Latest on Australian Mandatory Helmet Law propaganda

On Monday, February 18, 2019 at 7:56:41 PM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:

But apparently, that's not true for the populations that suffer the
greatest number of scalp lacerations or other similar injuries,
including real traumatic brain injury. Right?

I mean, if they worked for the groups that get the majority of those
injuries, they'd be promoted for those groups. You know - motorists,
pedestrians, people walking around their own homes...

We were on a five mile hike in the woods yesterday with other members of
our bike club. Parts of the trails were treacherously icy, including
trails next to steep drop-offs 50 feet high or more. Nobody wore helmets
- go figure.

One woman did fall at one point. She tripped on a branch and went down
like a ton of bricks. As I helped her up, I quietly said "Tsk - no
helmet!" One club member heard it and started to chuckle, then stopped
herself. You're not supposed to joke about helmets!

--
- Frank Krygowski

From your comments perhaps you should wear a helmet while walking around your own home. I think you've fallen down the stairs once too often.

On Monday, February 18, 2019 at 9:10:49 PM UTC-8, Andre Jute wrote:
On Tuesday, February 19, 2019 at 3:33:41 AM UTC, Frank Krygowski wrote to Tom:
How effective do you think bike helmets are at preventing fatalities?

At
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/rec.bicycles.tech/new$20york$20jute|sort:date/rec.bicycles.tech/ow2rIVqZ_DU/pdrY0lrdze8J
a study is discussed which concludes that helmet-wear in the US might save between 70 and 400 lives every year (of the 716 fatalities in 2008, between ten percent and more than half the cyclists dead on the roads).

Andre Jute
Always happy to help

Andre - while I commend your statistical analysis the problem with such things is that they are mere numbers and not answers. Those most often involved in fatal crashes without a helmet are those most likely to be kids or homeless and that sort of person who are riding against traffic and ignoring traffic laws.

The fact that the higher percentage of people that get into serious accidents wear helmets is again - just another reflection of speed and the bad driving habits most especially of the people in New York City which is similar to San Francisco. Though I'm told that New York is far more likely to enforce driving laws that the bay area cops.

Any study that shows any benefits to helmets simply has too many confounding factors to be reliable. Though I should think that if I had the exact police reports I could sort through them and categorize them - though it is unlikely that there would be any groups large enough to categorize effectively enough to reach any reliable conclusions.

So we are stuck with anecdotal evidence of helmets and most of that is so highly biased as to be useless.

On Monday, February 18, 2019 at 11:20:11 PM UTC-8, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Mon, 18 Feb 2019 18:35:53 -0800 (PST), wrote:


Err... Tommy, that judgment was specifically concerning the right of
the Secretary of State to issue or not issue a passport and even more
specifically to the Secretary of State denying passports to
petitioners because of their alleged Communistic beliefs and
associations and their refusal to file affidavits concerning present
or past membership in the Communist Party.

It had nothing whatsoever to do with traveling on the nation's roads.

Your continuing failure to understand common English words is
frightening.

Since you are used to living in Thailand perhaps you can ask Jay what the right to travel means.

Am 19.02.2019 um 16:05 schrieb :
I'm deflecting but you refuse to actually say what you mean. I will
ask you again: Are you saying that helmets cause fatalities?

This all depends on your definition of the word 'Cause'. Have you heard
of Risk Compensation?

The theory is that generally people accept a certain risk on certain
activities; especially in sports people push the limits of what they
feel just about comfortable with (in bicycling because more reckless
descents mean faster descents).

Any tool that improves your (percieved) safety at a given speed will
typically be used to improve your speed at a standard (percieved) risk
level.

Active safety measures (better brakes, traction support etc) give you
direct feedback about the risk level, so the percieved safety
improvement is identical to the real safety improvement.
Prime example here is the "Munich Taxi Driver" study comparing a large
number of Taxi drivers, some of whom received new cars with ABS, others
kept their old ones without. The proportion of accidents stayed the
same for both groups.

Passive safety measures do not give you direct feedback about the real
change in risk because the proportion of people actually experiencing
the result of the safety measure in a crash is small compared to the
number of people who only have hearsay evidence of the risk changes.
For passive safety measures it is theoretically possible to measure the
difference between the perceived rick change and the real risk change by
looking at accident rates.

