are made up, 69% of them at CHS, Puget Sound

Steven M. Scharf wrote:
Bill Z. wrote:

On the contrary, your side has been claiming that helmets are not
effective and "our" side is suggesting that your claims are based on
inadequate evidence.


Oh please. There are no "sides" here. There are two people, Guy and
Frank, that ignore the volumes of evidence, and there is the ROW (rest
of world), that looks at things objectively.

It is true that cycling is not a dangerous activity, and that no
mandatory helmet laws are necessary, but there is no debate that
helmeted cyclists fare better than non-helmeted cyclists, when crashes
do occur.

There really is no argument over the logic that helmets do reduce head
injuries, but I would like the option of making the decision to wear a
helmet for myself. I have seen pedestrians who needed helmets, and this
is a true statement, having seen people slip on ice and hit their heads.
I was born in Chicago and went through some nasty winters where the
streets and sidewalks were covered in sheet ice. The streets got salted
but the sidewalks didn't, and there were plenty of downed pedestrians.
My sister broke her hip in one such incident, bad for her, but better
than breaking her head.
Just throwing in a different point of view here.
Bill Baka

"Steven M. Scharf" wrote in message
ink.net...
Riley Geary wrote:

I'm afraid you're still attempting to read far more into the Florida
data
than is actually warranted, despite all the reasons I laid out in a
previous
post as to why they should be treated with considerable caution.

Every study suffers from the possibility of self-selection.

The term more commonly used in the literature to describe the phenomenom
we're talking about is "selective recruitment."

I don't read
too much into any study, but the Florida data at least finally is a
direct comparison in injury and fatality rates between helmeted and
non-helmeted cyclists, when accidents occur.

So what do you make of the Florida motorcycle data indicating helmeted
motorcyclists there were twice as likely to find themselves in a fatal crash
relative to their bare-headed counterparts, at least until the MHL was
repealed in 2000? Or do you think that bicyclists are somehow exempt from
the same sort of risk compensation processes evidently at work among
motorcyclists?

It's far more useful than
statistical data from New Zealand, where you're comparing whole
population data without taking into account all the external factors.

In any study you're going to have the problem that, on average, the
people that wear helmets are going to be the higher-educated, more
careful, more experienced, riders.

In the absence of a MHL, this will probably be the case--at least in places
like North America, Australia, and New Zealand where helmets have long since
become a familiar part of the local cycling culture. I doubt the same
generalizations would necessarily apply in those parts of Europe, Asia, and
elsewhere that have seen relatively little use of bike helmets thus far. It
certainly wouldn't be the most experienced cyclists in such cultures who
would be among the earliest adopters of helmets. Rather, it would probably
be among the most fearful and/or cautious subgroup of cyclists.

I don't know how you could ever
account for this self-selection factor in a study.


Very simple really--just observe the differences in apparent helmet
effectiveness between states with a MHL and states without such a behaviour
modifying statute; or even better, the before-and-after changes observed
within the same state as it either adopts or repeals a MHL. Not only do we
have the examples of Florida and Louisiana that I've already discussed, we
also have SDS data from Georgia, Maryland, Michigan, and Pennsylvania as
well that indicates helmet users in most states with a MHL for motorcyclists
have a worse safety record overall relative to their unhelmeted
counterparts.

Riley Geary

"Steven M. Scharf" wrote in message
nk.net...
Riley Geary wrote:

I doubt that even most helmet skeptics would deny that bike helmets
confer
at least some benefit for those cyclists who do find themselves involved
in
a crash, but the real question of course is:

Unfortunately, there are a few people that do deny this. Not many, but a
few.

a) just how significant a benefit is confered? (obviously not nearly as
much
as the 30-35% benefit demonstrated for motorcycle helmets, let alone the
absurdly inflated 85% figure still quoted by most helmet promoters); and
more importantly

It can't be reduced to a single percentage. For fatalities, the data
shows around a 40% benefit, when crashes occur.

