skye

Well then, by all means, feel free to post a study which supports your point of view and let's examine it, shall we?

chasm54

Thanks.

no motor?

Don't expect to see a peer reviewed double blind placebo study on helmet safety anytime soon, that's not going happen just like it's not going to happen for cancer treatments and heart transplants - they're not going to be able to ethically find the control group needed for any of those studies.

These are a few studies published in medical journals listed on PubMed for your viewing pleasure.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22792660
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21606469
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17728326

curbtender

This guy should have left his helmet at home...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DfiN...eature=related

skye

Who said anything about double blind placebo? Those are typically only used in pharmaceutical research, and wouldn't necessarily even be all that useful here.

But let's take a quick look at your citations:

1. West Virginia pediatric study -- your biggest problem here is that it is pediatrics. Results from this population are not generalizable to adult cyclists and the study's authors made no attempt to do so. Helmets might be useful for kids (except for the hanging incidents), but that's not the population in question here. Also, their wide-net approach makes for a very non-homogenous population, which weakens the study considerably. The authors did not adjust for either locale or socioeconomic status. So, you are including children from impoverished areas, such as inner cities, who are likely not to be wearing helmets, but also will have much less parental supervision and will be riding in more treacherous areas. See how easily that could sway the results? But this study did not control for those all-important factors.

2. French study -- farcical on the face of it. The researchers baldly make the claim that wearing a helmet also decreases your risk of facial injuries. Tell me, how does that work? Invisible force field? The other major boo-boo that was made here is that they reported the results as the odds ratio rather than the relative risk. The odds ratio makes for a much more impressive set of figures, but without the underlying data and assumptions, the conclusions are meaningless. We don't know how the controls were selected. I also find it pretty damning that at a 95% CI, their OR swung about 30%. That adds to the meaninglessness.

3. Sweden -- Thank you for this citation, because it actually supports my argument. The study's authors found that among children under 15, the incidence rate of head injuries did go down with increased helmet use, but the incidence of head injuries for adults increased despite the increase in helmet use! Read the abstract, it's right in there!

Three studies; all three with significant problems, outlined above, which makes their conclusions suspicious.

Now, how about this study covering eight million cyclist injuries over 15 years, but showed that helmets hadno effect on serious injuries and a small but significant increase in risk of fatality? Rodgers GB (1988). "Reducing Bicycle Accidents: A Reevaluation of the Impacts of the CPSC Bicycle Standard and Helmet Use". Journal of Products Liability 11: 307–317.

Or Scuffham's study, which found that, after taking into account long-term trends, helmets had no measurable effect on head injuries? Scuffham PA, Langley JD (1997). "Trends in cycle injury in New Zealand under voluntary helmet use". Accident Analysis and Prevention 29 (1): 1–9.

Those are just some older ones. There's a lot of newer stuff too, but I'm out of time right now. And I'm not going to bother posting them unless I get some indication that I'm not just wasting my time.

Rx Rider

perfect example of how a helmet can help and having better bike skills would have helped more. mountain biking and helmets go hand in hand though, I would never go bare headed.

rekmeyata

This post has gone to the point of absurdity, so to everyone who believes helmets kill people I'm going to bow out of this waste of time and brain power of a post. That should spell relief to you helmet haters. And that's what this is all about, you hate helmets so you find some bazaar new science to prove your point against years of learned knowledge.

If I search long and hard enough I could probably find a link to prove that wearing helmet increases the chance of getting sterile...sorry that's the seat debate, I get confused where some of your heads are.

Six jours

The pro-helmet side of the discussion is grateful, no doubt.

no motor?

Oh we're all wasting our time here. You either believe protecting the most important part of the central nervous system while on 2 wheels is important, or you don't. No amount of typing is going to change the opinion on either side.

In between my last post and this post I talked with a hospital chaplain who's spent way too much time with the loved ones of brain dead survivors of motorcycle accidents about organ donation. I was absolutely shocked when he mentioned how they'd all been riding without a helmet </sarcasm font>.

