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#52
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advisor wanted
wrote:
Is housework considered a hazardous acitivity? No. "considered", no, yet people are killed every year in domestic accidents. Try telling the victims that the house can't be a dangerous place (oh, you can't, because they're dead). It isn't very *likely* that you'll die, but it can happen. And that, when you look at the figures, is how it works for A to B cycling too. So do not compare apples and oranges. I'm not, if you actually stop and look at it. Pedestrians make a very useful control because they have similar accidents to cyclists at similar rates, and have had for all the time we have records. That is an assumption. Unless, of course you can cite a study saying specifically that. That if there are reductions in serious to minor injuries that the serious injury totals will fall? It's very, very simple arithmetic. It is "common sense", and you don't have any better basis for /your/ assumption. You said it should be easy to get those studoes/facts . . . I said it should be very easy to prove that helmets help /if they do/. I've looked at plenty of studies and facts, and what they tell me is there's no tangible reduction in serious injuries from helmet wearing. I even pointed you at www.cyclehelmets.org where there's a large collection, and a well referenced one at that, containing lots of citations both ways for anyone to study at their leisure. I have. Seems like you haven't. Sorry, Pete, you are. The study onlyu concerns serious injusries and nothing else. It misses taking into account a lot of variables that are imprtant to being able to make any categorical statement.\ You're being remarkably simplistic, as is evidenced by your use of singular "the study" for a huge collection of literature. It is easy to make a statement based on the serious injury data because it is controlled by the pedestrian data (demonstrably has been for years). And if we don't know the effect on minor injuries, well, they are by definition minor, and aren't going to get people killed. "Show me the casualty savings!" Pete. -- Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK net http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/ |
#53
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advisor wanted
wrote:
The cost of an ER visit for stiitching of head wounds (simple) is well over $500. You can check that for yourself (US hospitals). Cost of a helmet $100. Simple relationship. I asked you to show me the casualty savings. You haven't. If the high cost of an ER visit will put people off then the figures for visiting them will go down if there's any reason for them to go down. So where are those figures. "Show me the casualty savings!" Apples and oranges. Why is it when you do not have a csae you try to switch topics to something not directly related? I was demonstrating a mechanism for how helmets can alter rider behaviour to put them in increased danger. Since we're talking about reducing danger it is completely relevant. "Show me the casualty savings!" That you spent ANY time there is the issue. Or did that go right over your head? If there is any reason to reduce ER time because helmets have helped, this will be reflected in the serious injury figures. "Show me the casualty savings!" Cost of ER visit versus $100 for a helmet. If you can't do the math, I cannot help you. Must be the socialized school system problem. Let's see . . 1+1 = 2, 1+2 = 3, . . . So show me a figure for overall lessening of visits by cyclists beyond a lessening of visits for pedestrians as cycle helmet wearing has increased. That is very, very simple maths, and is all you need to do. "Show me the casualty savings!" You have assumed that the $100 helmet will help. I am pointing out that if it does the number of ER visits for serious injuries must fall compared to the control group. So show me that. And what part of a helmet may be responsible for the accident being non-seriopus do you not understand? The bit that has no reduction in the serious injuries. You were telling me about arithmetic: how's this: We have ~1,000 serious head injuries a year. Helmets are suddenly introduced and save, let's say 85% of these, downgrading them to lesser problems or eliminating the problems altogether. Next year we only have 150 serious head injuries. So, show me where something like that has happened. It doesn't have to be 85%, just any clear margin above the rates for pedestrians where they have previously mirrored the cyclist rates. "Show me the casualty savings!" "Show me the casualty savings!" Boring. But it's *all* you need to do to convince pretty much anyone that helmets are a clear benefit. And if they are a clear benefit it /should/ be easy to show that. Yet you haven't, and nor has anyone else, including folk with very big axes to grind on the matter who have been trying to demonstrate it on behalf of powerful government and commercial interests for years. Why do you think that is? Again, my comment stands up. A lot of bogus research is out there because of jacked up figures, created data and plain old not doing the math right. There certainly is. And the work that doesn't stand up