On May 7, 8:52*am, Tom Lake wrote:

Common sense would suggest that an energy dissipating material is a
good thing to have between your body and the pavement when you slam
into it; however, I have never seen any scientific experimental
studies to that effect. *They'd have to pay me a *lot* of money before
I'd participate in such a study!

You make the mistake of believing that because a double-blind study of
helmeted versus non-helmeted cyclists being subjected to precisely the
same crash does not exist that this is the same thing is the lack of
any scientific evidence. In fact, there is an enormous body of
scientific and statistical evidence that proves that bicycle helmets
are extremely effective in reducing the severity of head injuries in
head impact bicycle crashes.

Now if the AHZs want to argue that the incidence of head impact
bicycle crashes is relatively low, and that even if 100% of cyclists
wore helmets that the overall death and injury rate for cyclists would
not significantly change, that's another story entirely. In fact you
often see them desperately trying to change the discussion from the
effectiveness of helmets in the event of a head impact crash to
something like "well statistically the number of deaths did not change
much as helmet usage went up, and, oh by the way, the level of cycling
went down as helmet usage went up." The fact that there is no evidence
for the latter has not stopped them from endlessly repeating it.

The reason I put together the list of myths and facts on the web site
was to have a central repository of all the ridiculous claims made by
people like Frank, along with the evidence that shows just how wrong
those claims are.