closetbiker

The results of the law certainly has created opponents of the law.

Previously, advocacy groups were not in opposition, but they are now. Most agree it has reduced the amount of people riding bikes and there is concern about how the law will affect our new PBS program slated to start next spring, but many still believe helmets save lives (they ignore the large death toll of helmeted cyclists) and that riding a bike is dangerous, so the question seems to be, do the positive results of riding without a helmet outweigh the negative results of not wearing a helmet?

mconlonx

Right... and now you got someone in the news regarding the issue. Phone or write your local representative (city? province?) and tell them that they could be onto a winning political battle with a reversal of the existing law: We tried it for a while, it didn't do much good, time to revisit the issue.

Strike while the iron's hot, while it's still news.

UberGeek

Large death toll of cyclist wearing a helmet?

Only 9% of those who died in a cycling accident from sustained head injuries. 90% of those who died form head injuries were not wearing one.

At any rate, there's no "large death toll" taking both groups into account. Something like 900 per year. Most of those would have died, helmeted or not, due to internal organ damage (aka they were ran over by a car).

closetbiker

Everyone who has fallen and hit their helmets are writing into papers saying their helmets saved them from sure death or disablement.

What we need are the families of those cyclists killed and severly injured while wearing helmets to write in.

It seems few are willing to look at the data or accept that cycling is good for everyone. Hopefully, the judge will take an honest look at the data and rule with his head, and not his emotion

closetbiker

that's not the case here


yup, that's why they die, and continue to die while wearing helmets (not to mention the impacts that result in death are almost always beyond the 12mph impact helmets are designed to deflect)

mconlonx

Anecdotes! Every single one of them! Not a shred of scientific evidence!

Try harder.

closetbiker

there's no possible way the testimonials can be verified but what can be verified are the benefits of riding without helmets.

Fewer riders = fewer benefits = greater costs

UberGeek

It's one of the many points being contended here. Efficacy of helmets, and whether or not they should be made mandatory (based on the purported effectiveness, or purported ineffectiveness).

It's not why they all die. Because, if it were the case, it would show with a 50/50 split of people who die, wearing helmets, or not. And, we don't see that.

What we do see, is that certain incidents, a helmet will in fact, reduce the seriousness of an injury, to the point of not even requiring a hospital visit, whereas not wearing one would have required one. Even if it did not result in death.

larry_llama

I don't understand what facts you use to back this statement up. I don't believe it's something anyone has "seen". It seems more like what some people "believe" because it sounds like common sense to them, even though some people (like me) do not think that common sense dictates this outcome.

The closest set of facts that I can find in your previous posts is:
But the study you linked to in another post where that data appeared to be pulled from has a very important point included which you omitted:
Which means that the study only really tells us that the prevalence of helmet use among riders who tend to get into lethal accidents is low. It tells us NOTHING about the effectiveness of the helmets.

UberGeek

Ok, so it appears those who do not wear helmets are a dangerous group, since they seem to die more frequently than those who don't. I dunno, I'd rather attribute that to helmets being effective, rather than attributing it to the notion that those who don't wear one are dangers on the road.

larry_llama

Or maybe more people don't wear helmets than do...

closetbiker

I have no problem agreeing that helmets can mitigate or reduce injuries in certain situations, but the evidence provided in the court here shows no difference in head injuries to cyclists after people were forced to wear them.

Now that can be for a number of reasons, but the facts show, no reduction in injuries to cyclists in BC.

The support for the law seems to be based on the perception helmets save lives and reduce serious injury, but the facts don't bear this out. Our cycling advocate lawyer who won't fight the law even admits this:

there is no clear evidence of a benefit related to mandatory helmet use. If anything, the studies appear to indicate a number of negative effects....Against this background, it is important to remember that the voice that speaks against mandatory helmet use is still very much a dissenting voice. There is a widespread perception that helmets save lives. I share that perception.


What is perhaps even worse is the express purpose of the law was to reduce death to cyclists in BC and guess what happened? After the law passed and police enforced the law with vigor, resulting in a doubling of helmet use overnight and a 30% drop in people riding bikes, deaths to cyclists increased.

sudo bike

A few points here:

1) Ah, so it isn't you haven't seen evidence, it's that you ignore evidence you don't like. Gotcha.