is most often the work showing helmets to be a clear benefit. Thompson, Rivara and Thompson's 1989 is the most cited paper for helmet efficacy and it's a crash course in how /not/ to do science. Read it yourself, read the critiques yourself, ask how anything that bad could still be being trotted out as a reason to wear helmets after more than 15 years. Some work stands up, some doesn't. But you must remember the burden of proof falls *both* ways. Just as I have to demonstrate that helmets have no real effect on serious injuries, you have to demonstrate that they are a clear benefit across a population before you recommend them across a population. Or, put another way: "Show me the casualty savings!" Still whining. I'll not repeat the relationship for you again. If ois has not penetrated your skell yet, maybe a rock will and then it will get in. Do you /really/ think nobody else has come up with that line in the many years helmet efficacy has been researched. Do you think that the professional epidemiologists and statisticians haven't had it occur to them at all? "Show me the casualty savings!" That isn't whining, it is *all you have to do to convince me*. The data is there, so Nike Just Do It /Nike and you can finish the helmet wars once and for all. "Show me the casualty savings!" Yada, yada, yada. . . Rather than avoid it, why don't you confront the problem and do it? Rather than yada yada yadaing yourself, why don't you just demonstrate the casualty savings helmets have provided? My guess is you can't, but feel free to prove me wrong. Unture. Otherwise, you would be able to post a citation to that very fact from the reesearch you are spewing without any though or analysis. Y9ou have failed to do that, substituting idiocy and obfuscation. What? I pointed you at a whole pile! There is no evidence you've been and looked though. Here we go again. . . Got anything that pretains directly to what we are talking about? Or are you merely trying to distract us from the fact, you ain't got jack**** to work with? What? I pointed you at a whole pile! There is no evidence you've been and looked though. Apples and oranges yet again. Stick with bicycles and not with NON dangerous activities. So, since being a pedestrian isn't dangerous that means none of them ever get killed? Wrong. They get killed at comparable rates with comparable injuries to cyclists, as you'd know if you looked at the data. Now, if you wany to make a case from something that is hazardous, try construction. Helmets are mandatory there, are they not? Racing cars and boats are dangerous sports and they require helmets. US style football is considered a dangerous sport, helmets are required. Getting the picture? Certainly. And utility cycling isn't actually very dangerous if you look at the figures. Oh, people get killed, yes, but they get killed as pedestrians and as occupants of cars with safety cages, seatbelts and airbags. The rates for serious injuries for cyclists compare, and historically have compared, to pedestrian rates. If you don't believe that do some research and point me to it rather than just inventing denials on the spot. You might tell people on ventilators after being run over when they were crossing the road that your anecdote is more meaningful than theirs. And what happened to them on their bikes? Roughly the same thing at the same rates, as it happens, so again, why is your anecdote more meaningful than theirs? Show me the data related to cycling helmets and non-serious injuries. You keep saying it is out there. I haven't done anything of the sort. I have pointed out that non-serious aren't serious, rather by definition, so for safety you're looking at the serious ones. And if helmets remove serious injuries then the serious injury rates will go down. "Show me the casualty savings!" But so far, you've only make that wild-assed claim and hav yet to present one single fact. I pointed you at www.cyclehelmets.org as a good starting place as a repository of facts, with citations for all sides of the argument. So, Pete, let's see you get out of your rut and put up those figures related to helmets and non-serious injuries. They're not serious though, so nobody's got good figures for them, as I've said many times. But, hey! They're not serious! Pete. -- Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK net http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/ |
#54
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advisor wanted
Butch wrote:
