Originally Posted by
madcalicojack
It is clear that this is going nowhere which isn't a surprise given your long and distinguished history of snarky posts on this subject. I have offered no straw men.
The straw man here is when you say that a helmet must absorb the entire energy of vehicle collision to be of any use. I will certainly agree that if you stand in front of a 40 mph and try to stop it with your head, you will die regardless of whether or not you wear a helmet. I have not suggested that a helmet will save you from every type of life-threatening injury when you are hit by a car. You are correct that it will only save you from a specific type of injury.
It just happens to be that this type of injury is statistically probable among injuries, and that is has the nasty habit of killing you or giving you permanent brain damage.
Here is some substantiation for my argument. I presume you'll provide same.
http://www.helmets.org/henderso.htm
http://depts.washington.edu/hiprc/pr...meteffect.html
http://www.cdc.gov/MMWR/preview/mmwrhtml/00036941.htm
The University of Washington page provides a list of references used in their analysis. You can go get these papers at a University library near you if you care to do the research. I will, in fact, leave you alone now since I don't think that these three links or the 74 papers cited by the UW link will deter you from jumping into every single helmet thread to suggest not wearing one. And of course every time you do this you will then complain about how you are so picked on and you just want to be left alone.
Enjoy your bike. Don't fall off.
I've bolded the two important parts of your argument, as they typify your stuff to this point. As to the "absorbing the entire energy of he collision" bit, I never said that, and I've explained to you that I never said it. I can only assume that this is either a reading comprehension issue or an honesty one. And the line about "statistical probability" is just more of the same assfacts you've been putting up from the start. Statistically speaking, head injuries are far down the list of probable injuries in a cycling crash, and all of the helmet research agrees on that.
As for the research, there is an awful lot of it both pro and con. Again, one just has do do an
honest evaluation of it and then make an informed decision. Too many people see a blurb based on the Thompson paper about helmets being 85% effective and take that as gospel, without ever looking into it any further. This leads to obnoxious "I'd rather wear a helmet than be a vegetable" kinds of posts written by people who obviously believe their helmets make them "safe". This is a dangerously mistaken POV.
http://www.helmets.org/veloaust.htm
http://www.cyclehelmets.org/mf.html?1181
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/reprint/332/7543/722
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/con...38958059093159
http://www.cyclehelmets.org/papers/c2023.pdf0
Finally, as to being "picked on": show me a helmet thread where everyone is calm and rational and there are no "You're an idiot if you don't wear a helmet, my head was run over by a 747 and my helmet saved my life, helmets are cooler than being fed through a tube" posts and I'll show you a thread where the "anti-helmet" guys don't make a peep.