To sock or not to sock?

On May 5, 3:58 pm, "Tom Lake (Space Alien)" wrote:
On Thu, 5 May 2011 14:14:54 -0700 (PDT), in rec.bicycles.tech Frank



Krygowski wrote:
No, Tom, my parents never forced me to wear a helmet. Bike helmets
did not exist until I was long out of my parents' control, legal or
otherwise.

I post about this issue because it's something I became interested in;
and, having become interested, I decided to learn about it (something
that's part of my nature, it seems); and having learned quite a lot, I
realized that the deeply held beliefs of helmet proponents were proven
false by available data and facts.

When someone enters the discussion and states things that I know to be
false, I point out the mistakes.

About accepting positions: I'll accept your right to wear a helmet,
just as I'll accept your right to wear purple riding shorts. And I
won't try to change your deeply held beliefs. I will, however,
counter any effort to spread misinformation to others.

Haha... you're too smart for me, Frank. I've been outed! I'm really
an Alien from Outter Space. I control you puny humans' thought
processes by transponders embedded in bicycle helmets.
BAWWWhahaha...

What's the deal with "purple riding shorts"? I haven't mentioned
them. Why bring up the color of someone's clothing?


Because it's smarmarific!

Why do you think that *I*, with a paltry five or six postings about
bicycle helmets have "deeply held beliefs"? I said that I didn't
care. You are the one with about 2,340 or so postings to helmet
threads... I'd say that, compared to you, I'm pretty luke warm. I've
got a *long* way to go before I'm going to approach your record.

I suspect that the normal people on this group are getting tired of
this.


To say the least.

Bye, Earthling. But you *will* be refuted! Your children will wear
helmets, mark my words. They already wear seat belts... "click it or
ticket", huh, Frank?

On May 5, 3:50 pm, Tºm Shermªn™ °_° ""twshermanREMOVE\"@THI
$southslope.net" wrote:
On 5/5/2011 4:14 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
[...]

I post about this issue because it's something I became interested in;
and, having become interested, I decided to learn about it (something
that's part of my nature, it seems); and having learned quite a lot, I
realized that the deeply held beliefs of helmet proponents were proven
false by available data and facts.[...]

What - you do not believe in the well proven fact that Magic Foam
Bicycle Hats™ prevent up to 70% of *LEG* injuries? Heathen!


I won't mess with percentages, tending to think much of the
"statistics" thrown out here as "proof" are a manipulation and in no
way universally applicable anyway, but try this on for size: A good
bicycle helmet *can* prevent leg injuries.

In a crash, a bare-headed but otherwise sane rider will act
(consciously and instinctively) to protect their head from even
moderate glancing impact, which can override the relaxed tumbling that
helps prevent unnatural forces on the limbs.

(I know this may sound kooky, but Devil's Advocate has its place. So
there :-)

--
Yours,
Dan

On 5/5/2011 8:24 PM, Tom Lake wrote:
On Thu, 05 May 2011 18:07:45 -0500, in rec.bicycles.tech Tºm Shermªn™
" wrote:

Studies have shown that motorists pass closer to lidded cyclists than
those riding sans foam bicycle hat. Dr. Mengele, where art thou? As history
shows, the "obvious" can be scientifically wrong. The answer is obvious to anyone
who is rational and has bothered to study the issue - bicycle foam
hats provide bump and scrape protection, but do not significantly reduce
serious brain injuries and deaths. Why boast of your ignorance?

While I wrote the above words, I did *not* write them as one paragraph.
Combining them is therefore false quotation. Please do not do this again.

Well, again, there simply aren't any data to support that. There
aren't any to support that helmets *do* reduce closed head trauma,
either because the research design, as you pointed out, does not allow
such a conclusion.

If foam bicycle hats were effective, why does making previous non-users
wear them (e.g. Australia and New Zealand) fail to reduce the death rate
due to head injuries? That is all the proof a *rational* person needs
to know foam bicycle hats are ineffective beyond bump and scrape protection.

It has been my experience that the best way to "prove" something is to
find what the person really believes to be true. Remember the
"proven" weapons of mass destruction in Iraq back in 2002... what ever
happened to them?

Those were Zionist lies from the very beginning, promoted by 5th
columnists in the US government (e.g. Wolfowitz, Feith, Perle, Abrams,
Libby), in the lobbying sector (e.g. AIPAC), and in the media (all the
mainstream outlets) in order to have the US fight a war of destruction
on Iraq on behalf of Israel and its goals of regional dominance.

--
Tºm Shermªn - 42.435731,-83.985007
I am a vehicular cyclist.

