Helmet ******s

"Frank Palermo" wrote in message
u...

It
seems to me that the chief cause of road fatalities is someone driving
like
a prat (i.e. in such a way that the actual risk of crashing is
unacceptably
high).

Many years ago a Transport Minister said that crashes are in the main caused
noit by the taking of large risks, but by the taking of small risks very
large numbers of times. I think there's a good deal of truth in that.
Obviously the average boy racer is a crash waiting to happen, but the people
most likely to crash (mileage adjusted) are company car drivers, especially
commercial travellers, whose risk taking is much less overt.

That is, behaviour and cultural modification will have a far greater
effect of bringing down the incidence of fatalities than any amount of
airbags, seatbelts, helmets, etc. Those protective devices merely guard
(to varying degrees of success) against high-risk behaviours.

Or rather they allow drivers to drive less safely for the same level of
personal risk.

if I'm cycling at 25km/hr, and
a car pulls out on me, I'll hit the brakes (if I had time... this isn't an
exact science so, unlike others, I'm not pretending it is) and possibly
decelerate to 10km/hr by the time I actually hit the car. I'm below the 12
km/hr someone mentioned earlier

Now add the acceleration due to gravity, and the relative movement of the
car...

But the principal point is that helmets are primarily designed to protect
against impacts *which were survivable anyway*.

(Close to finishing now!). I think the debate goes off track too often as
people expect safety devices to eliminate, not reduce risk. No device can
eliminate risk, only reduce. Why bag helmets so much because they fail to
do what they never claimed to do?

Because they don't do what their advocates claim them to do either.
Evidence form around the world shows no correlation between helmet use and
head injury rates. Plotting pedestrian and cyclist injury rates in New
Zealand over the peirod of introduction of the law, you can't tell which
trend line is which - but there is a large jump in helmet wearing at one
point for the cyclist and not the pedestrian community.

There was never a claim of 100% protection,

No, the figures used are between 85% and 90% - but whole population studies
never show anythign like that benefit.

but surely limited protection is better than none?

Unless the act of protecting induces greater risk taking which increases the
overall level of risk. What happens if wearing a helmet eliminates the
probability of a trivial injury but increases the probability of a serious
crash by 5%? Is that a good outcome?

I think we get hung up
over ideologies of forced helmet wearing and matters of convenience and
comfort rather than truly examining any benefits or lack of benefits to be
derived from wearing the things.

The only ideology involved is the True Believers who insist that we should
all wear plastic hats because middle class American kids riding offroad with
helmets were less likely to suffer head injuries than working class black
kids riding round inner city streets without them. In order to keep it
simple for us they don't confuse us with the fact that the figures of 85%
and 88% they use were amended (substantially downwards) by the original
authors in 1996.

Guy
===

WARNING: may contain traces of irony. Contents may settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

"Alan Hutchison" wrote in message
...

Nick, you have concisely articulated the issue. My comment is that the
introduction of mandatory helmet use in Australia certainly reduced the
number of normal cyclists significantly as you say, when it was
introduced. What has happened since, though, is that cycling in all its
forms is now increasing strongly after the famously reported decrease.

But still not up to pre-law levels, despite increased population. Cycling
is also increasing in the UK.

Post helmet legislation, we are moving on. It can be reasonably argued
that we would be afforded more safety by wearing our sun bonnets than
helmets, but what party politician would risk the flak of trying to roll
back legislation like this once it is in place. Some of us wear our
helmets by choice and some wear them because we will be booked and fined
if we don't, but we have moved on and cycling is on the increase.

Question 1: how many more people would be cycling if there was no helmet
law?

Question 2: do you suppose that cyclists in Victoria are unique among road
users worldwide in not riding less safely when protected by a "safety"
device?

Question 3: your legislators were told that helmets prevent 88% of cyclist
head injuries. Given that the observed reduction post compulsion is, within
the bounds of statistical accuracy, zero, when will they repeal the law?

In the UK we have no lid law. Someone is trying to push one through. from
your experience of cycling in Victoria, how desirable would you say a lid
law is?

--
Guy
===

WARNING: may contain traces of irony. Contents may settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

"Alan Hutchison" wrote in message
...

If our cycling friends on the other side of the world are to be able to
draw useful conclusions from our experience (or misfortune if you see it
that way), then it is best if they have the full picture available to
them.


