Originally Posted by
closetbiker
Here we have a fundamental problem.
It isn't failure fo yeild right of way, wrong way cycling, absence of lighting, it's a lack of helmet that is the single most important factor.
If this is true, how is it in the Netherlands where almost no one wears helmets, cyclists have the least injuries relative to exposure?
I think you perhaps misread what they said: not that a helmet prevents crashes (as the suggestions you offer might), but rather that "A helmet is the single most effective way to prevent head injury
resulting from a bicycle crash"--a major difference. Either way, as I'm researching this issue, I do find it striking that one government and safety agency after another, from various countries, seems to recommend helmets.
As for the Netherlands, do we have sound data for that? A link would be appreciated. Re: the Netherlands, I don't know if you saw my earlier post, but there's lots of interesting, detailed info here regarding Dutch cycling casualties and helmets:
http://www.swov.nl/rapport/Factsheet...S_Cyclists.pdf
http://www.swov.nl/rapport/Ss_RA/RA47.pdf
http://www.swov.nl/rapport/Factsheet...le_helmets.pdf
including, in the first link, a comparison of hospitalizations from crashes with and without motor vehicle involvement (the latter far outstrips the former) and, from the last,
One third of the cyclists who are admitted to hospital with serious injury after a traffic crash are diagnosed with head/brain injury. Approximately three-quarters of these cyclists sustain this head/brain injury in crashes not involving a motor vehicle. As many as nine out of ten young children who sustain head/brain injury, do so in crashes not involving a motor vehicle. In the majority of cases these are bicycle-only crashes.
Research has shown that a bicycle helmet provides protection against serious head and brain injury. The best estimates that are presently available indicate that the use of bicycle helmets decreases the risk proportion of sustaining or not sustaining head injury by 42%, that of sustaining or not sustaining brain injury by 53%, that of sustaining or not sustaining facial injury by17%, whereas the odds ratio for sustaining or not sustaining does on the other hand increase by 32%.
...
All in all, the SWOV concludes that a bicycle helmet is an effective means of protecting cyclists from sustaining head and brain injury in a fall with a bicycle.