Another doctor questions helmet research

On Sat, 07 Aug 2004 12:37:26 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote:

steve wrote:

[regarding http://www.imt.ie/displayarticle.asp...724&NS=1&SID=1 ]

I don't get why anyone points this out any more. If you want to wear a
helmet wear one. If not don't. If you live in a country where it's the
law then talk to your legislators media and acquaintances.

Statistics have nothing to do with it at all. I could care less if I
have a 1 in 440 chance of killing myself with a helmet on or off. If
you think that if you hitting your head with your helmet off will hurt
less than hitting it with the helmet on, please do so repeatedly.

It's not brain sugery you know. Or is it?

People point this out because there's a tremendous amount of
misinformation being published by helmet promoters. The misinformation
makes people believe that bicycling is very dangerous, and that helmets
are very effective. Both ideas are wrong.

Hang on. I've seen lamentations that helmet proponents cannot
produce data to show that bicycle helmets are effective at preventing
injury.

Now that you've gone and claimed that bicycle helmets AREN'T
effective, I'd like to see YOUR data.

As a motorcyclist of some fifteen years, I believe in the ability
of a motorcycle helmet to reduce the impulse passed through to my
brain from a four-foot fall from the saddle to the pavement. On the
surface of it, I don't see any particular reason why the EPS foam in a
bicycle helmet would not offer at least *some* attenuation of the
impulse delivered to a bicyclist's brain, albeit perhaps less than
that provided by a motorcycle helmet.

--
Chris BeHanna
Software Engineer (Remove "allspammersmustdie" before responding.)

I was raised by a pack of wild corn dogs.

On Mon, 09 Aug 2004 09:54:02 GMT, Chris BeHanna
wrote:

On Sat, 07 Aug 2004 12:37:26 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote:

steve wrote:

[regarding http://www.imt.ie/displayarticle.asp...724&NS=1&SID=1 ]

I don't get why anyone points this out any more. If you want to wear a
helmet wear one. If not don't. If you live in a country where it's the
law then talk to your legislators media and acquaintances.

Statistics have nothing to do with it at all. I could care less if I
have a 1 in 440 chance of killing myself with a helmet on or off. If
you think that if you hitting your head with your helmet off will hurt
less than hitting it with the helmet on, please do so repeatedly.

It's not brain sugery you know. Or is it?

People point this out because there's a tremendous amount of
misinformation being published by helmet promoters. The misinformation
makes people believe that bicycling is very dangerous, and that helmets
are very effective. Both ideas are wrong.

Hang on. I've seen lamentations that helmet proponents cannot
produce data to show that bicycle helmets are effective at preventing
injury.

Now that you've gone and claimed that bicycle helmets AREN'T
effective, I'd like to see YOUR data.


Quick-and-dirty: have motorcyclist fatality rates over the past
fifteen years increased, declined, or remained the same?

Then: have cyclist fatality rates the past fifteen years increased,
declined, or remained the same?

-Luigi

Chris BeHanna wrote in message news:pan.2004.08.09.09.53.57.455442@allspammersmu stdie.behanna.org...
On Sat, 07 Aug 2004 12:37:26 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote:


People point this out because there's a tremendous amount of
misinformation being published by helmet promoters. The misinformation
makes people believe that bicycling is very dangerous, and that helmets
are very effective. Both ideas are wrong.

Hang on. I've seen lamentations that helmet proponents cannot
produce data to show that bicycle helmets are effective at preventing
injury.

Now that you've gone and claimed that bicycle helmets AREN'T
effective, I'd like to see YOUR data.

Excuse me, but helmeteers are those who need to show data and not the
other way around. The idea that one inch of foamed plastic can save
anyone's life save on the sheerest of coincidence is pretty outrageous
and the lengths to which "studies" have gone to distort or misused
statistics seems to prove that point more than not.

As a motorcyclist of some fifteen years, I believe in the ability
of a motorcycle helmet to reduce the impulse passed through to my
brain from a four-foot fall from the saddle to the pavement.

Nice wording and JUST the sort of thing that I am discussing.

Something on the order of 95% of all bicycle fatalities (and
practically 100% of motorcycle fatalities) is due to collision with
motor vehicles at relatively high velocities (anything over 14 mph
combined speeds). In these accidents in almost every case there are
multiple fatal injuries to the victim.