On 5/5/2011 8:15 PM, Tom Lake wrote:
On Thu, 05 May 2011 18:02:48 -0500, in rec.bicycles.tech Tºm Shermªn™
" wrote:

What you state is one of the faults in the case-control studies such as
Thompson-Rivara-Thompson, the source of the bogus 85% head injury
reduction claim used to support mandatory foam hat usage laws. The
children whose Lidditeâ„¢ parents made them wear foam hats had
significantly different demographics than the lidless children.

However, certain countries (e.g. Australia, New Zealand) have introduced
mandatory foam bicycle hat usage, enforced by traffic citations. Helmet
usage rates dramatically increased, but death rates due to head injuries
did not drop. Frank Krygowski has posted the citations many times.

Does not apply to the studies of death rates from head injuries while
cycling both before and after Lidditeâ„¢ laws were enacted by legislators
mislead by the foam hat selling funded lobbies (e.g. Safe Kids).

No need, as wearing of foam bicycle hats has failed to show any real
life average benefit when the usage rates double or triple.

It's not a "fault" of the study any more than an inability to fly is a
fault of a tractor. It's simply a property of that type of study; you
start with existing data and study them. I'd bet half of the studies
published on any topic use post facto data. I think you'll find that
*all* helmet studies are thus. That doesn't make them flawed; they
have their limitations; however, they're the best we've got or ever
will have. It's a stronger design than a whole-pop because I can
scale the results; whole-pops only apply locally.

As for New Zealand, you'll find studies all over the map. I can cite
contradictory findings by the same researcher; try these: Scuffham,
1995 the year after the law went into effect; compare that to the same
author's 2000 and 2002 studies with six and eight years' worth of
data. Are they still post facto studies? Absolutely. Both have the
same limitations. I'll bet you wave one of them (the one with which
you agree) and pronounce the others "discredited"... that's the usual
drill, anyway. It's called "cherry picking", BTW and Usenet is
positively rife with it.

We have been over the problems with Scuffham changing conclusions many
times.

Look at it this way: smoking rates in the United States have dropped
by half from 1965 to 2006 falling from 42% to 20.8% of adults (CDCP,
2007), yet the rate of death from respiratory and heart disease has
not seen a similar reduction; in fact, it has climbed slightly over
the same period. If I apply your logic to those numbers, I would
conclude that there are no harmful effects from tobacco use... in
fact, it may even be a healthful exercise for your lungs.

Do you agree?

Comparing rates over 4 decades apart is hardly them same as comparing
consecutive years before and after Lidditeâ„¢ mandatory foam bicycle hat
use implementation.


Works Cited:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (November 2007).
"Cigarette smoking among adults, United States, 2006". MMWR Morb
Mortal Wkly Rep. 56 (44): 1157-61. PMID 17989644.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5644a2.htm.


Scuffham PA, Langley JD. Trends in cycle injury in New Zealand under
voluntary helmet use. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 1997
Jan;29(1):1-9. 1997.


Scuffham P. Head injuries to bicyclists and the New Zealand bicycle
helmet law. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 2000 Jul;32(4):565-73.
2000.

Taylor M, Scuffham P., New Zealand bicycle helmet law-do the costs
outweigh the benefits? Injury Prevention, 2002;8:317-320. 2002.

--
Tºm Shermªn - 42.435731,-83.985007
I am a vehicular cyclist.

On May 5, 6:58*pm, "Tom Lake (Space Alien)" wrote:
On Thu, 5 May 2011 14:14:54 -0700 (PDT), in rec.bicycles.tech Frank



Krygowski wrote:
No, Tom, my parents never forced me to wear a helmet. *Bike helmets
did not exist until I was long out of my parents' control, legal or
otherwise.

I post about this issue because it's something I became interested in;
and, having become interested, I decided to learn about it (something
that's part of my nature, it seems); and having learned quite a lot, I
realized that the deeply held beliefs of helmet proponents were proven
false by available data and facts.

When someone enters the discussion and states things that I know to be
false, I point out the mistakes.

About accepting positions: *I'll accept your right to wear a helmet,
just as I'll accept your right to wear purple riding shorts. *And I
won't try to change your deeply held beliefs. *I will, however,
counter any effort to spread misinformation to others.

Haha... you're too smart for me, Frank.

Yes, probably.

What's the deal with "purple riding shorts"? *I haven't mentioned
them. *Why bring up the color of someone's clothing?

You didn't mention them any more than we mentioned smoking. However,
you saw fit to introduce some points regarding smoking as (rather
weak) illustrative examples. I saw fit to introduce purple riding
shorts as another item you're free to wear.

Why do you think that *I*, with a paltry five or six postings about
bicycle helmets have "deeply held beliefs"?

