Helmets anyone?

Danny Colyer wrote:
* Personally, I'd rather
miss out on a few of the more challenging trails than have my
unicycling
experience ruined by the discomfort of a wearing a helmet.*

You either need a better helmet or you need to ride harder as I for one
do not notice if I am or am not wearing my helmet on a Muni ride as I’m
too busy riding. Actually the only two things I’d notice whether I’m
wearing them or not whilst riding Muni would be some form of foot wear
(pinned pedals) and something to keep me from sitting on my manhood,
that is unless I had an accident...


--
Irideonone
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View this thread: http://www.unicyclist.com/thread/42239

Danny Colyer writes:

... unicycling experience ruined by the discomfort of a wearing a helmet.

You get no sympathy from me. I can't tell that I am wearing a helmet
without checking. One time I rode home because I though I forgot my
helmet - only to find it firmly attached to my head.

I submit that on or about 08 Aug 2005 18:46:59 -0600, the person known
to the court as Ken Cline made a statement
in Your Honour's bundle)
to the following effect:

More specifically with respect to cycle helmets, "Risk compensation in
children's activities: A pilot study" - Mok D, Gore G, Hagel B, Mok E,
Magdalinos H, Pless B. 2004. Paediatr Child Health: Vol 9 No 5
May/June 2004.
This study concludes that: "The results indicate that risk
compensation may modify the effectiveness of [protective equipment]
for children engaged in sports and leisure activities. Conversely, the
findings also suggest that those wearing PE may be a cautious
subgroup."

OK, you have a pilot study. One pilot study regarding helmets and
risk compnsation.

Which adds to all the other pilot studies on risk compensation, which
is widely accepted as a universal human behaviour /except/ that
Thompson and Rivara refuse to accept it in the specific case of cycle
helmets (a position which this study refutes).

Two studies on bicycle helmet use offer evidence that is
incompatible with the risk compensation theory ... Together,
these studies indicate that helmeted bicyclists may represent a
more cautious subgroup of all bicyclists. But even if they were
risk compensating, it suggests that helmet wearers were not doing
so to a level that increased their risk above that of bicyclists
not using helmets.

That's just more op-ed, though. They dispute the existence of risk
compensation despite the evidence it exists on the grounds that
"anyway, it's not enough to blow away all the benefit". Nobody says
it is enough to blow away /all/ the benefit - that's the standard
straw man uses by helmet zealots to try to discredit risk
compensation. Risk compensation is a subtle and subconscious effect,
the level of balancing behaviour will be different for each person.

What we /do/ know is that there is no known case where cyclist safety
has improved with increasing helmet use. Risk compensation is one of
several plausible effects which might help to explain this otherwise
perplexing fact.

You can cite articles all you want, but if they don't provide
compelling evidence to support your point, all we are left with is
speculation.

You do realise this is a reversal of the burden of proof, don't you?
I'm not trying to force my choice on anyone, it's the Liddites who do
that. So they are the ones with something to prove. And I've yet to
see a truly convincing study to support helmet use. I used to think
they were convincing, until I started reading them in detail.

You speculate that helmets do not protect, I speculate
they do.

False: I say that there is no evidence they provide meaningful
protection against serious or fatal injury. The idea that sceptics
are trying to show helmets don't work at all is another Liddite straw
man.

Your web site is misleading because it does not admit this
important fact.

False. (a) it is not "my" website (mine is
http:/www.chapmancentral.co.uk) and (b) you are misrepresenting the
evidence which is presented at http://www.cyclhelmets.org - as above,
you try to represent the site as saying they do not work, which is not
what is being said at all. The site is an antidote to the bull****
form helmet promoters. They say "helmets prevent 85% of head
injuries" and we show why that is a false statement. Every statement
made on the site is referenced so you can check the source data. It's
what I have done and continue to do.

If you wish to continue the discussion, please start by replying to my
email.

I already did (by return), and told you why I do not want to "go
private".

I raised at least one point that has not been adequately
addressed in this forum.

More vague assertions without actual facts. I see a pattern emerging
here... ;-)


Guy
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

"To every complex problem there is a solution which is
simple, neat and wrong" - HL Mencken

I submit that on or about Mon, 8 Aug 2005 18:47:15 -0500, the person
known to the court as "johnfoss"
made a statement
list.com in Your
Honour's bundle) to the following effect:

*Actually what happened was that drivers drove faster and braked
later.*

Only 31 drivers? Such a tiny number can scarcely prove anything.

The important fact was that it was the same drivers in both cars. The
cars were randomly assigned day by day by the taxi firm.

There are plenty of other studies which show the same thing. Why do
you think people would not respond to perceived safety improvements in
this way? There are so many examples! Faster speeds on corners after
treatment with anti-skid surfaces, increases in third-party fatalities
following seat-belt laws, increases in front passenger deaths in cars
with driver-only airbags...

And there's always the oft-repeated thought experiment: if every car
had a steel spike in the centre of the steering wheel, and no airbag
or seat belt, do you think people would still drive the same?

The core misunderstanding is to assume that risk compensation means
that the intervention is being denounced as ineffective. This is a
straw man. All that's being said is that some (or all or more) of the
protective effect is being consumed as a performance benefit.

