More helmet data Frank "The Ostrich" Krygowski refuses to acknowledge

On Aug 24, 4:11*pm, Frank Krygowski wrote to
"MikeWhy" :

Here's some more data you'll probably refuse to examine. *Can you
point to the helmet benefit during this time of rapidly rising helmet
use? *I don't see it.

http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1041.html

- Frank Krygowski

Here's some data you keep refusing to view and discuss, Frankie-boy.
We all wonder why you're running scared of it. Can it be that you have
no answer?

The authorities in New York made a compilation covering the years 1996
to 2003 of all the deaths (225) and serious injuries (3,462) in
cycling accidents in all New York City. The purpose of the study was
an overview usable for city development planning, not helmet advocacy,
so helmet usage was only noted for part of the period among the
seriously injured, amounting to 333 cases. Here are some obvious
conclusions from the data:

• Most fatal crashes (74%) involved a head injury.
• Nearly all bicyclists who died (97%) were not wearing a helmet.
• Helmet use was only 3% in fatal crashes, but 13% in non-fatal
crashes

Source:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/download...ike-report.pdf

This concatenation of facts suggests very strongly that not wearing a
helmet may be particularly dangerous.

• It looks like wearing a helmet saved roundabout 33 cyclists or so
(of the 333 seriously injured for whom helmet use is known) from
dying.
• If those who died wore helmets at the same rate of 13% as those in
the study who survived, a further 22 or so could have lived.
• If all the fatalities had been wearing a helmet (100%), somewhere
between 10% and 57% of them would have lived. This number is less firm
to allow for impacts so heavy that no helmet would have saved the
cyclist. Still, between 22 and 128 *additional* (to the 33 noted
above) New Yorkers alive rather than dead for wearing a thirty buck
helmet is a serious statistical, moral and political consideration
difficult to overlook.

Andre Jute
It is boring to be right all the time