The prime example is the introduction of a Mandatory Seat Belt law in
Switzerland. In 1976, government imposed a mandatory seatbelt law, in
1978 the highest court decided that the way the law was introduced was
unconstitutional, removing it again. In 1981, the Mandatory Seatbelt
law was re-introduced by way of country-wide ballot.
The accident figures show a massive drop of fatalities for car drivers
while the seatbelt law was valid, being mostly reversed when the law was
removed. At the same time, the accident figures show a small but
significant rise in fatalities of car passengers and pedestrians while
the seat belt was active. So car drivers using seat belts drive more
risky, killing more pedestrians and passengers, but at the same time the
seat belt saved lives in a massive way, so that the net benefit was
significant.


For bike helmets on normal bicycles, the numbers are very inconclusive,
so it is hard to say whether helmets have a net benefit for recreational
riders or not. So it is extremely interesting to notice that at least
for professional bike riders, the net benefit of helmets might be
negative due to excessive additional risk-taking.

On 2/19/2019 9:25 AM, wrote:
On Monday, February 18, 2019 at 9:10:49 PM UTC-8, Andre Jute wrote:
On Tuesday, February 19, 2019 at 3:33:41 AM UTC, Frank Krygowski wrote to Tom:
How effective do you think bike helmets are at preventing fatalities?

At
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/rec.bicycles.tech/new$20york$20jute|sort:date/rec.bicycles.tech/ow2rIVqZ_DU/pdrY0lrdze8J
a study is discussed which concludes that helmet-wear in the US might save between 70 and 400 lives every year (of the 716 fatalities in 2008, between ten percent and more than half the cyclists dead on the roads).

Andre Jute
Always happy to help

Andre - while I commend your statistical analysis the problem with such things is that they are mere numbers and not answers. Those most often involved in fatal crashes without a helmet are those most likely to be kids or homeless and that sort of person who are riding against traffic and ignoring traffic laws.

The fact that the higher percentage of people that get into serious accidents wear helmets is again - just another reflection of speed and the bad driving habits most especially of the people in New York City which is similar to San Francisco. Though I'm told that New York is far more likely to enforce driving laws that the bay area cops.

Any study that shows any benefits to helmets simply has too many confounding factors to be reliable. Though I should think that if I had the exact police reports I could sort through them and categorize them - though it is unlikely that there would be any groups large enough to categorize effectively enough to reach any reliable conclusions.

So we are stuck with anecdotal evidence of helmets and most of that is so highly biased as to be useless.


"just another reflection of speed?" Not the NYC I remember!
On a borrowed bike, I'm a virtual Eddy Merckx in traffic.

https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na...124-story.html


--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

On 2/19/2019 10:11 AM, wrote:
On Monday, February 18, 2019 at 7:56:41 PM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:

But apparently, that's not true for the populations that suffer the
greatest number of scalp lacerations or other similar injuries,
including real traumatic brain injury. Right?

I mean, if they worked for the groups that get the majority of those
injuries, they'd be promoted for those groups. You know - motorists,
pedestrians, people walking around their own homes...

We were on a five mile hike in the woods yesterday with other members of
our bike club. Parts of the trails were treacherously icy, including
trails next to steep drop-offs 50 feet high or more. Nobody wore helmets
- go figure.

One woman did fall at one point. She tripped on a branch and went down
like a ton of bricks. As I helped her up, I quietly said "Tsk - no
helmet!" One club member heard it and started to chuckle, then stopped
herself. You're not supposed to joke about helmets!

--
- Frank Krygowski

From your comments perhaps you should wear a helmet while walking around your own home. I think you've fallen down the stairs once too often.

Actually, unlike some others who post here, the only head injury I've
ever had from either bicycling or walking falls was from bumping the
back of my head once when I was about 17. It was sore, but no more than
(say) my knee would be if I tripped and landed on it.

OTOH, I do remember another poster who talked about getting a concussion
bad enough that it still affects his memory. Do you remember who that
guy is? ;-)


--
- Frank Krygowski

On 2/19/2019 11:12 AM, AMuzi wrote:

"just another reflection of speed?" Not the NYC I remember! On a
borrowed bike, I'm a virtual Eddy Merckx in traffic.

https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na...124-story.html

I fondly remember speeding past a Ferrari in NYC. My friend and I stayed
ahead of him for many blocks, until we turned off.

We were walking.

--
- Frank Krygowski

On Tuesday, February 19, 2019 at 7:44:53 AM UTC-8, Rolf Mantel wrote:
Am 19.02.2019 um 16:05 schrieb :
I'm deflecting but you refuse to actually say what you mean. I will
ask you again: Are you saying that helmets cause fatalities?

