RazrSkutr

Walker's study has not been replicated, but there are some similar results from a Florida DoT study of 2000 interactions:

https://www.dot.state.fl.us/research-...977-01_rpt.pdf

"Motorists provided 0.5ft additional lateral separation to female bicyclists and 0.35ft additional separation to casually dressed compared to athletically dressed cyclists." p viii

mconlonx

Keep telling all the lies you want, Walker's study shows otherwise. Why do you hate safety?

So you don't get the point that I agree with Walker and Closetbiker for the most point...? Ah, well then...

If I was concerned with safety of cyclists, why would I sell helmets below cost?!?

(Actually, we got some leftover Giro Sections for sale at half off retail, which is at or below cost, so ya got me there.)

closetbiker

Are they going for $3 or less?

https://www.helmets.org/helmcost.htm

mconlonx

Goodness, no.

Depends on what side of the issue you're on. Obviously, I thought Monster Pete was drastically misrepresenting the pro-bare head side of things as being entirely more reasonable than some certainly can be.

I usually don't use an inflammatory phrase for such, just quoting Monster Pete... That's why it was in quotes (" ").

3) Maximum protection includes drivers being aware and safe, which is degraded by helmet use. Either drivers will drive too close to helmeted riders, or helmet use will decrease ridership and without a critical mass of cyclists, driver reaction to them will remain less than safe. Helmets are less safe than riding safely, so obviously helmets are not part of a riding strategy with maximum protection as a goal.

Thanks for not proving any point I made wrong.

Actually, no, many come here for reasonable discourse and get totally ambushed by the bare-head crowd. They may come in with an aggressive or incorrect stance, but their introduction to rebuttal in here is hardly as reasonable and neutral as Monster Pete puts forward. As evidenced by the first poster I responded to above, and...:

mconlonx

Cost of helmets has what to do with safety...?

closetbiker

Gouging profits via fear, of course.

mconlonx

Nothing to do with helmets, and the results you report are only incidental to the study.

But... not only do I have long hair, where riders could certainly mistake me for female until they get at least a partial profile, I also dress casually. Does that make up for wearing a helmet, where passing distance allowed by motor vehicles is concerned?

No one can say for sure...

mconlonx

Still not seeing the safety connection...

closetbiker

Not surprising as helmets have more to do with profit, than safety.

Pet rocks sold too. People'll buy just about anything if you market it right

mconlonx

Sure enough.

closetbiker

So you agree helmets wouldn't be sold unless a profit is made?

mconlonx

I don't know of anything that would be sold at the retail level unless there's profit involved.

closetbiker

So wouldn't it be fair to say, if it's clear that selling helmets produces a verifiable profit for manaufactures, but not clear that there has been a verifiable decline in injuries to cyclists wearing these helmets, that the helmet industry is more about profit, than safety?

mconlonx

It would certainly be fair to say that.

However, I can't think of any safety-product related company, off hand, that is not in it for profit, first and foremost. Generally, if companies are not turning a profit, they go out of business...

Still waiting for the punchline here...

closetbiker

The punch line is, the joke is on cyclists.

The focus on helmets has reduced safety for cyclists (through misdirection from proven methods of increasing safety) while producing profits for fear mongers.

If a helmets fiscal profitability was as poor as it's efficacy, their manufacture would be discontinued.

closetbiker

btw, I'm guessing those Giro Sections are going for something like $33?

Even if that is your cost, isn't that still a lot of profit for something that cost about $5 and hasn't been shown to do too much to reduce injury?

mconlonx

Blah, blah, more bare-head brigade hyperbole of the type Monster Pete and GriddleCakes says doesn't exist, blah.

closetbiker

You're not suggesting helmet efficacy is as well established as helmet profitability are you?

Now that would be hyperbole.

mconlonx

More like $25-27.50?

And no, if manufacturing cost is $5, then 10x markup for retail price @ $50 is about right based on the only other manufacturing I know, books. There's quite a few people making money along the way from manufacturer to retailer to consumer.

Plenty other products with low cost of mfg, high price, of dubious benefit. Pet rocks come to mind...

mconlonx

Wut.

Are you under the mistaken impression that the two have, or should have anything to do with each other?

Helmet profitability is very obvious: helmet companies exist. Scientists theorize a force in the universe called gravity, too.

I don't disagree with you here, y'know, just that I don't assign near the value that you do to this: you seem outraged; barely rates a shrug from me as statement of the obvious and near inconsequential.

I refuse to dabble in hyperbole.

closetbiker

If the benefits can't be seen in anything other than a believers mind, that'd be a dubious benefit to anyone other than the believer, no?

That would be a manufactured, phycological benefit - not a concrete and verifiable benefit, no?

hagen2456

I wonder who came up with the idea that all cyclists ought to wear helmets?

GriddleCakes

Agreed, and if that's what it sounds like I'm trying to do, then I apologize for the miscommunication. The primary problem with attitudes about helmets is a misunderstanding of what they're capable of. I feel that this thread is necessary if only to maintain a counterpoint to false beliefs about helmet efficacy.

Agreed.