*And that is what risk compensation means: we respond to perceived
changes in safety by taking more risk.*

I believe it. I would not ride Trials at all without a helmet. It's a
risk I prefer not to take without additional protection. You would seem
to imply that we increase our danger factor by wearing helmets. I do not
believe the studies indicate this.

No, you misunderstand. The fact that you would not do trials without
protective equipment is evidence of risk compensation. What
proportion of the protective effect of the helmet is offset by your
balancing behaviour (great term in a unicycling group!) is going to
vary person by person. Your overall level of risk may be lower, the
same, or higher, but you will still be responding to the perceived
protection through changes in behaviour.

We may increase our level of risk,
but hopefully this is offset by the added protection.

Key word: hopefully :-)

All of your quoted
studies seem to reinforce that people may take greater risks, but do not
indicate that they are worse off for doing so.

Nor do they need to be. On the other hand, it shows that you cannot
look at the efficacy of the intervention in isolation from its effect
on a crash happening (which is the point).

*Actually I'm here because someone made vague and
unfounded assertions about http://www.cyclehelmets.org, a site
concerned with cycle helmets.*

Okay. Most of us were talking about whether helmets are a good idea for
unicycles, which is marginally related to the information on your site,
though largely not.

Indeed. As I said once before, most modern cycle helmets are entirely
inappropriate for use on a unicycle (one of Brian Walker's pet peeves
is people wearing cycle helmets when skating or skateboarding).

I don't know about dissonance. How about annoyance? I have not only been
"told" seat belts save lives, I have been shown it over and over, though
personal and statistical example.

No, you have been "told" and "shown" that seat belts save lives *given
that a crash has occurred*. What this always ignores is the
documented fact (from many countries) that the number of crashes rises
when you make habitually unbelted drivers wear belts. Overall the
fatality rate usually rises slightly, but shifts from drivers to
cyclists and pedestrians. So they save some lives, at the cost of
some others. Whether the two values of "some" are the same is going
to vary form place to place, but as one who mostly cycles instead of
driving it looks bad to me :-)

Here's another one for you: Sweden changed from driving on the left to
driving on the right. You'd expect that would cause a lot of
accidents, but the fatality rate dropped like a stone! And after a
while it returned to normal. Risk compensation is just a term to
describe what we all know: if you think you are at more risk you take
more care.

You offered some info about this in regards to a study done in England.
Does the same apply universally in other countries?

As far as I can tell, yes. Isles predicted a (?) 2.5%rise in
fatalities based on a study of (?) 14 European countries.

*Ah, so you would rather hit your head wearing a helmet than not hit
it at all. Odd.*

Show me how I can ride unicycles without ever hitting my head at all,
and I'll be more open to your line of reasoning. I choose to ride in the
real world, where I cannot guarantee things will not go wrong.

I've not hit mine yet, but I am still learning!

Some amount of drivers lives were
saved but you are not sharing this number.
*Approximately zero.*

Uh oh, you seem to be changing your story. I thought the number of
fatalities stayed the same, but had shifted over to pedestrians and
cyclists.

The number of pedestrian and cyclist deaths is tiny in proportion to
the number of driver deaths. So a 40% increase in cyclist deaths
would be almost invisible among drivers.

My question, which you are not addressing, was about the
motorists with the seat belts. Either your math is seriously flawed, or
there were less motorist deaths and more pedestrian/cyclist deaths.

The answer is that the number of motorist deaths fell by less than the
increase in pedestrian deaths, but you can't put a finger on it
exactly because of other concurrent changes.

I urge you to read Risk by John Adams, which discusses it in some
detail (it takes most of a chapter, IIRC).

*You are evading the issue. You are making a choice for others, based
on t he fact that you are an instructor. But being an instructor (in
anything) does not necessarily confer expertise in safety in that
activity.*

Correct. In the hypothetical situation where I require helmets for my
unicycle students, I am making a choice, based on whatever factors, that
you might consider ill-informed.

No, it might easily be very well-informed. But the reasoning you gave
was not. That's all.


Guy
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

"To every complex problem there is a solution which is
simple, neat and wrong" - HL Mencken

I wrote:
... unicycling experience ruined by the discomfort of a wearing a helmet.

and Ken Cline responded:
You get no sympathy from me. I can't tell that I am wearing a helmet
without checking. One time I rode home because I though I forgot my
helmet - only to find it firmly attached to my head.

Good for you. Many people claim the same, and I have no reason to doubt
their claims. However, everyone is different and perhaps you *should*
have some sympathy for those of us who find cycling/unicycling
significantly more pleasant and comfortable without.

I have owned 4 cycle helmets in my life. All have been well fitting
helmets, the last 3 have been good, lightweight, well ventilated lids.
My current helmet (a Giro Eclipse) is a huge improvement upon the
pudding bowl that I bought 13 years ago, but there is still no way I
could ever forget that I was wearing it. I tend to wear it under much
the same circumstances that Guy outlined a few days ago, and for the
same reasons.

--
Danny Colyer (the UK company has been laughed out of my reply address)
URL:http://www.speedy5.freeserve.co.uk/danny/
"He who dares not offend cannot be honest." - Thomas Paine