Originally Posted by
dougmc
Well, the sample size is a lot smaller, so there's less evidence. But more to the point, I never said helmets don't make people safer. I said they're not as effective as seat belts.
Then I'm confused. Surely, the bike advocacy movement isn't pushing to stop and/or repeal mandatory helmet laws, just because helmets are
less effective than seatbelts??? How is it a victory, "a win for Colorado," that a safety measure which it sounds to be effective, but less so than seatbelts, was defeated? If seatbelts work 2/3 of the time and helmets 1/3 ( pulling numbers from nowhere for the sake of example ), that's still better than 0/3.
Originally Posted by
dougmc
Nothing. And I didn't say it did. Somebody said that a child died in their neighborhood because they weren't wearing a helmet, and I pointed out that there's no way they could know that. Thread drift, perhaps, but it happens.
Well I apologize if I've misunderstood you. I thought what you were saying was that because nobody has ever been able to conclusively prove that somebody who died in a bike accident while not wearing a helmet would have been guaranteed to survive with one, that it was silly to have laws mandating their use. I seem to be wrong in comparing this to Bertrand Russel's teapot.