Originally Posted by
Six-Shooter
Not avoiding it, rather stating that it's ultimately neither here nor there. If someone is a statistician interested in the relative head injury rates across different endeavors, I can understand wanting to line them up for comparison. But this is a cycling forum for cyclists, and the thread is about bicycle helmets.
Yet still, the point cannot be avoided because it is part of life. There is risk in all things, and a healthy view is one that requires considering the issue as a whole.
One could turn that around and say "It's more about people being hypocritical or portraying cycling as less dangerous than it is." The danger can be looked at two ways: statistics (for what they're worth) and personal assessment (for what that's worth). Obviously people are drawing different conclusions both ways, so that's not necessarily hypocritical or false-faced.
The only real hypocrisy I've noted in this thread is certain people claiming they don't care whether others wear helmets and then browbeating the people who wear them or espouse wearing them.
It could also be an issue of ignorance. People may not even be aware of the everyday risk of head injury off a bike is as great as on a bike because all they hear about is the risk while on a bike, and not the risk when off a bike
That "if" is up in the air. And it does make sense. Earlier Six jours made a point somewhat similar to yours:
But that doesn't necessarily follow. Cyclists naturally focus on things that are important/interesting to them, viz. cycling issues. Is someone not really pro-environment because they give money or time to a local environmental group but not a national one? Is someone who supports the ACLU but not the NRA not really interested in personal freedoms? They're being selective in their focus, as we all tend to do in life.
and people would be better off if they considered the issue in context.
Certainly trying to skew studies and statistics one way or the other merely to back a personal agenda does no one any favors. But the point should be to gather large amounts of quality scientific evidence that pins down the chief questions of cycling head injuries and helmet efficacy and then let each person decide for himself; as so many have noted, individual perceptions and thresholds and responses to danger vary.
And ultimately, even scientific data may not be needed if we're looking at personal choices instead of public policy-making*. As in most things, people will use their own common sense assessment, not studies published in medical journals, for better or worse.
and if people had a realistic idea of what the relative risk of head injury on a bike is, and a realistic idea of the limitations of a helmet could provide they could make a better decision but most often they don't. A good too many people think to cycle is to risk a head injury and the best defect against that injury is wearing a helmet, even in collisions with motor vehicles.
* From what I've seen, this thread actually has almost nothing to do with actual specific helmet laws, which is odd. It seems more an extended argument on tolerating different levels of personal risk and, often, an attempt to convince others to hold the same assessment: "I don't care if you wear a helmet, but you better agree with me that cycling doesn't pose any real danger!"
From what I've seen, many of the arguments here were the same arguments the pro-law proponents used to get BCs helmet law passed. Members of the legislature ate it up and passed the law without debate