Hi Peter, Just for your information I rode last week with my son(34), his first time on a bent, I could not get him to wear a helmet either, we went 35 miles he hit over 29 mph several times. It may be worth your while reading the specification to which helmets are typically manufactured. That specification (usually EN1078) specifies them in impacts of up to (IIRC) 12 mph, about the same as falling over. Beyond that how they work isn't covered, but what often happens is brittle failure which absorbs very little energy (I've seen it on two of my own helmets, which I'd naturally assumed had saved me a very nasty injury...) Your biggest complaint about wearing a helmet seems to be comfort, I just don't see it I ride a lot and I have no complaint about helmet comfort? In the 14 or so years I always wore a helmet I told myself it was pretty comfortable. Now I don't regularly wear one I can tell what the difference really is. Of course, if you're telling yourself it'll save you a serious injury you tend to put the comfort thoughts on hold to some degree: I certainly do when wearing a helmet for whitewater kayaking and mountain climbing. The start of this thread was how to improve the visor. You have to admit it is hard to ride without some sort of visor so you end up with a hat. I still have hair and I can't keep a hat on when riding my bent above 18 or so mph say nothing about 20 to 30? So how did all the pros keep hats on doing alpine descents? Maybe you just need a better hat? My Bianchi cotton cycling cap has never blown off and I've done big descents at approaching 40 mph with it happily in place. In our group (MORONS, Magnificant Old Riders On Nice Seats) only one person rides without a helmet, she is often fiddling with her hat. I have rode many centuries and have had all sorts of problems but never once did my helmet bother me? I don't give a dam about bike statistics or helmet laws or advertisments, I just know from my experience if I push things which I often do I can expect to fall at least every 15 months. I think that makes you exceptional. Most A to B riders /don't/ push things much because it's quite a bit more dangerous to do so. An acquaintance of mine has just broken his back (apparently not the spinal cord, thankfully) from "pushing it", but typical cyclists don't often push that far. A noticeable trend in the NL, where helmet wearing rates are very low and so are serious head injuries, is that practically all the helmet wearing is for serious sport cycling where the rider /is/ pushing it. That is recognised as quite a different thing from typical cycling. From my personal experences and personal observations I choose to wear a helmet, because I need a visor anyhow and I clearly saw my buddys visor and forhead (in helmet) hitting the large gravel and breaking apart. If a helmet breaks it has failed and only taken a fraction of the energy it's designed to. They /should/ progressively deform. Also the case that a visor and helmet both make hitting one's forehead considerably easier. You talk about Raw data and Good Data, I seriously doubt if you have either, It's not perfect, but it's pretty good. Serious injuries get to hospitals, where they are recorded. to get that you have to have controls and even then you may bias it. I can't begin to tell you how many times when I was working I saw people (usually managers) take statistical data and manipulate it (it takes very little) to reach the conclusion they want. So have we all, but the analysis is out there for peer and professional criticism and will be there for many years with skeptics on all sides chipping away at it quite forcefully. The result of this chipping is that the case/controls for major helmet efficacy have been routinely pulled to pieces and the analysis of population data from road accidents has stood up pretty well. Your data comes from a bureaucrat filling out a form or entering it on a computer. But from thousands and thousands of them with no particular bias. No one should expect a helmet to do much if you hit a tree or a car, as for the size and weight of the helmet causing damage, I think you are stretching there just a bit. I will just bet you if you are still riding 20 / 25 years from now you will be wearing a helmet and not because someone tells you to but because your experience and common sense tells you to. I've been through the common sense and experience phase, and it appears I was deluding myself. Millions of cyclists with a great deal of experience get by quite happily without one, and there was no great cry for their necessity before they were created. I can no more ride off without my helmet than I can drive a car without a seat belt. I've been there too. It took an effort to change my heart to what my head told me, I've had no regrets from doing so, and now the heart goes along with the change. on my bent.haha By the way ask you Nerosurgeon friend if helmets are so worthless why do they put them on children after brain surgery. Because their natural defenses are severely compromised. Mine aren't. that matter I know several local physicians who ride bikes quite a bit, they all wear helmets, and so should you. Ask your Mother or your wife if they think you should ride with or without a helmet. My mother has been riding a bike regularly for most of her 72 years. She has, AFAICT, never worn a helmet to do so, and continues not to wear a helmet to do so. My partner is a regular cyclist too. She has only ever worn a helmet for mountain biking trips. She commutes daily by bike, without a helmet. She comes from NL, where pretty much nobody outside of serious sports use wears one. She is, like me, a professional scientist who can read reports sceptically and come to reasoned conclusions about how good they are. You can see some pictures of us enjoying a tour without foam boxes on our heads at http://www.personal.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/tdn1.htm Pete. -- Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK net http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/ |