One of the problems with gathering data on any sort of fatalities is
that the statistics are derived from death certificates generally
filled out by either emergency room personel or personal doctors.
These people are doing reams of paperwork all the time and simplify
their own tasks as much as possible. In this case they tend to put
only the most immediate cause of death on the death certificates and
so although the victim had his rib cage crushed and his heart
punctured, his spine broken in three places and excessive loss of
blood they will invariably write for cause of death, "head trauma".
Those of us who have seen some of these accidents also know that often
that "head trauma" was to the face and jaw since it is instinctual to
LOOK where you are flying.

While you might be able to say that a helmet works in a fall from the
seat to the ground, that is not the sort of accidents in which people
die.

It doesn't matter WHAT you choose to believe or what you choose to
wear, always be alert and remember that your actions can put you in
danger or save you every time you ride. Stay ALERT.

Chris BeHanna wrote:


Hang on. I've seen lamentations that helmet proponents cannot
produce data to show that bicycle helmets are effective at preventing
injury.

Now that you've gone and claimed that bicycle helmets AREN'T
effective, I'd like to see YOUR data.

As a motorcyclist of some fifteen years, I believe in the ability
of a motorcycle helmet to reduce the impulse passed through to my
brain from a four-foot fall from the saddle to the pavement. On the
surface of it, I don't see any particular reason why the EPS foam in a
bicycle helmet would not offer at least *some* attenuation of the
impulse delivered to a bicyclist's brain, albeit perhaps less than
that provided by a motorcycle helmet.

I guess I could say "see the archives," since this has been discussed in
these forums for over ten years. But I know that's unsatisfactory.
Many helmet posts are mindless schoolkid stuff ("You must not have a
brain to protect!!!") and it would take you a long time to find the
wheat among the chaff, so to speak.

But before I point you to some sites, let me clarify something. AFAIK,
nobody questions the fact that bike helmets "offer at least *some*
attenuation," and that they also reduce minor injuries like scrapes and
bruises.

What seems to be true, though, is that their level of protection is very
low. This is confirmed by reading the certification standards.

They don't seem to reduce the serious head injuries per rider when they
are widely adopted. This has been seen by examining data from America,
New Zealand, and Australia. (The latter two have implemented and
enforced mandatory helmet laws for all ages, generating lots of data.)

They do seem to convince riders that they are super-protected, and lead
to riskier behavior. This is anecdotal, but the anecdotes abound.
("I'd never ride there without my helmet!")

Helmet promotion is based on two cornerstones: that cycling is extremely
dangerous regarding head injuries, and that helmets prevent 85% of those
injuries. Both ideas are clearly false. But helmet promoters
cheerfully use misleading information to advance their agenda. That
sounds harsh, but I can give examples of what I mean.

Some websites to get you started a www.cyclehelmets.org, and the
"helmet FAQ" at http://www.magma.ca/~ocbc/ I'd suggest following a
couple dozen of the links, and reading some of the original research
papers on the topic. Once you've done that, we can continue the discussion.


Incidentally, the journal Injury Prevention currently has some online
discussion that will give you an example of how the debate runs in
places other than Usenet. Briefly, a paper was published by IP to prove
that, yes, helmets do help. But readers found mathematical, then
logical, errors in the paper that completely invalidated its
conclusions. The feedback explaining this is at
http://ip.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/9/3/266

still, based on past practice, I can almost guarantee that helmet
promoters will ignore the mistakes in the paper. That paper will be
cited by others as "proof" that helmets are wonderful.


--
--------------------+
Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com,
replace with cc.ysu dot edu]

"Luigi de Guzman" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 09 Aug 2004 09:54:02 GMT, Chris BeHanna

Quick-and-dirty: have motorcyclist fatality rates over the past
fifteen years increased, declined, or remained the same?

Can't tell because putting in helmet laws have caused huge decreases in
motorcycle use and it's very difficult to get a handle on the differences
between the before and after law conditions. When I looked at it several
years ago it appeared to me that the rates of death increased with helmet
laws but that was probably because only the most daring riders were willing
to continue riding with helmets.

When Florida dropped their helmet law in 2001 there were predictions that
motorcycle fatalities would rise. They didn't.

When Australia and New Zealand introduced mandatory helmet laws there were
predictions that head injuries for bicyclists would demonstrate a reduction.
They didn't.

My conclusion is that the only real effect of a helmet for a motorcyclist or
a bicyclist is that it makes them feel safer and they tend to ride more
carelessly. This offsets any minor injury prevention a helmet may produce.