Heh! So we go to the politicians and say "don't worry, if you introduce a
helmet law it will only cut cycling by a third, and within a decade or so it
will get back to almost where it was before. The head injury rate will
remain unchanged, but you can get the train companmies to make train travel
by bike easier and call it a benefit of helmet use."

--
Guy
===

WARNING: may contain traces of irony. Contents may settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

Just zis Guy, you know? wrote in message


[...]

Many years ago a Transport Minister said that crashes are in the main
caused noit by the taking of large risks, but by the taking of small
risks very large numbers of times. I think there's a good deal of
truth in that. Obviously the average boy racer is a crash waiting to
happen, but the people most likely to crash (mileage adjusted) are
company car drivers, especially commercial travellers, whose risk
taking is much less overt.

So, do taxi drivers have a significantly higher rate of accidents than the
rest of us?

--

A: Top-posters.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on Usenet?

"DRS" wrote in message
...

Many years ago a Transport Minister said that crashes are in the main
caused noit by the taking of large risks, but by the taking of small
risks very large numbers of times. I think there's a good deal of
truth in that. Obviously the average boy racer is a crash waiting to
happen, but the people most likely to crash (mileage adjusted) are
company car drivers, especially commercial travellers, whose risk
taking is much less overt.

So, do taxi drivers have a significantly higher rate of accidents than the
rest of us?


No idea. They do crash more often if you give them ABS, though...

--
Guy
===

WARNING: may contain traces of irony. Contents may settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

In article , junk@raven-
family.com says...
Alan Hutchison wrote:

Nick, you have concisely articulated the issue. My comment is that the
introduction of mandatory helmet use in Australia certainly reduced the
number of normal cyclists significantly as you say, when it was
introduced. What has happened since, though, is that cycling in all its
forms is now increasing strongly after the famously reported decrease.

Here is the situation as I see it in Victoria.


snip details

I'm not sure that is the whole picture. Cycling data for Perth shows that
throughout the 90's cycling was significantly below the 1991 level but in
2001/2 it jumped suddenly to above th 1991/2 level. I don't have subsequent
year data but it would seem something happened, maybe the encouragment
measures you mention, to get more people cycling. It is arguable though that
without the helmet law that increase would have started from a much higher
base level.

Possible, but it's also possible simply that the pent-up demand
for cycling finally caught up as people decided that wearing a helmet
wasn't so bad after all. Ten years on, you have a new generation of
kids just learning to cycle who have had to wear a helmet from the
beginning, and are used to it.

....

--
Dave Kerber
Fight spam: remove the ns_ from the return address before replying!

REAL programmers write self-modifying code.

Like John B,I don't drive a car and never have in my 54 years.
I wear a helmet because I will be fined $100 here in Oz by the cops if I
don't and would rather spend the money on holidays than propping up govt
coffers.
Haven't a strong view either way about helmets.
But I do have about cars and the way people over-use them, injuring my
health with their fumes and the ever increasing liklihood of being hit by
one.
On my 32km (total) commute to work and back each day it is amazing the
number of cars (hundreds) which are all going the same way to the same place
at the same time with one person in them.
The govt is doing a 1.7km (one mile) road widening along the route to make
two lanes into four. It involves building two new bridges and the cost:
$32million.
That sucks.
If they car pooled, rode bikes, walked or caught the bus or train it would
save the $32m and increase health and fitness and save more on medical bills
etc.
The $32m could be spent on something useful like schools, old folks homes,
new hospitals etc.
Forget the tittle tattle about helmets: fewer cars and trucks on the roads
is what will save lives.
anyway, rant over...

Wainwright.
--
Drop Dead if you want to reply personally

In aus.bicycle on Fri, 6 Feb 2004 12:42:13 +0000 (UTC)
Chris Malcolm wrote:
"Just zis Guy, you know?" writes:

Of course, nobody believes in risk compensation. That's why it happens.

Have you come across the study of the Kent police drivers/riders? I
read discussions of it in Motorcycle Sport some decades ago, but have
never found the original. Trained police motorcyclists were compared
to trained police car drivers -- trained means those who had done the
police advanced training courses. The accident rate of the
motorcyclists per mile was, contrary to expectations, significantly
*less* than that of drivers. But when they compared serious injury
rates per mile, they were the same. Or so I recall of the
discussion. If true it's a nice example.