#55
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advisor wanted
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#56
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advisor wanted
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#57
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advisor wanted
Peter Clinch wrote:
wrote: There is another set of factors operating here that all this ignores and that is most European countries are cyclist friendly. Nobody has told the figures gathered in the US that so they remain oblivious to it. Please cite some that show me some casualty savings for helmet wearing. Can I cite the largest survey ever carried out*, of over 8 million cases of injury and death to cyclists in the USA over 15 years, concluded that there was no evidence that helmets had reduced head injury or fatality rates. Indeed, it suggested that helmeted riders were more likely to be killed. * Reducing Bicycle Accidents: A re-evaluation of the impacts of the CPSC bicycle standard and helmet use, Rodgers. Journal of Product Liability, Vol 11 pp 307-317, 1988. -- Tony "The best way I know of to win an argument is to start by being in the right." - Lord Hailsham |
#58
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advisor wanted
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#59
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advisor wanted
Tony Raven wrote:
In fact I have just recruited a keen Californian cyclist who is finding it most unnerving cycling with European traffic because it is so much more aggressive than she is used to. Sounds familiar. A colleague on the University BUG met an American last week who has just started here and was admiring his Brompton. Further discussion revealed he had several bikes over from the US but hadn't felt able to ride on the roads yet, finding them too dangerous. And if you think "that doesn't prove anything, it's just a couple of data points!", then (a) you're quite right and (b) you should apply the same thinking to a few anecdotes of helmet efficacy. Pete. -- Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK net http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/ |
#60
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advisor wanted
Hi Peter, I enjoyed your Pages very much, I only scanned the Helmet
sections but I promise I will print them out and read them. Well at least you wear a helmet when you go caving and when you ride your Unicycle.haha My nephew a retired ballet dancer (36) can ride a unicycle and juggle at the same time. You would get along great with him or my son as they are both quite adventurous. I tried the Unicycle, toughest thing I ever tried I think, we were riding it in a small goat pen and 3 men could not keep me on that thing. Unfortunately I have experienced a small train crash in France in 1985, I almost never ride in trains. Your friend Roos is an attractive lady but I never did see her with a hat while riding the bent? I never commented about Netherlands, I have been there many, many times mostly in the late 60's but also in mid 80's. I always enjoyed it very much, the people are exceptional, as a matter of fact the statistian I last worked with was Dutch. I agree that the Dutch are very comfortable on their bikes, but as someone else said they are also respected by the drivers, this is not at all true here, especially not in Florida. I had a cigarette lighter thrown at me last week (I seldom ride on roads). Also last week a rider on the paved trail I use reported a incident with a truck, where the truck tried to leave the adjacent road and come after him on the trail, fortunately I guess he got stuck. I always have mirrors and try to watch overtaking cars and prepare to exit the road if required. FYI this is the start of hunting season, we are advised to wear bright clothes on the trail as it is a favorite hunting ground for turkeys and deer. You mention sport cycling vs recreational cycling, I guess we mostly do a combination, we usually ride for a while then race for a while etc. While the trail is very good most of the time you never can be sure what you will run into. Sometimes Red Necks run motorized vehicles on the trail and cover it with rocks, on rare occasion broken glass, there are some dirt roads crossing the trail, fairly large amounts of sand can appear where you never saw it before. Then there are the critters, dogs, cats, tortoises (from a few inches to a few feet), snakes (small, large, sometimes poisonous), rabbits squirrels armadillas fox bob cats many deer occasionally coyotoes and alligators and bears.. To not forget the many horses camels and occasional lamas.(don't usually see them all each day). Oh yes one lady fell and hurt her ankle skating when she came on a eagle sitting on the trail. Anyway it has been very pleasant chatting with you Peter, if you ever get to West Central Florida come ride with the Morons, as for me I will continue to wear my helmet. An unfortunate thing about getting older is that it takes longer to recover from those injuries every year and I need all the help I can get. Happy Trails Butch |
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