This all depends on your definition of the word 'Cause'. Have you heard
of Risk Compensation?

The theory is that generally people accept a certain risk on certain
activities; especially in sports people push the limits of what they
feel just about comfortable with (in bicycling because more reckless
descents mean faster descents).

Any tool that improves your (percieved) safety at a given speed will
typically be used to improve your speed at a standard (percieved) risk
level.

Active safety measures (better brakes, traction support etc) give you
direct feedback about the risk level, so the percieved safety
improvement is identical to the real safety improvement.
Prime example here is the "Munich Taxi Driver" study comparing a large
number of Taxi drivers, some of whom received new cars with ABS, others
kept their old ones without. The proportion of accidents stayed the
same for both groups.

Passive safety measures do not give you direct feedback about the real
change in risk because the proportion of people actually experiencing
the result of the safety measure in a crash is small compared to the
number of people who only have hearsay evidence of the risk changes.
For passive safety measures it is theoretically possible to measure the
difference between the perceived rick change and the real risk change by
looking at accident rates.

The prime example is the introduction of a Mandatory Seat Belt law in
Switzerland. In 1976, government imposed a mandatory seatbelt law, in
1978 the highest court decided that the way the law was introduced was
unconstitutional, removing it again. In 1981, the Mandatory Seatbelt
law was re-introduced by way of country-wide ballot.
The accident figures show a massive drop of fatalities for car drivers
while the seatbelt law was valid, being mostly reversed when the law was
removed. At the same time, the accident figures show a small but
significant rise in fatalities of car passengers and pedestrians while
the seat belt was active. So car drivers using seat belts drive more
risky, killing more pedestrians and passengers, but at the same time the
seat belt saved lives in a massive way, so that the net benefit was
significant.


For bike helmets on normal bicycles, the numbers are very inconclusive,
so it is hard to say whether helmets have a net benefit for recreational
riders or not. So it is extremely interesting to notice that at least
for professional bike riders, the net benefit of helmets might be
negative due to excessive additional risk-taking.

Rolf, it would be easy enough to hand this increase in deaths off as risk compensation but I already covered that base.

Bell started making bicycle helmets in the mid-1970's. By the 1980's they were universally used though climbers would often through them off on heavy climbs they would also get new ones at the top because they were being sponsored by helmet companies.

The death rates during this period was about 1 every couple of years. And a lot of those were like Tom Simpson who if memory serves rode over a cliff.

By 2010 the UCI finally made helmets mandatory but at the same time carbon fiber bikes were coming strongly into vogue. These bikes were significantly more aero than the previous bikes and have been doing nothing but getting more and more aero.

While the dumbasses don't understand numbers very well we have them providing information that aero isn't working because Tour speed records are about the same with further and further distances. Where did THAT come from?

Last year I had them swearing that I couldn't be developing 300 watts but they think that a pro can develop 450 watts for unlimited distances.

Eddy Merckx setting the hour record was holding about 450 watts for less than 10 minutes before he had to slow way down. At a little over 350 watts he caught up and broke the record in the last 10 minutes of the hour record.

Times are coming down substantially because the bikes roll easier and are more aero. It is actually shocking how low rolling resistance is on my Vittoria tires. I installed roller bearing idler pulley's on my Colnago and couldn't believe that they no longer skip gears or wear on the chain surface. This is a measurable reduction in drag.

Compare this with 2 pros killed in 2013, two more in 2014, 7 in 2016, 5 in 2017.

Sone of these deaths are from the show-off mountain bikers jumping and trying to turn the bike sideways in midair and some of them are cardiac arrest from PED's. But the majority are just crashes AT SPEED.

These people do not understand that a 4 mph change in average speed over just 10 years is a 15 mph increase on downhills and 10 mph on flats in a paceline.

As I noted P = M*V^2 and that means a relatively small increase in speed is a LARGE increase in the energy of the mass.

On 2/19/2019 10:05 AM, wrote:
On Monday, February 18, 2019 at 7:33:41 PM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 2/18/2019 7:40 PM, wrote:
On Monday, February 18, 2019 at 12:48:41 PM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 2/18/2019 2:16 PM, wrote:
On Monday, February 18, 2019 at 9:42:30 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 2/17/2019 4:52 PM, wrote:

Why would you say "anecdotal" when I have timed the two bikes many times over the same stretches of road?