1.5) (I also like how you question the methodology of an obvious well thought out study with a simple "correlation does not equal causation", and nothing further, at least I'm assuming you didn't purchase the whole kaboodle. It's probably one of the most mistaken logical fallacies; people forget the whole phrase: "Correlation, by itself, does not equal causation". It can still be an important piece of evidence. To ignore correlation completely is foolhardy. In this vein, to paraphrase a favorite strip of mine: "Correlation may not imply causation, but it waggles it's eyebrows suggestively while pointing and mouthing "look over there!".

2) If you read the link, or even my quotes, you'll notice that isn't the only point the study made. They also found that helmets would be far more effective on motor vehicle drivers who have similar head injury rates, 17 times more so. Why don't we wear crash helmets when driving to the market? Further, why aren't we mandating them if they are obviously so much more effective than cycle helmets, something some places are already mandating?

If you wish to not believe this and similar studies, that's your prerogative, but please don't be disingenuous by saying there is no evidence out there, or imply people are acting against self-preservation by forgoing one; it obviously ain't as black and white as you'd like it to be.

As far as further discussing effectiveness, I'll not post more here in a vain attempt to avoid helmet thread: redux. I wanted to post this because it's relevant to the discussion of mandatory use laws, and it found that they are a net detriment to society. I've posted this in the helmet thread as well if you would like to discuss it further.

Awaiting your evidence that a mandatory law is a net benefit to society with bated breath.

sudo bike

Bingo. People tend to exclude the massive "Person on Bike" group when thinking of "cyclists". In my experience, most of these everyday folks don't wear a helmet.

larry_llama

...because cycling is not as dangerous as the legislators in BC think it is ;-)

UberGeek

And they appear to be a danger on the road, since we have a much greater death rate of those who don't wear helmets compared to those who do.

90% vs 9%.

Please provide evidence supporting the notion that helmet usage does not mitigate injuries.

Correlation does none of those things, unless it can be demonstrated the correlation is in fact caused by the changed variable.

However, feel free to show evidence that helmet usage does not mitigate injuries.

Motor vehicles encompass motorcyles, you know? As for head injuries in cars, we have much better systems in place to mitigate head injuries (ie seat belts, air bags, etc).

The majority of head injuries sustained during motor vehicle accidents have a root cause in lack of wearing a seat belt, lack of air bag, or faulty systems.

I believe studies that show a reduced number of cyclists when mandated helmet laws are enacted, thereby reducing the net benefits of cycling to the community as a whole (ie reduced safety in numbers, reduced positive health benefits).

What I take issue with are the claims that helmets do not mitigate injuries sustained, or the specious claims such as "Being alive is riskier than bicycling".

I think you'll be hard pressed to find me supporting mandated helmet laws. In fact, my first post here was "I hope he wins", in case you missed it.

closetbiker

Not in BC it isn't. Just as soon as everyone started to wear helmets, they ended up being injured and dying in them.

Ron has provided this. Lets see what the court says about it.

I didn't, but the law is based on perceptions like helmets reduce health care costs, and that's being disputed. Lets see if the court decides the perception has any foundation

larry_llama

Restating the flawed logic of that study does not make it less flawed. 90% of cyclists who died from ALL CAUSES (not just head injuries) were not wearing helmets and 9% were. This tells us nothing about the capabilities of helmets. NOTHING. It just tells us that more people don't wear helmets than do. We don't know how many of these deaths were from head injuries, and we don't know what the uptake rate of helmet use is. If we knew, for instance, that exactly 50% of all cyclists wore helmets, and if the deaths were all head injury deaths, then we would be closer to the result you are dreaming of (but still not all the way there).

Your interpretation of the data would be the same thing as if I counted cyclists passing by me on a busy corner, determined that 90% were not wearing helmets, and deduced that helmets must kill people because only 9% of cyclists who are alive were wearing helmets.


You need to read the helmet thread... First of all, no one says that a helmet won't reduce injuries. Of course it will. But you are talking about DEATH which is a different story. A helmet will absolutely eliminate some injuries and reduce the extent of others, but the type of injuries from which a helmet will protect you are relatively minor. So yes - a helmet is great insurance against minor injuries. But you are bringing dead cyclists into the discussion and bicycle helmets are not (and never were) designed to protect against the severity and type of blows to the head that kill people.