OK, I'll admit that your belief in helmets may not be extremely deep
compared with some others who post here. It's clear, though, that you
have beliefs deep enough for you to feel you should instruct us in
their correctness. I think that counts for something.

I suspect that the normal people on this group are getting tired of
this.

As always, they are free to stop reading whenever they like. (I'm
always astounded at people who think a discussion should stop because
they don't happen to find it interesting - and who lack the self-
control to stop reading!)

Bye, Earthling. *But you *will* be refuted!

That sounds like a deeply held belief to me!

*Your children will wear helmets, mark my words. *

Last I checked, they wore them only when on invitational rides that
made them mandatory. An as adults, they have freedom to choose.
Hopefully, that will continue to be true, despite your belief.

- Frank Krygowski

On May 5, 9:15*pm, Tom Lake wrote:


As for New Zealand, you'll find studies all over the map. *I can cite
contradictory findings by the same researcher; try these: Scuffham,
1995 the year after the law went into effect; compare that to the same
author's 2000 and 2002 studies with six and eight years' worth of
data. *Are they still post facto studies? *Absolutely. *Both have the
same limitations. *I'll bet you wave one of them (the one with which
you agree) and pronounce the others "discredited"... that's the usual
drill, anyway. *It's called "cherry picking", BTW and Usenet is
positively rife with it.

That's merely a slightly more sophisticated way of saying "statistics
can prove anything." It's pretending that humans are incapable of
rationally evaluating studies, data and conclusions.

Scuffham and his flip-flops have been discussed here before. And
while I don't know for sure (although he mailed his first paper on
this topic to me personally), I suspect he got in some professional
trouble by pointing out that an examination of all available hospital
records in his country showed no helmet benefit - only a decades-long
decrease in percent hospitalizations due to head injury, long
predating helmet use. He did, after all, work for the very agency
that was promoting the all-ages mandatory helmet law. Can you imagine
publishing a paper that proved your bosses' biggest effort was a sham?

In any case, his subsequent paper saying "Wait, I found a benefit!"
was thoroughly, mathematically rebutted by Robinson, who pointed out
that instead of examining the entire time series data, he simply
picked a tiny selection of data points and removed the time
coefficient that he'd previously discovered. THAT is cherry picking,
as classic as it gets.

Again, all this has been discussed. Yes, we can cite the specific
papers. Perhaps you should do some reading, to catch up. You might
start he
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk/wiki..._helmet_portal

- Frank Krygowski

On May 5, 9:54*pm, Tom Lake wrote:
On Fri, 06 May 2011 01:51:32 +0100, in rec.bicycles.tech Phil W Lee

wrote:
No, that is incorrect.
There are studies showing risk compensation as a result of foam hat
use, and most worrying of all, that it occurs among motorists as well.

Absolute nonsense!

More cherry-picking is all.

Oh. Well, _that's_ certainly conclusive!

What have you read on this subject?

- Frank Krygowski

Frank Krygowski wrote:
On May 5, 6:58 pm, "Tom Lake (Space Alien)" wrote:

Haha... you're too smart for me, Frank.

Yes, probably.

Frank, your modesty is overwhelming.

JS.

On Thu, 5 May 2011 08:47:15 -0700 (PDT), Frank Krygowski
wrote:



Why do people keep promoting an ineffective solution to a largely
nonexistent problem?

- Frank Krygowski


I can certainly agree that bicycle head injuries are rare. I am a
member of the "over-the-handlebars" club and it wasn't a lot of fun
smashing my head against the sidewalk. Now, just in case, I do wear a
helmet. Simply because I don't want to end up with a more serious
injury than what I had then.

Thanks for your input, but I'll continue to wear one!!!!! I do
avoid the spandex pants though!!!!!

On 05/05/11 02:28, kolldata wrote:
i am lost on the anti helmet logic.

Mistake #1, it's not "anti helmet" unless you're being told you really
shouldn't wear one.

Injury when bringing head to a
sudden stop when brain continues is a sure thing, only severity is
unknown same as bumper crash tests.

So since there's plenty of head-trauma from bringing brains to sudden
stops from trips and falls, especially on stairs, then it's "obviously"
a given that you'll wear a crash helmet to go down stairs, or even to
walk along hard paved places?

As it happens, cycling isn't particularly more productive of head
injuries than pedestrianism. So the /helmet-sceptic/ logic is if you
don't wear one for a similarly risky alternative why should you feel a
particular need to wear one for cycling?

who coined the word use age ?

Dunno. Guess not the 80 year old I often see cycling round Dundee
without one. Guess not the 90 year old Dr. Alex Moulton who goes for a
10 mile ride every day, also without one. And so on (and on).
--
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/