H*lm*t LAW article - West Australian

It's a subject most of us know about, but this morning's West Australian
has an article on Page 3 and almost fills page page 9 with analysis of
the on the WA h*lm*t law. The article quotes a Dorothy Robinson, who is
a senior statistician at the University of New England in NSW and draws
from her article published this month in the British Medical Journal.

In summary, the article basically says that there is no evidence that
helmets have lowered head injury rates. When the h*lm*t laws were
introduced, cyclists head injury rates fell, but so too did pedestrian
head injury rates. She notes that that "it's always true that some
prevention is better than none. the drawback is when the health
benefits are less than the costs, which is the case here" She is
referring to the fact that cycling rates fell following the introduction
of the laws.

She also goes on to mention that helmets make more sense for motorists
that for cyclists.

She is calling for the WA Government to re-examine the WA law.

--
BrettS

BrettS wrote:
It's a subject most of us know about, but this morning's West Australian
has an article on Page 3 and almost fills page page 9 with analysis of
the on the WA h*lm*t law. The article quotes a Dorothy Robinson, who is
a senior statistician at the University of New England in NSW and draws
from her article published this month in the British Medical Journal.

In summary, the article basically says that there is no evidence that
helmets have lowered head injury rates. When the h*lm*t laws were
introduced, cyclists head injury rates fell, but so too did pedestrian
head injury rates. She notes that that "it's always true that some
prevention is better than none. the drawback is when the health
benefits are less than the costs, which is the case here" She is
referring to the fact that cycling rates fell following the introduction
of the laws.

She also goes on to mention that helmets make more sense for motorists
that for cyclists.

She is calling for the WA Government to re-examine the WA law.

--
BrettS

There was also a talk on the ABC radio today and it was stated that at
the same time they brought in the helmet laws they also changed the
definition of head injuries to include facial injuries ( which weren't
included originally).

Friday wrote:
"There was also a talk on the ABC radio today and it was stated that at
the same time they brought in the helmet laws they also changed the
definition of head injuries to include facial injuries ( which weren't
included originally)."

I wonder who said that? What makes people so keen to defend helmet
laws that they just make up plausible explanations without a shred of
evidence?

There is no single definition of head injury. Instead, the ICD
(International Classification of Diseases, which also covers injuries
e.g from vehicle crashes) has many different codes, one for each type
and sub-type of injury, including concussion, skull fractures, eyball
injuries, optic nerve injuries, etc etc etc.

Do you think the BMJ would be silly enough to publish a paper that
didn't use the same definition of head injury before and after helmet
laws?

If you can bear the tedium of reading definitions of injury codes, the
exact definition of head injuries is on the BMJ website (mainly Table
1) http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/conte...7543/722-a/DC1

Helmet laws in Australia is are often reported as a great success,
because they reduced the number of head injuries in Victoria by 40%.

This can be seen on one of the figures published on the BMJ site:
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/conte...3/722-a/DC1#fc But
non-head injuries decreased by a very similar amount.

I wonder if helmet laws would have been described as an eveb greater
success if both non-head and head injuries had reduced to zero, because
there were no cyclists left?

The rest of the (free) information on the BMJ website discusses the
Safety in Numbers principle. The BFA website has a longer article on
this.
http://www.bfa.asn.au/bfanew/pdf/pub...in_numbers.pdf

Nowadays, governments like to put a 'spin' on things to claim how
wonderful they are and we'll vote for them again.

Personally, I'm horrified that our safety as cyclists is being treated
in such a cavalier manner. But the only way to change things is to
persuade the politicians that the cycling public wants to know the
truth, and will vote them out if all we get is more spin.

Happy riding!!!

Dorre wrote:
I wonder who said that? What makes people so keen to defend helmet
laws that they just make up plausible explanations without a shred of
evidence?

There is no single definition of head injury. Instead, the ICD
(International Classification of Diseases, which also covers injuries
e.g from vehicle crashes) has many different codes, one for each type
and sub-type of injury, including concussion, skull fractures, eyball
injuries, optic nerve injuries, etc etc etc.

Happy riding!!!

Is that you Ms Robinson? You've stirred up the locals in WA. A whole page
devoted to you this week in the 'West'. Congratulations.