Commodus

An otherwise nonsensical argument is often 'supported' by these sorts of emotional appeals. They work on a certain subset of the population, I suppose.

skye

By all means, base your bicycle safety decisions on the meanderings of a non-cycling cleric talking about motorcycles. That's like saying the sky is orange so I'll eat chocolate mint ice cream today. wut?

sudo bike

Yup... we all hate helmets. Despite the fact that you can plainly see me wearing one right over there <---. I wear them when I think I may be more likely to benefit from their use, and I have no illusions about what they will actually accomplish (and saving my life is not one of them). Really is simple as that, folks.

mcrow

I guess I fall somewhere in the middle on this one. I don't feel that everyone should be required to wear a helmet and I don't think anyone is dumb for now wearing one. There is some debate as to the effectiveness of helments as well. It's not clear cut that helmets are always better. However, I think that for me, I have a wife and daughter and even if I only get a 5% increase in my chances of suviving an accident then that's worth it to me.

Like others have said, being a better rider, being more alert while riding and having equipment in good condition may be more important. However, if I screw up and get hit as a result I think in some cases the helmet will increase my chances of survival. Of course, some accidents are so violent the helmet will do little for you and can easily die of none head injuries as well.

The way I look at it is a helmet is only an enhancement, not some sort of shield. I compare it to latex gloves in my field of work. The gloves are only a part of proper safety when handling needles and blood, it's knowing how to proper handle infectious agents that makes the bigger difference. Handling a bike well and being alert is much more important than the helmet. If you are alert and skilled, your chances of needing a helmet are pretty small.

RazrSkutr

Thanks for that excellent précis of some of the immediate problems with those studies.

RazrSkutr

So you'd fall into the group of people that believe that bike helmets prevent TBI?

I was going to wear a helmet today, but my wife begged me not to because she was worried that the risk of rotational injuries (probably exacerbated to the tune of low single digit percentages by strapping on a helmet) might leave our daughter without a father. So I decided to do the responsible thing and leave it at home. I hate the idea of my family wishing that I hadn't succumbed to religious bullying. Imagine them saying: if only Daddy had THOUGHT instead of assuming despite all the evidence.

no motor?

I couldn't have said it any better myself.

mcrow

Did you read my post?

I said that in some cases they do prevent TBI (or at least it is what was meant). I believe that wearing a helmet has more potential to save your life than it does to increase chances of injury. Like I said, I'm not sure the difference is all that much but I'm willing to wear one even if it only helps a little bit. I also said I don't hold it against anyone else who doesn't wear a helmet and I did us snark to try to get my point across. I fail to see where the level of snark you are using is warranted, you must be a real joy to hang around with.

Rx Rider

even if a helmet only saves you from a trip to the ER or medi-mart it's worth wearing. and thanks for the nice post they're getting few and far between.

RazrSkutr

You said what I quoted: that helmets may provide a 5% reduction in TBI. I object to your claim that helmets effect a net reduction in TBI because there's little to no evidence of that. That's what this thread is about.
Good for you. Your uninformed opinion is of vast interest to the internets. Anything else you'd like to share?

I'll take that as a compliment from someone that indulges so readily in fear-mongering, inexpert opinion and humorless hypocrisy.

RazrSkutr

And if a helmet causes you a trip to the ER then it's worth not wearing.

Thanks for the post which continues to blindly assert an unproven viewpoint as fact. It's very helpful.

Rx Rider

sure, any time, glad to be of help.

Six jours

The question, of course, is what constitutes "protection". Little foam hats don't offer much, IMO. Motorcycle helmets, OTOH, do. So your line can easily be used against the bicycle helmet brigade: if you believe in protecting "the most important part of the central nervous system", why aren't you wearing an effective helmet while bicycling?

Six jours

Well, that's reasonable enough. It's certainly not anyone else's place to try to talk you out of that. I wonder if you wear a motorsports helmet in your car, though. (I'm not trying to talk you out of riding with a helmet, BTW. I just don't see tiny amounts of potential risk reduction, applied only to one very narrow area of activity, as enough to rationally justify today's obsession with bicycle helmets.)

When I was in the field, we had thin latex gloves for general purpose, nitrile gloves for latex allergies, "turtleskins" for needle protection when working with junkies, and sterile gloves for invasive operations and wound care. To carry on your analogy, the helmet pushers are saying "If you don't use gloves every time you come near a patient you will die, and thin latex gloves will protect your life from just about anything. Moron."

If that gives you any insight into the debate. :-;

hagen2456

Yes. Belief. That's all we need.

Rx Rider

I think love is all you need . . .


. . .which is why I don't need a helmet. I'm glad to see this Guy wearing one! that could be dangerous !!!!