Originally Posted by
joejack951
There is no tap dancing. I just don't give a damn about the protective abilities of a bicycle helmet. The chances of me incurring a head injury of the type that a bicycle helmet could prevent or mitigate are so low that the entire concept is irrelevant. If I were to wear a bicycle helmet in an effort to prevent that slim chance of injury, logically I should be willing to wear that helmet at all times because I'm just as likely to need it off the bike as I am while on it.
Are things starting to make sense to you now?
You are the only one to make a cogent argument so far that actually supports your not wearing a helmet.
You don't care about the marginal improvement in safety a helmet provides.
But you at least implicitly admitted helmets do improve your safety.
It's the name-callers who absolutely refuse to admit that bike helmets prevent injuries that's puzzling. Especially when all they do is hide behind ONE site that makes big noises about refuting ONE study - and then that "refutation" merely winds up thus:
Conclusion
The study compares groups of cyclists who chose to wear helmets with those who did not. Many variables, such as the reasons for wearing a helmet and attitudes to risk, were not controlled for by the researchers and may have influenced the results.
THAT is lame. Especially after starting out thus:
Moreover, by making different - but no less valid - assumptions, the conclusions change radically.
THAT is the lynchpin "work" that supposedly undermines Thompson et al's paper of 1989.
Decide for yourself if a conclusion of "may have influenced the results" undermines ONE study, while the other twenty-ish are ignored.
You know what, I don't even know which study of the many I linked this conclusion comes from:
Helmet use significantly reduced the risk of head injury by 63% (OR=0.37, 0.20-0.66).
Helmet use signficantly reduced the loss of consciousness by 86% (OR=0.14, 0.05-0.38).
Anyone who wants to refute that one, you'll have to actually do some leg work and not rely on cyclehelmet.org. It's pretty much in line with Thompson's 1989 conclusions.