Theo

Dorre Wrote:

Nowadays, governments like to put a 'spin' on things to claim how
wonderful they are and we'll vote for them again.

Cripes what a novel and unique proposition, what will they think of
next?

Dorre Wrote:
Personally, I'm horrified that our safety as cyclists is being treated
in such a cavalier manner. But the only way to change things is to
persuade the politicians that the cycling public wants to know the
truth, and will vote them out if all we get is more spin.

Cyclists as a political force? Stop it Dorre, you're giving me evil
ideas.

BTW Announcement time: on 8th August 2006 you're all taking the day off
work. You will also persuade all your family, friends and work
colleagues to do similar. You will ride around all day, have fun in the
process and bump up those all important stats that various tiers of gov
base their funding upon.

Another evil idea. Actually, think again, it's probably a good one.
Who's putting down "Cyclist" as their religion on the census?


--
cfsmtb

On 2006-03-30, cfsmtb (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
Another evil idea. Actually, think again, it's probably a good one.
Who's putting down "Cyclist" as their religion on the census?

I'm either going to be investigated for sedition, admitted to the nut
house, or simply confuse the censors (heh), because I'm sure not too
many people change from an athiest to a jedi knight to a cyclist every
5 years

--
TimC
When I'M trying to get somebody fired, I always walk a mile in their
shoes first. That way, when I get them fired and they get all angry
with me, I'm a mile away, and I'VE GOT THEIR SHOES! HAW HAW!
--Beable van Polasm, alt.religion.kibology

Dorre wrote:
Friday wrote:
"There was also a talk on the ABC radio today and it was stated that at
the same time they brought in the helmet laws they also changed the
definition of head injuries to include facial injuries ( which weren't
included originally)."

I wonder who said that? What makes people so keen to defend helmet
laws that they just make up plausible explanations without a shred of
evidence?

Even if true thatmeans that helmets are fundamentally flawed in their
design as I demonstrated quite ably with my faceplant in SexyLand car
park about a year ago. Not a scratch on the helmet :-)
--
Cheers | ~~ __@
Euan | ~~ _-\,
Melbourne, Australia | ~ (*)/ (*)

TimC wrote:
On 2006-03-30, cfsmtb (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:

Another evil idea. Actually, think again, it's probably a good one.
Who's putting down "Cyclist" as their religion on the census?


I'm either going to be investigated for sedition, admitted to the nut
house, or simply confuse the censors (heh), because I'm sure not too
many people change from an athiest to a jedi knight to a cyclist every
5 years

I wouldn't worry about it. For the last 5(?) months I've given widely
different figures for employment on their phone survey. It all started
over "and how many hours does she do at her usual place of employment"?

"she doesn't have a usual place of employment, she is casual. She waits
by the phone each morning to see who telephones for work"
then we get the question again.

Needless to say I've lost my temper quiet a few times and no longer care
if you're only doing your job (all indian accents btw).


And if anyone here works for ABS, how about you suggest they redo their
survey questions to removel questions designed to generate certain answers.

And I would really love to hear an Australian accent. Otherwise I might
just not believe they are really from the ABS.

P.S. I'll join the atheist - jedi - bicyclist movement {:-)

On 2006-03-30, cfsmtb wrote:
Another evil idea. Actually, think again, it's probably a good one.
Who's putting down "Cyclist" as their religion on the census?

Well, I was planning on putting "Pastafarian" ...

--
My Usenet From: address now expires after two weeks. If you email me, and
the mail bounces, try changing the bit before the "@" to "usenet".

"Euan" wrote in message
...
Dorre wrote:
Friday wrote:
"There was also a talk on the ABC radio today and it was stated that at
the same time they brought in the helmet laws they also changed the
definition of head injuries to include facial injuries ( which weren't
included originally)."

I wonder who said that? What makes people so keen to defend helmet
laws that they just make up plausible explanations without a shred of
evidence?

Even if true thatmeans that helmets are fundamentally flawed in their
design as I demonstrated quite ably with my faceplant in SexyLand car park
about a year ago. Not a scratch on the helmet :-)
--
Cheers | ~~ __@
Euan | ~~ _-\,
Melbourne, Australia | ~ (*)/ (*)

So what you're saying is that your face saved your helmet's life?