Then: have cyclist fatality rates the past fifteen years increased,
declined, or remained the same?

I've charted that out and you can reach your own conclusions:

http://www.magma.ca/~ocbc/kunich.html

There's a chart down the page that demonstrates the relationship between
bicyclists and pedestrians. Bell brought out the first bike helmet in about
'83 but because they looked so dorky they didn't start getting popular until
after 1990 and then they weren't that common until about '94 or so.

Note that during the time of these statistics helmets were invented and
becoming almost universally used by the vast majority of recreational riders
in the USA. I don't know where you live but in California seeing someone
without a helmet is quite unusual and I'd estimate that only about 5% of
bicyclists ride without helmets.

"Frank Krygowski" wrote in message
...


Incidentally, the journal Injury Prevention currently has some online
discussion that will give you an example of how the debate runs in
places other than Usenet. Briefly, a paper was published by IP to prove
that, yes, helmets do help. But readers found mathematical, then
logical, errors in the paper that completely invalidated its
conclusions. The feedback explaining this is at
http://ip.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/9/3/266

Well, that debate looks a lot like usenet to me.
Avery Burdett used to post here often, and was a frequent contributor to
helmet threads.
Guy Chapman is also a frequent poster to bicycle newsgroups; James Annan has
frequently posted there also.
That's 3 of the 5 articles in this debate (not counting the author's reply).
I'll let somebody else Google the other 2.

I'm not saying these guys are wrong, just that their views are hardly a
revelation.

"Mike Kruger" wrote in message
.. .
"Frank Krygowski" wrote in message
...


Incidentally, the journal Injury Prevention currently has some online
discussion that will give you an example of how the debate runs in
places other than Usenet. Briefly, a paper was published by IP to prove
that, yes, helmets do help. But readers found mathematical, then
logical, errors in the paper that completely invalidated its
conclusions. The feedback explaining this is at
http://ip.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/9/3/266

Well, that debate looks a lot like usenet to me.
Avery Burdett used to post here often, and was a frequent contributor to
helmet threads.

Avery is a really good guy but he has a hard-on about helmets because of
dumb mandatory laws. Nevertheless he has gathered a lot of good material at
his site and it's worth looking at.

Luigi de Guzman wrote:


Quick-and-dirty: have motorcyclist fatality rates over the past
fifteen years increased, declined, or remained the same?

The word "rates" makes the answer complicated. See this article for
some interesting discussion.


http://www.forbes.com/fyi/99/0503/041.htm


--
--------------------+
Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com,
replace with cc.ysu dot edu]

Mike Kruger wrote:

"Frank Krygowski" wrote in message
...


Incidentally, the journal Injury Prevention currently has some online
discussion that will give you an example of how the debate runs in
places other than Usenet. Briefly, a paper was published by IP to prove
that, yes, helmets do help. But readers found mathematical, then
logical, errors in the paper that completely invalidated its
conclusions. The feedback explaining this is at
http://ip.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/9/3/266


Well, that debate looks a lot like usenet to me.
Avery Burdett used to post here often, and was a frequent contributor to
helmet threads.
Guy Chapman is also a frequent poster to bicycle newsgroups; James Annan has
frequently posted there also.
That's 3 of the 5 articles in this debate (not counting the author's reply).
I'll let somebody else Google the other 2.

I'm not saying these guys are wrong, just that their views are hardly a
revelation.

I was hoping people would notice that the debate was quite detailed,
about specific mathematical points. And that the authors acknowledged
at least one rather glaring mistake in their work.

That debate is serious enough, and has enough mathematical depth and
scientific validity, that the journal treats it seriously and publishes
it online.

And unlike Usenet, there are no remarks like "Yeah? Well let me hit you
in the head with a two-by-four..." It really is at a much higher level.


--
--------------------+
Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com,
replace with cc.ysu dot edu]

Tom Kunich Wrote:

Avery is a really good guy but he has a hard-on about helmets because
of
dumb mandatory laws. Nevertheless he has gathered a lot of good
material at
his site and it's worth looking at.

Holy hell! What a metaphor "has a hard-on about helmets".

Tom - I'd be more inclined to refer to the Helmet Hitlers as having "a
hard-on about helmets". Can you picture it - the Helmet Hitlers,
replete with their hard-on, goose stepping along with their
outstretched arm in salute and chanting "Heil Helmet".


--
RogerDodger