OK,

I'm going to have to go ahead and call you a moron here.

Those pages you link use no real science to come to their conclusion.

Looking at statistics with looking at how they were collected and saying there is a causal relationship without looking at all the factors is misleading. It has been said many times, "figures don't lie, but liars can figure."


Edit to add:

Drawing the conclusion that helmets don't work because deaths in pedestrian accidents and cycling accidents are going down at the same rate, and you don't wear a helmet to walk, so they don't work...

And using the statment that... "after an accident, damage to the helmet might not be visible..." to postulate "how does a consumer know a new helmet off the shelf is not damaged?"

I glad these authors didn't work on Apollo (Of course, they are probably amoung the people that think the moon landing was faked as well)

</Edit>



As I said in my first post, look at the Hurt report. Yes it was about motorcycle accidents, but helmet use can be directly coorelated because the helmets protect against the exact same fall.

From this page of the report

http://www.magpie.com/nycmoto/hurt.html


We get these conclusions...


44. Approximately 50% of the motorcycle riders in traffic were using safety helmets but only 40% of the accident-involved motorcycle riders were wearing helmets at the time of the accident.

45. Voluntary safety helmet use by those accident-involved motorcycle riders was lowest for untrained, uneducated, young motorcycle riders on hot days and short trips.

46. The most deadly injuries to the accident victims were injuries to the chest and head.

47. The use of the safety helmet is the single critical factor in the prevention of reduction of head injury; the safety helmet which complies with FMVSS 218 is a significantly effective injury countermeasure.

48. Safety helmet use caused no attenuation of critical traffic sounds, no limitation of precrash visual field, and no fatigue or loss of attention; no element of accident causation was related to helmet use.

49. FMVSS 218 provides a high level of protection in traffic accidents, and needs modification only to increase coverage at the back of the head and demonstrate impact protection of the front of full facial coverage helmets, and insure all adult sizes for traffic use are covered by the standard.

50. Helmeted riders and passengers showed significantly lower head and neck injury for all types of injury, at all levels of injury severity.

51. The increased coverage of the full facial coverage helmet increases protection, and significantly reduces face injuries.

52. There is no liability for neck injury by wearing a safety helmet; helmeted riders had less neck injuries than unhelmeted riders. Only four minor injuries were attributable to helmet use, and in each case the helmet prevented possible critical or fatal head injury.

53. Sixty percent of the motorcyclists were not wearing safety helmets at the time of the accident. Of this group, 26% said they did not wear helmets because they were uncomfortable and inconvenient, and 53% simply had no expectation of accident involvement.

So tell us all again how helmuts don't work after all of your extensive reasearch..