Once again, you seem to be confusing an apparent safety benefit, resulting
most likely from selective recruitment of helmet users among Florida's
bicyclists, with the real thing--which remains to be determined, but is
almost certainly much less than 40%. Or do you really believe that bike
helmets are even more effective at preventing death among bicyclists than
motorcycle helmets have been demonstrated to be among motorcyclists? This
might actually be the case for the relatively small minority of
non-traffic-related cycling fatalities, but is almost certainly not the case
for the overwhelming majority of traffic-related cycling fatalities.

40% is not magnitudes of
difference, but unfortunately it is high enough for some people to use
as a justification for repressive laws.

b) does increased helmet use, particularly that produced by a mandatory
helmet law, actually result in a net increase or decrease in the overall
safety record of the cyclists involved?

I doubt if you'll ever find data that specific. You can't do a
double-blind test, for obvious reasons.

We hardly need any "double-blind" tests, just accurately recorded helmet use
data for both fatally and non-fatally injured bicyclists--the same as what
we have for a significant number of states where motorcyclists are
concerned. Unfortunately, such data has been exceedingly hard to come by
thus far where bicyclists are concerned.


A simplistic focus on just the first part of this question while
ignoring
all the implications inherent in the second part is of no benefit at all
to
either cyclists or society in general.

Well I don't want to ignore the implications, but they are immaterial.

They are hardly "immaterial." Let's assume for the moment that the real
safety benefit of bike helmets really was a 40% reduction in the likelihood
of a fatal injury. Would it really be to anyone's benefit if the imposition
of a MHL on otherwise unwilling bicyclists thereby caused those now helmeted
cyclists to get into potentially fatal crashes 3 times as often on average
as they had when they didn't use helmets?

The fact that helmets reduce injuries and fatalities in the unlikely
event of a crash does not warrant the passage of intrusive laws.


The argument that risk compensation and the over-hyped safety benefits of
helmets conspire to prevent the reduction in injuries and fatalities
promised by the helmet promoters is what should really be effective in
defeating these needlessly intrusive and counterproductive laws.

We need to focus on the fact that serious crashes occur infrequently
enough that education, rather than mandates, are sufficient to
encourage helmet use.

But do we really want to mindlessly encourage helmet use even in the absence
of a MHL? The case of Utah seems rather cautionary with respect to
motorcycle helmets. Utah is the only non-MHL state I'm aware of where the
substantial majority of motorcyclists (70%) still use motorcycle helmets,
with the result being that motorcycle helmet use has no apparent overall
safety benefit at all.

Riley Geary

writes:

Bill Z. wrote:


Wrong - your "side" is making statements that helmets are
ineffective.
It is up to you to back up that claim.

Personally, my view on the effectiveness of helmets is this:

The certification standard for helmets involves a test for only linear
deceleration in a roughly 14 mile per hour impact of a headform, less
body, onto a flat surface. I believe that helmets are somewhat
effective in mitigating injuries in crashes that duplicate that test.

However, I believe most crashes that cause significant injury differ
quite a bit from that test. That is, most significant bike crashes
involve impact speeds that are higher than 14 mph. And _most_ cyclists
have their head still attached to their body!

I'll point out the propaganda trick - the term "significant bike
crashes" and "significant injury" can mean almost anything. Krygowksi
is basically defining it implicitly to be any crash too severe
for a helmet to have any change of helping. It has zero to do
with the sort of crash you might experience on the average should
you be unfortunate enough to be in one.

rest of post ignored - he's just playing is usual games.

--
My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB

b_baka writes:

Steven M. Scharf wrote:
Bill Z. wrote:

On the contrary, your side has been claiming that helmets are not
effective and "our" side is suggesting that your claims are based on
inadequate evidence.
Oh please. There are no "sides" here. There are two people, Guy and
Frank, that ignore the volumes of evidence, and there is the ROW
(rest of world), that looks at things objectively.
It is true that cycling is not a dangerous activity, and that no
mandatory helmet laws are necessary, but there is no debate that
helmeted cyclists fare better than non-helmeted cyclists, when
crashes do occur.

There really is no argument over the logic that helmets do reduce head
injuries, but I would like the option of making the decision to wear a
helmet for myself.

Unfortunately, these guys have been arguing that helmets do not reduce
head injuries for years. Some of them even claimed that helmets cause
injuries. I don't think you are familiar with the history of this
discussion (undertandable since some of it occurred years ago.)

--
My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB