I often race without gloves. NBD.

December 12, 2009.

Where do I collect my prize? :)

Nearest tattoo parlor -- have them tattoo a gold star on your forehead. I will reimburse you upon proof of tattoo...

You will absolutely freak, if someday you meet someone with a gold star tattoo on their forehead.

"MMACH 5, is that you?"

ftfy

Besides, the wheeled pegasus neck tattoo would be a dead give-away.

How many doctors work emergency rooms? Also, a doctor does not have any method for measuring whether a person was wearing a helmet other than the acciden report. They also do not have any way of determining said helmet effectiveness.

You need to realize that doctors don't have ANY expertise in helmet function methods, effectiveness, injury prevention or anything like that. Helmets is not taught in med school. In emergency rooms you see the injuries but again you have then not seen the accident so you can't really draw any conclusions

Okay, here's your quote in its entirety:
That first part of the qualifications pertains to a 2007 study by I. Walker. This study has now been updated.
The study in my previous post showed that for children, the assumed risk compensation a helmet might give to people (that "..they were invulnerable and riding safe just because they were wearing a helmet...") was invalid, as the presumed faster speed of the bicycle did not make much difference in the actual injuries that would have occurred.

Both of your qualification statements are not in keeping with newer study results. With an "If...then" type statement, if the "Ifs" are not valid, the "then" is similarly not valid.

John

To be fair the whole "helmets cause cars to pass closer" is a relatively minor point all in all. The more significant result of mandatory helmets or helmet promotion is the lessened cycling and loss of safety in numbers. In that way helmets do not directly work against safety but the forces around helmets do, very effectively.

The nay sayers that are against helmets have arguments about as thin as chicken soup made out of the shadow of a rooster.

Since the anti helmet people go far on tangents on this thread, let me do so too. Yes I wear a helmet all the time and when I ride my tadpole trike, and to be safe I also clip into my SPD pedals to avoid leg suck. It is simple and logical to use safety equiptment available.

Here is a tip. Write your entire dissertation at your leisure on any word processor on your computer, even Notepad, then paste it intact into the reply section of Bike Forums. No more writing (or reading) your disjointed replies.

Good to see the Walker study shot down -- I never liked it anyway and the pro-helmeteers never seemed too anxious to don long-hair wigs for maximum passing distance, so I question their dedication to safe riding. Pro-helmeteers, whaddayagot which refutes the refutation of the Walker study so many of you like to cite...?

Do you have a study refuting the risk compensation paradigm for adult riders, which is what we're mainly talking about here? To clarify, I'm not talking about minors, kids, or children, I'm talking about adult cyclists.

Do you have refutation for the third qualification I made? If it was not clear in the original quote, here it is spelled out a bit more: mandatory helmet use discourages riding and I extend that to strongly encouraged helmet use to the point that other riders will chide you for not wearing a helmet and in essence write you off as a cycling pariah. Less riders on the road make riding less safe. Also, more sedentary people face more health issues in general than those who stay in shape riding on a regular basis.

I will maintain my statement as valid -- helmet use works against cycling safety -- pending refutation of risk compensation issue among adult riders, and safety issues stemming from diminished ridership due to MHLs or socially near-mandatory helmet use.

Pro helmeteer arguments are about as thin as wish soup -- boil some water and wish you had something to put into it.

Do your SPD pedals have reflectors...?

Actually, I think its time for the jokes about what a great fisherman rydabent is. He hooks all into specious, and trivial discussions, with no interest in actually discussing any issue.

I'm not anti helmet. I never discourage people from wearing helmets and I wish to retain the right to wear helmets for any given activity if I sense a need for such protection.

I don't ride a laydown trike so I just wear SPDs cuz I like to. I also have a bike or two with BMX platforms and at least one with Suntour road pedals with clips and straps.

There is much more safety equipment available than SPDs and helmets. Do you avail yourself of any? Ever consider full face helmet? Fly a flag from your trike? Wear elbow pads? Hip pads? Full leathers?

Why do you NOT use ALL the PPE that's available.

On a Tadpole recumbant trike the pedals would be pointed straight down--reflectors would not do much. :)

John

If you throw in a few things, such as better visibility (lights on helmets), better protection (even for road rash--but actually for brain injury), it's like throwing in some greens, some carrots, a bit of salt, a bit of fish or meat, and boiling until it becomes a soup.

John

mconlonx,

I'll address more comprehensively your thoughts on risk compensation a bit later, as that will take more composition, and I don't want to do it on the fly (waiting for an appointment right now). But I will relate that after the Walker study came out, I did some experimenting with my Rans Stratus recumbent bike. I was flying an orange flag on it, and so started monitoring passing distances on my commute home. I then changed to an American flag on the bike, and noted that the passing distances were slightly increased. I discussed this at the time on these threads (I don't know if the current helmet thread was up at that time, or a previous one). I still fly the American flag on my Rans Recumbant. I figured that the redneck in a pickup who might want to clip me would think twice if it was a Veteran who was in the recumbent. I've worn out two American flags, and found that the best is the one you can pick up at a Harley-Dividson Motorcycle shop--those are made to last in high winds.

John

Well see, now that's the thing, isn't it? Bareheader soup would include a few savories as well, not just rooster shadow for flavoring. BTW, which helmets are tested to be safe with stuff stuck onto them like cameras, lights, and viking horns?

Yet still required by law in many states as a safety devices for bicycles... and arguably, even pointed straight down and up, as much a contributor to cycling safety as helmet use on a tadpole trike...

The chum he uses is so aromatic, that it can't fail to serve its purpose.

In the safety profession, we use what is called the Hierarchy of Controls. You will note that PPE (personal protective equipment, such as a bicycling helmet), is at the bottom of these controls. It is the least effective of the hierarchy of controls. Substitution and elimination are at the top of the pyramid. Engineering controls are very high up too. In safety, we have a concept for Prevention through Design (or PtD).

For elimination and substitution, we have examples within the bicycle community of these happening. Our Bike Beaverton map gives bicyclers a guide to bike routes. We have “Caution Areas” noted on the map; these are roadways without good bicycle facilities, and with high traffic numbers, that we want to steer bicyclists away from. The City of Beaverton and the Tualatin Hills Parks are Recreation Department (THPRD) are working together to provide a network of trails so that both pedestrians and bicyclists have paths throughout the city to get to a destination. I recently changed my normal bicycle exercise route from a number of roads out toward Hillsboro (to the west) to a north-south path called the Westside Trail. These are examples where we can “substitute” a route or show bicyclists how to “eliminate” hazardous roadways from their bicycling route. Washington County has just hired a person to define “Safe Routes to Schools” for kids who want to bicycle or walk to school, rather that using buses or being driven by parents. So there are a number of things that can be done at the top of the Hierarchy of Controls to make bicycling safer. I maintain that it is these types of facilities which make people feel safer riding bicycles, not the PPE of helmets.

Engineering controls come next. We can re-design roadways to better accommodate bicyclists, or we can provide better paths for bicyclists. I was recently in Hong Kong, and noted that their bicycle infrastructure in certain areas is much better than I had seen in the Pacific Northwest. This is because they have 7 or so million people in a very small space, and so their building projects must accommodate both pedestrians and bicyclists. This is not the Hong Kong we remember from the 1950s, but a thoroughly modern city with really nice bicycling areas. I will provide some photos of these facilities too.

Another form of engineering control has to do with the bicycle itself, and engineering it to be safer.
Both rydabent and I ride a Rans Stratus recumbant bicycle and rydabent rides a TerraTrike Cruiser too. Yes, the need for the reflectors on the pedals seems ridiculous on a recumbent, as they cannot add to the safety simply because of their directionality. But recumbants and recumbent trikes have added safety features. They lower the center of gravity, making them more stable and less prone to a spill. They also lower the height of a fall; it is not the velocity forward that cause the main problem (unless a head is planted into a car or tree, or other vertical hazard). It is the hitting of the head on the ground, and recumbants halve this fall distance, thereby producing much less fall impact with the pavement.

Other engineering controls include the movement of a bike path’s roadway entrance a number of feet away from the path, making it necessary to make two 90 degree turns in order to get onto the roadway. This particular engineering control, a favorite of local highway engineers, is not my own favorite solution, but it is being used. Putting actual barriers between traffic and the bike lane is another engineering control which helps separate different types of traffic.

Administrative Controls (which sometimes include “behavior”) include training, warning signs, advisories, and having parents with children on certain rides. Administrative controls are the second least effective of the hierarchy of controls. For instance, we now do know that “risk compensation” does occur in adults, and probably in kids too. This can, at least in the short term, lead to riding slower without a helmet for those used to helmets than with a helmet. The converse apparently does not happen. My own experience is that I would ride the same with or without a helmet, but I now have over 60 years experience riding bicycles, and so may not be a good subject (from both experience and age-relate factors).

This brings us finally to PPE, or personal protective equipment, the most important of which for the bicyclist is the bicycling helmet. Note that even when engineering controls and substitution of hazardous routes for safer routes occur, the potential for falling from a bicycle still exists. These types of falls, especially from an upright bicycle (as opposed to a recumbent bike, where the rider usually lands on his/her rump rather than head). Therefore, bicycle helmets are still necessary as a safety measure. Yes, bicyclists can and do ride without helmets, but in the case of a fall, numerous studies (see the link for one recent one) have shown the efficacy of bicycle helmets in preventing substantial head injures that can be fatal.

John

PS--I was able to add files from my trip to Hong Kong. These facilities were outstanding, and effectively separated bicycle and pedestrian users from auto traffic (Engineering, Substitution and Elimination concepts). Note that helmet usage was low, but there were people with helmets. But also note that this was over the Chinese New Year, and so may not be a normal time. We did witness something unusual for the USA, and that was that there were first aid bicycles available in case of crashes. These were probably volunteers, who were equipped with what looks like FM radios to respond to an accident on the bike paths. Note also the engineering necessary to put these paths underneath major highways.

John, what is the incidence of those falls in which a hemet my be beneficial? Such a incidents per cyclist miles, or chance per ride, or any other measure you can find. If the incidence is sufficiently low, the the cost per averted injury os prohibitive or unreasonable.

As a fairly serious fisherman, I object to rydabent being included.

I mean, I'm all for rydabent being the subject of jokes, but let's not tarnish a whole other sport. :p

This has been one of my key points all along. There is a continuum of safety equipment, from nothing more than Lycra pajamas, all the way up to full leathers and a motorcycle helmet. The rational person assesses his risks and chooses his safety equipment appropriately. The helmeteer says "Just get a helmet and wear it!!!" and thinks that covers the entire spectrum. And then - this is the funny part - accuses everyone else of stupidity.