If you are against mandatory helmet laws then what are you fighting for with these posts?

If we truly want to save peoples' lives we need to be honest about the capabilities of helmets and recognize other measures which are far more important. A 3 foot passing law with proper fines, enforcement and education would do a world of good compared to a "hey why not!" helmet law. Helmets are the easy way out and they are, I'm sorry, utter junk.

UberGeek

Do you have some data for that? I'd be interested to seeing it.

Where? I'd like to see it.

No, the law is based on the notion that wearing a helmet reduces injuries sustained in accidents. Not that is overall reduces negative health effects.

Well, if it tells us nothing about how effective helmets are, then it tells us that people who do not wear helmets are more dangerous on the road than those who wear helmets.

So, which is it?

Lolwut?

If, I am given the figures of deaths during cycling, and see that 90% of those who died were not wearing a helmet, and only 9% of those who died were wearing one, that would lead me to one of two conclusions:

* Helmets are effective are reducing the numbers of deaths (Since head injuries are the most common sustained injury while cycling, and are usually the most serious).

OR

* People who do not wear helmets are predetermined to be less safe than their counterparts who do, given the abnormally large difference.

So, which conclusion here is correct?

Reducing injuries, many times, prevents death. A person can have either a concussion, or a fractured skull which leads to swelling of the brain which often leads to death, or a vegetative states.

A person wearing a helmet is less likely to suffer a skull fracture during cycling. Which would, of course, lessen the chance of death.

I'm only arguing the nonsensical statements made here like:

* Living is riskier than cycling
* Helmets kill people
* Helmets don't mitigate injuries

So, since you think helmets are utter junk, than why not push for a better helmet, 3 foot passing laws with enforcement and fines, good education, and all the other measures?

I don't think I'd push to eliminate one item, just because other items work better... That's silly logic.

mconlonx

Now there's another political tactic to take -- instead of asking a representative to get rid of the currrent MHL, ask them to support an amendment mandating helmet use for motor vehicle operators and passengers. Get the helmet industry on board with you! Obvious benefits on the public health cost end of things. And think of the kids! I mean, c'mon, this is low-hanging fruit here...

And if the proposed legislation is questioned, you got all kinds of studies and stats to back it up. Punch line is that when someone mentions how silly such a bill is, simply point out that it makes more sense than bike helmet laws.

larry_llama

No it doesn't. Since you don't understand what I am talking about I am going to try one more time to paint two scenarios which hopefully clarify why that stat is meaningless:

1. We need to know across the population what percentage of cycling miles are spent in helmets. Let's say, as an extreme example, only 1% of cycling miles are spent in helmets, but 9% of deaths BY HEAD INJURY ONLY occur to helmeted cyclists. Then your exact same data shows that helmets have a detrimental effect because the proportion of dead cyclists in helmets is actually greater than the proportion of helmeted riders!

And this is actually generous because the 90/9 split is for all injuries:

2. We also need to separate head injuries from other bodily injuries. I think we can agree that cyclists deaths occur from very bad accidents. Your approach is to assume that the main cause of death from these accidents is preventable head injury. But if you puncture a lung or rupture a spleen, you could die regardless of your head's status. So what if only half of the deats were from head injury alone - i.e. the rest of the body was save-able? And what if, of those head injury deaths, half were the kind of injury that is preventable by a helmet (i.e. close to within the helmet design standard - by the way this is being very generous to the crappy standards that helmets live up to). Now, for 2008, we see that only 163 of the non helmet deaths count toward your statistic - that's 22% - nowhere near the 90% you keep quoting as truth.
That's exactly how I feel every time you misinterpret the same data despite what I think is a very clear demonstration that those numbers don't mean what you think they mean. Inconceivable!

You forgot:

OR

Many of those 90% would have died even if they were wearing a helmet

OR

A very small percentage of riders wear helmets so we would expect that hospital admittance numbers, injury numbers and death numbers follow the pattern of more non helmeted users than helmeted

No one has claimed any of these things!