I doubt it has anything at all to do with risk compensation.

IN NSW, the crash rates of motorcycles are the same as those of cars,
but the injury rate is much higher, maybe even 10x, I can't recall the
figure, but it's bloody high.

It's that lack of steel cage - if you crash a bike, your chances of
getting hurt are fairly large.

So the riders were crashing less than expected - expectations being
they'd crash at least the same amount. And probably being hurt less
than expected, as the expected injury rate is much much higher than cars,
and they got it down to same as. Meaning the bike crashes were happening
at slower speeds and more controlled circumstances.

What that set of stats shows is not anything about risk compensation,
but that training, especially of vulnerable groups, is a damn good idea.

In NSW, the introduction of the 250cc limit for learner riders led to a
reduction in injury crashes of about 3%. The introduction of rider
training produced a reduction of over 20%.

Risk compensation comes in many forms. While bods wearing leathers ride
their bikes in ways they probably wouldn't if wearing shorts and t-shirt,
bods wearing shorts and t-shirt ride that way too if they've been doing
the squid thing for a while. If you do "foolish" things and don't get
hurt, then the risk level of that activity drops in your estimation.

So to make car drivers more wary and careful, have to ensure they crash
now and then....

Zebee

In aus.bicycle on Fri, 6 Feb 2004 07:48:54 -0500
David Kerber wrote:
Possible, but it's also possible simply that the pent-up demand
for cycling finally caught up as people decided that wearing a helmet
wasn't so bad after all. Ten years on, you have a new generation of
kids just learning to cycle who have had to wear a helmet from the
beginning, and are used to it.


I keep a casual eye out for cyclists and helmets. The kids I see
on bikes mostly aren't wearing helmets. The teenagers and casual
ride-to-shop-or-pub ones aren't either, although they often have a lid
on the bars, same as a lot of the ride-to-work ones do.

I see helmets on family groups and older riders out for a
constitutional, and training riders in lycra.

Zebee

"Just zis Guy, you know?" wrote in message
...
"Nick Maclaren" wrote in message
...

Helmets almost certainly reduce trivial head injuries in all
classes of cyclist - i.e. mere bruises, cuts and so on. Yes,
some of the cuts may have needed hospital treatment, but they
are STILL trivial.

Helmets almost certainly make a negligible difference to the
incidence of brain damage following an accident for normal
cyclists, and the data are not good enough to tell whether the
difference is positive or negative.

Helmets probably help with extreme cycling - crashes at speeds
above 30 MPH, people who ride over broken rock and so on - the
evidence is very scanty and hence inconclusive, but is at least
fairly consistent.

Mandatory and even semi-mandatory helmet wearing reduces the
number of normal cyclists significantly, especially those that
are using cycling as a form of transport rather than recreation.
And 'significantly' is of the order of tens of percent.

On the face of it it's hard to add anything to that, other than that I
believe the evidence indicates that cyclists wearing helmets have a
greater
propensity to risk-taking (risk compensation).

The helmet issue also affects the perception of the risk of cycling by
drivers, such that they are likely to attribute the death of a cyclist
wrongly as the consequence of cycling being a dangerous activity, when the
reality is that it's driving that's dangerous. What a horrible sentence.
I
think you know what I mean, though.

I'm going to add my two cents he

The human body has been designed over the ages to prevent injury to itself
often in quite clever ways. For instance, if you fall the the side, your
shoulders are generally the correct width so that the sharp JERK of the body
striking the ground will slam your head sideways. The neck ligaments and the
spinal column are such that your head will generally NOT hit the ground if
your shoulder does.

If you are wearing a helmet your head is a great deal larger in diameter and
the head WILL hit with the helmet where it wouldn't without. So there you
have a head strike where none would have occurred without the helmet.

And furthermore, a helmet is about 10% of the weight of the head. And this
weight isn't distributed around the whole head but is instead perched atop
the head at a point furthest from the muscles and ligaments that are being
called to duty to support it. This is not a problem during normal
manuveuring but in accidents where decelerations on the order of 10 gs or
more are commonplace, it becomes a real problem

You may THINK that a helmet is a featherweight device that you can ignore
but in fact it isn't. The physical size and weight bear grave possibilities
in minor accidents and I have no doubt that this is one reason that
statistics don't seem to show any of the expected drops in even minor
injuries to cyclists who use them.