You never give us data, Tom. Give us your data.

Also are you suggesting that people have gotten stronger and that is why there is a one mile per hour gain in speed from 2006 to 2016 on the world 10 mile TT records? You might perhaps not think of that as much but it is all hell and gone faster for speed records to jump that much.

Let's back up a bit. The article by Moulton makes clear that elite bike
racing deaths have increased significantly, not decreased, with the
popularity of (or mandates for) helmet use. IOW, that data gives no
evidence that helmets save lives. The needle isn't even moving in the
right direction.

Are you now trying to say that helmets are actually terrifically
effective at saving lives, but their wonderful benefit is totally wiped
out by a few miles per hour more speed?

That's weird in several ways. In other places - such as when you
compared time-series counts of pedestrian and bike fatalties - you said
helmets were obviously NOT saving lives. (Note, that was a rare instance
of you actually giving data.)

Perhaps you should concisely clarify your real position on the
effectiveness of bike helmets regarding prevention of fatalities.

Exactly where in the hell are you coming from? At what point did I ever say that helmets save lives? We were talking about the aerodynamics of the newer bicycles increasing the speeds.

Your dopey losing track of the conversation is rather silly. I don't have to give you ANY of my personal experiences when I can show huge speed increases in the 10 mi TT speeds.

Is your Alzheimer's acting up today?

Oh good grief! Talk about forgetfulness! Start about six posts up, in
your response to John.

Never mind, since you've demonstrated difficulty with your mouse's
scroll wheel, I'll paste below the end of his remark and your response:

As Dave Moulton pointed out in his Blog, more professional cyclists
have died since the helmet law went into effect then had died prior to
the law's enactment.

--
Cheers,
John B.

To that, you wrote: "This probably has nothing whatsoever to do with
helmets. Professional cycling speeds have gone up significantly..." etc.

You didn't specifically say they might save lives. But you implied that
the lack of life saving was not some fault of the helmets, that minor
speed increases were the cause.

Why not just concisely clarify your real position on the effectiveness
of bike helmets regarding prevention of fatalities? Maybe that will
clear up the confusion.

Frank - I really don't follow what in he heck you mean. Are you saying that wearing a helmet CAUSES more cyclist's deaths?

What I mean is what I said in my last paragraph above. Don't deflect
into aerodynamics, downhill speeds or anything else.

Please concisely clarify your real position: How effective do you think
bike helmets are at preventing fatalities?


--
- Frank Krygowski

I'm deflecting but you refuse to actually say what you mean. I will ask you again: Are you saying that helmets cause fatalities?

I don't think bike helmets directly cause many fatalities, although they
may cause some. The mechanism that's been proposed is this: Since the
helmet is obviously larger than the bare human head, there must be a
certain number of glancing blows to the helmet that would be near misses
of a bare head, or perhaps that would have barely hit the head.

Glancing blows induce rotational acceleration of the head, which is the
predominant mechanism for brain damage. If the hit is hard enough and
the rotational acceleration large enough, there can be shear damage to
the blood vessels and other tissues in the brain. Damaged blood vessels
can cause intercranial swelling, which can be fatal.

But I don't think it's possible to determine how often this causes
fatalities, nor other traumatic brain injuries, such as concussions.

Yet it's pretty clear that bicyclist concussions have risen, not fallen,
during the time period that helmet use rose. Likewise, its clear that
elite racer fatalities also rose. One way or other, the use of helmets
seems to make things worse.

Some have said a more likely mechanism is risk compensation. I think
that's extremely likely regarding mountain biking, a sport in which
risky riding is actively promoted. I suspect that if the plastic hats
were forbidden instead of required, riders would be much more careful. I
think the effect for road riders is probably less, but not absent. Over
the years in this forum and elsewhere we've had remarks like "I'd never
ride that road without a helmet." That's direct evidence of risk
compensation.

But all the above is detail, in my opinion. The bare fact is, despite
the treasured anecdotes about lives saved, despite all the claims of
tremendous protection, data on actual injuries and deaths show that bike
helmets are not working. And that's not at all surprising to people who
really understand their minimal certification standards.

But I don't think that means bicyclists should worry. Data on actual
injuries and deaths show that bicycling is, on average, a very safe
activity. It's NOT the death trap that helmet promoters make it out to
be. And every relevant study has found that its benefits FAR outweigh
its tiny risks.