A whole hell of a lot of us don't have health insurance, and if a fracture is minor enough the uninsured (or under-insured) will often tough out the natural healing process and forgo medical intervention (I did this twice back in my uninsured youth, although not with anything that I thought was a skull fracture). If all you have to go on is a nasty swelling and a pounding headache, it can seem reasonable to go buy a bottle of advil and call into work for a couple of days in lieu of spending a months rent to go see a doctor (who might just prescribe a more expensive bottle of painkillers and tell you to take a few days off of work).

Fair enough, but isn't it possible that motorcycle helmet manufacturers could be trying to placate die-hard motorcycle helmet opponents by addressing one of their biggest issues with motorcycle helmets, regardless of the probability of the issue's occurrence? That a few manufacturers have addressed the issue doesn't lend the same weight as actual study of the issue; it could just be a marketing ploy, which safety gear manufacturers are not above.

If everyone agrees that helmets prevent at least some injuries, then you're right that "do helmets prevent some injuries" is not in question; but which injuries helmets do prevent is most certainly a highly debated question, the answer to which is, as you said, hard to determine. And whether protective gear leads to more dangerous behavior is another question, true. But I still feel that there is more than just an all-for or all-against sentiment prevalent in this thread. You can call it moderate or whatever, but I'm as annoyed with any representation of those who doubt the advertised and widely-believed efficacy of helmets as absolutely anti-helmet as you apparently are by those who don't fully agree with you.

I didn't know that. Thanks for the heads up.

Definitely. Witness the increased padding and subsequent injury increase in professional hockey and American football.

1)This might be as much a result of marketing and branding of the extreme sport lifestyle as it is a result of active risk compensation. If the pros all where helmets, amateurs are much more likely to buy them. But yeah, it seems like a recent thing.

2)I wasn't trying to deny risk compensation, just pointing out that there are people who decide to engage in high risk activities regardless of whether or not they perceive it to be made safer through safety gear.

But yes, by making dangerous activities seem safer, the increasingly ubiquitous presence of helmets might be encouraging people who would otherwise not engage in said dangerous activities into increased levels of risk. So I guess that risk compensation from helmet promotion can put some people at greater risk, but I have a hard time blaming helmets for this, and not the people who've opted into risky activities without proper research, and the marketeers who've implied that helmets are far more effective than they actually are.

Hopefully there are more helmet threads like this on skateboarding forums, mountain climbing forums, skiing forums (although there isn't one on the skiing forum that I frequent; at least not a stickied one), etc... to help counter this pervasive misconception.

I'm not trying to speak for the bare-head crowd; by showing that there is a range of belief in the bare-headed crowd I'm trying to do the opposite and point this out to those who lump the entire bare-headed crowd into one simplified camp with a uniformity of reasons. And I don't care if you find it irritating that I present myself as a voice of reason; we all believe that we are voices of reason as we all believe that we are reasonable, otherwise we probably wouldn't be engaging in any debate of any sort. I don't see how I'm presenting myself as a voice of reason any more or less that anyone else in this thread.

OK, maybe it makes more sense if I state that the ability of a helmet to prevent the same injuries is the same, regardless of activity. That is, a helmet will prevent the same contusion from the same force strike, whether the hit occurs on the edge of a coffee table after the wearer trips over his cat, or it occurs on a similar shaped rock after a mountain biker stops but fails to unclip and goes down.

Maybe. Maybe more for some than others, or maybe it's the same across the board. I don't know, which is why I feel that helmet use needs to be a personal choice.

closetbiker

After the joint Snell Foundation/Bell Sports effort to establish certification standards in the mid 80's was established, the pair provided funding for the TRT Harborview study (85/88% reduction) to appear in the '89 NEJM. It seems it was after this that the push to get cyclists to wear helmets was on, much of it coming from a number of groups sponsored by Bell.

If you rode without a helmet in '85, no one blinked. Do the same 10 years later, and you were likely to be lectured. Australia, New Zealand, Ontario, BC, had, or soon were to pass laws on helmet use, so the base work had been done by this point. It seems much of it was by Bell.

GriddleCakes

And I thought that you were implying that the pro-bare headed side of things was entirely unreasonable. Looking back I see that this isn't what you were saying.

Yeah, you were quoting Pete, who was quoting someone else. I should follow my own advise and pay more attention to the flow of the conversation before jumping it. I guess that I wish just one poster would stop mis-using the word troll, but we all know that there's no explaining anything to that poster, even basic word definitions.

On an individual level I'm not sure that I agree with this. I don't feel that it has been sufficiently shown that motorists behave more recklessly around helmeted cyclists. And while I do believe that MHLs reduce cycling rates, which further reduces safety for cyclists, I'm not convinced that an individual cyclist's decision to wear a helmet has the same effect.

You're welcome? I wasn't trying to disprove your statements, just broaden them from the oversimplified representations of helmet skeptic arguments that I perceived them to be. Like I said, I misinterpreted what you were saying. My bad.

This is true, sometimes. But hey, it's a pretty contentious issue. And if you didn't know before, coming in and asserting an oft-argued statement without reading any of the thread will certainly enlighten you to that fact.