I am pushing for those things. And I never once said we should eliminate current helmets. But we need to be utterly honest about their capabilities. Better helmets do exist but even the strongest bike helmet proponents won't advocate for them - football helmets, motorcycle helmets, etc.

UberGeek

Until we mandate odometers on bicycles, we can never garner the miles. However, we can extrapolate the miles based on number of hospital visits.

Even if the miles are completely disproportionate, it appears that irrespective, those putting the most mile in, are in greater danger then.

No, my main approach is comparing numbers of deaths vs wearing or not wearing a helmet.

So, we see from those figures, that either helmets do in fact mitigate injuries; or non-helmet wearers tend to be more dangerous on the roads.

I suppose every statistic can be twisted to fit a goal.

I'm sure many would have died irrespective of wearing a helmet or not. In fact, I'd hazard about 9% of them would have (The number of deaths of riders even when wearing a helmet).

Or, since people were wearing a helmet, oft times a hospital visit was not even required. I'd hazard there is not a large difference in the numbers of people who wear helmets vs. those who don't.

You need to re-read the thread. All of those items I listed were claimed at least once. In fact, your arguments here are trying to claim that helmets don't reduce injury numbers. When, it's plain to see that they do.

Football helmets do not serve the same purpose bicycle helmets do. Football helmets are designed to reduce the shock of a direct, high impulse, low speed impact to the top and sides of the head, and distributing that so the neck doesn't take the brunt of the hit.

Motorcycle helmets would most likely be the most ideal for a sample design for a bicycle helmet, and in fact, the barest helmet requirements do in fact look a lot like BMX helmets:

larry_llama

Sorry, I can't take this any more!

Because we cannot garner the miles, you are willing to make them up in your head? And because we don't know the actual percentage of helmet acceptance in that study, you are just going to make up a number.... sayyyyy... "about half"... Because that number helps to "prove" the point that you've presupposed from the data?

The study you quote simply does not prove what you think it proves. I'm sorry that you cannot see that. I hope that others can.

Nobody said that "living is riskier than cycling". But many have pointed out that there are many, many activities that ARE riskier than cycling for which we have no expectation of helmet wearing.

Nobody said that helmets "kill people". But advocating for helmets and especially helmet laws MIGHT put current cyclists at risk due to creating an environment with fewer cyclists (which has been actually shown to be dangerous to cyclists).

Nobody said that helmets "don't mitigate injuries". But (as I already explained explicitly above), many have said that they rarely mitigate death (DIFFERENT FROM INJURY) and that they DO mitigate injury but they are only really good at mitigating MINOR injury.

When you exaggerate your own assumptions in one direction, and at the same time, exaggerate your opponents' claims in the other, you are building a huge rift that only exists in your own head!

closetbiker

they sure can and it's silly assertions like the ones you've posted that lead to helmet laws, like the one we have in BC.

Thank goodness there are those who will make a stand and fight the issue in court to get some actual facts into the public domain, instead of guesses.

sudo bike

The study noted that, regardless of the fact mandatory helmet laws were enacted on cyclists only, the drop in head injury rates (which was already minor compared to the huge increase in helmet wearing) paralleled pedestrians, likely due to other road safety measures enforced. Basically, 75% increase in helmets ended up with a 13% drop in injuries, and this mirrored a drop in pedestrian injuries as well (who obviously aren't wearing helmets). In other words, no statistical evidence that the helmets did a damn thing, certainly not as huge as some folks would lead you to believe. Honestly, did you read it, or are you just deliberately pretending that wasn't in there to further a point?

Right, but that isn't what they said: They said explicitly that wearing a helmet in a motor vehicle would be far more effective in saving lives, and that motor vehicles have similar head injury rates. That has nothing to do with the fact that there are safety systems in a car, it means that wearing a helmet in a car would be effective. There's no getting around that double-standard.

See study linked. I can post more numbers if you'd like, but they are all the same; mandatory helmet laws simply don't see a significant drop in fatalities. That's pretty clear. As far as minor injuries, sure they prevent some. But lets not kid ourselves with this "helmets save lives" business. The statistics don't support that claim.

Then why are we having this discussion in a thread about mandatory helmet laws?