OK, Tom, that's my view. Now can I ask you (for the third or fourth
time): How effective do _you_ think bike helmets are at preventing
fatalities?


--
- Frank Krygowski

On 2/19/2019 10:49 AM, wrote:
On Tuesday, February 19, 2019 at 7:44:53 AM UTC-8, Rolf Mantel wrote:
Am 19.02.2019 um 16:05 schrieb :
I'm deflecting but you refuse to actually say what you mean. I will
ask you again: Are you saying that helmets cause fatalities?

This all depends on your definition of the word 'Cause'. Have you heard
of Risk Compensation?

The theory is that generally people accept a certain risk on certain
activities; especially in sports people push the limits of what they
feel just about comfortable with (in bicycling because more reckless
descents mean faster descents).

Any tool that improves your (percieved) safety at a given speed will
typically be used to improve your speed at a standard (percieved) risk
level.

Active safety measures (better brakes, traction support etc) give you
direct feedback about the risk level, so the percieved safety
improvement is identical to the real safety improvement.
Prime example here is the "Munich Taxi Driver" study comparing a large
number of Taxi drivers, some of whom received new cars with ABS, others
kept their old ones without. The proportion of accidents stayed the
same for both groups.

Passive safety measures do not give you direct feedback about the real
change in risk because the proportion of people actually experiencing
the result of the safety measure in a crash is small compared to the
number of people who only have hearsay evidence of the risk changes.
For passive safety measures it is theoretically possible to measure the
difference between the perceived rick change and the real risk change by
looking at accident rates.

The prime example is the introduction of a Mandatory Seat Belt law in
Switzerland. In 1976, government imposed a mandatory seatbelt law, in
1978 the highest court decided that the way the law was introduced was
unconstitutional, removing it again. In 1981, the Mandatory Seatbelt
law was re-introduced by way of country-wide ballot.
The accident figures show a massive drop of fatalities for car drivers
while the seatbelt law was valid, being mostly reversed when the law was
removed. At the same time, the accident figures show a small but
significant rise in fatalities of car passengers and pedestrians while
the seat belt was active. So car drivers using seat belts drive more
risky, killing more pedestrians and passengers, but at the same time the
seat belt saved lives in a massive way, so that the net benefit was
significant.


For bike helmets on normal bicycles, the numbers are very inconclusive,
so it is hard to say whether helmets have a net benefit for recreational
riders or not. So it is extremely interesting to notice that at least
for professional bike riders, the net benefit of helmets might be
negative due to excessive additional risk-taking.

Rolf, it would be easy enough to hand this increase in deaths off as risk compensation but I already covered that base.

Bell started making bicycle helmets in the mid-1970's. By the 1980's they were universally used though climbers would often through them off on heavy climbs they would also get new ones at the top because they were being sponsored by helmet companies.

The death rates during this period was about 1 every couple of years. And a lot of those were like Tom Simpson who if memory serves rode over a cliff.

By 2010 the UCI finally made helmets mandatory but at the same time carbon fiber bikes were coming strongly into vogue. These bikes were significantly more aero than the previous bikes and have been doing nothing but getting more and more aero.

While the dumbasses don't understand numbers very well we have them providing information that aero isn't working because Tour speed records are about the same with further and further distances. Where did THAT come from?

Last year I had them swearing that I couldn't be developing 300 watts but they think that a pro can develop 450 watts for unlimited distances.

Eddy Merckx setting the hour record was holding about 450 watts for less than 10 minutes before he had to slow way down. At a little over 350 watts he caught up and broke the record in the last 10 minutes of the hour record.

Times are coming down substantially because the bikes roll easier and are more aero. It is actually shocking how low rolling resistance is on my Vittoria tires. I installed roller bearing idler pulley's on my Colnago and couldn't believe that they no longer skip gears or wear on the chain surface. This is a measurable reduction in drag.

Compare this with 2 pros killed in 2013, two more in 2014, 7 in 2016, 5 in 2017.

Sone of these deaths are from the show-off mountain bikers jumping and trying to turn the bike sideways in midair and some of them are cardiac arrest from PED's. But the majority are just crashes AT SPEED.

These people do not understand that a 4 mph change in average speed over just 10 years is a 15 mph increase on downhills and 10 mph on flats in a paceline.

As I noted P = M*V^2 and that means a relatively small increase in speed is a LARGE increase in the energy of the mass.


Saint Tommy's last words were "Put me back on my bike" as he
died of a methedrine overdose.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971