Helmet saves life of bike store owner hit by car......

Dan wrote:

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to see a helmet law, anywhere or
anyhow. I want to promote, locally, helmet use to ward off any
regulation. It's kind of backwards and may not be the best way. Your
response atleast has merit and makes sense but others seem to attack
with vigar anyone's character that mentions the use of helmets for
safety. That only ****es people off and turns them against your point of
view. BTW, most clubs require you to wear helmets on their rides as do
most major races.

Of course the reason for the clubs and the races requiring helmets is
that they are forced to do so by their insurance companies. Without a
helmet rule they cannot get liability insurance (or it would be
outrageously expensive).

Like it or not, the insurance companies look at the actuarial data
comparing injuries of persons involved in crashes with and without
helmets, and make their decisions based on this data; they don’t look at
every injury incurred by every possible activity in the world, and
conclude that the relative number of injuries incurred as a result of
bicycle accidents is small.

With automobile safety equipment, I’ve seen insurance companies back
down when further studies showed that a supposed safety benefit didn’t
really exist. I.e. some companies give discounts for anti-lock brakes
and daytime running lights, but after further studies showed no
reduction in accident rates, many of the companies eliminated these
discounts, ending the incentive to spend the extra money for cars
equipped with these features.

The ABS argument closely parallels the helmet argument. People who have
ABS often swear up and down that they KNOW that it's prevented them from
being involved in numerous accidents. But overall, ABS equipped cars
were no less likely to be involved in accidents, than non-ABS equipped
cars. OTOH, there were measurable decreases in accident rates for
certain types of accidents, where ABS provided the ability to maintain
control of the car. Also, insurance companies stated that many motorists
didn't use ABS properly, still pumping the brakes manually in a skid.

Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:

... So one of the questions I'd have would be this- does the nature of
cycling (type of trip) change when helmets are required? Does helmet use,
for example, skew towards (or against) recreational cycling? Commuting?
Errands?

I've never seen that directly addressed. What I've read (and Guy has
mentioned) is that the effect of the law varies on different population
groups. Guy mentioned that women stop cycling in very large numbers. I
recall that teenage girls stop cycling almost entirely, and teenage boys
nearly as much.

ISTM that the group that would be least affected are (probably) those
reading this. My bet is that a majority of folks reading rec.bicycles.*
are avid hobby cyclists. My bet is most belong to bike clubs.

Well, bike clubs led the way in making helmets part of the official or
unofficial "uniform." Even for a recreational/touring club, it's rare
to see someone show up for a ride without the Full Mating Plumage:
Lycra, trademark jersey, special shoes, special gloves, special glasses
and of course, special hat.

I think those people won't be impacted by a MHL; so my guess is bike
riding will skew toward long recreational or training rides on country
roads. My guess is there would be a big drop in riding to school,
riding to a buddy's house to play basketball, riding to the mall to hang
out, riding to the library, or just buzzing around the neighborhoods to
see what's up.

#2: The laws, at least locally, are selectively enforced, if at all. This is
a major issue when the laws require only that those under 18 wear helmets;
we're telling our kids that it's OK to disobey laws at an early age (because
they're unlikely to suffer any consequences). If a law is on the books, it
should be enforced. If it's a law that shouldn't be enforced, it shouldn't
be on the books.

I absolutely agree with the latter point. I'll add, I live less than
ten miles from a state with a kid's MHL. When I ride there, I see most
kids still don't wear helmets. But when I pass through low-income
neighborhoods, I see _no_ black kids wearing helmets.

If a cop wanted to stop any 15-year-old black kid for any reason, he can
do it, as long as that kid's on a bike. I think this is bad.

--
--------------------+
Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com,
replace with cc.ysu dot edu]

Steven M. Scharf wrote:

Of course the reason for the clubs and the races requiring helmets is
that they are forced to do so by their insurance companies. Without a
helmet rule they cannot get liability insurance (or it would be
outrageously expensive).

This may be true with certain insurance companies. But as a past
president and long-time officer in our club, I know that club insurance
is available without a mandatory helmet provision, and it costs no more.
Our club has no mandatory helmet provision, and we do have insurance.
(Not that we've ever needed insurance for anything!)


Like it or not, the insurance companies look at the actuarial data
comparing injuries of persons involved in crashes with and without
helmets, and make their decisions based on this data;

And the company that insures our club probably did this.

In fact, Failure Analysis Associates, the research company that produced
the following table, is the largest risk consultation company in
America. Evaluating risk for the insurance industry is what they do!
Here's their table, published in _Design News_, 10/4/93



fatalities
Activity per million hrs
-------- ---------------
Skydiving 128.71
General Aviation 15.58
On-road Motorcycling 8.80
Scuba Diving 1.98
Living (all causes of death) 1.53
Swimming 1.07
Snowmobiling .88
Passenger cars .47
Water skiing .28
Bicycling .26
Flying (scheduled domestic airlines) .15
Hunting .08
Cosmic Radiation from transcontinental flights .035
Home Living (active) .027
Traveling in a School Bus .022
Passenger Car Post-collision fire .017
Home Living, active & passive (sleeping) .014
Residential Fire .003


Compare bicycling with riding in passenger cars, and with swimming.

--
--------------------+
Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com,
replace with cc.ysu dot edu]

On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 15:42:59 GMT, "Steven M. Scharf"
wrote:

Like it or not, the insurance companies look at the actuarial data
comparing injuries of persons involved in crashes with and without
helmets, and make their decisions based on this data

Actually in this case that is simply not true. There is nothing like
enough data to support an actuarial judgment on this, it was actually
started by a single high-profile case (which is the exact opposite of
how actuarial judgments are made).

With automobile safety equipment, I’ve seen insurance companies back
down when further studies showed that a supposed safety benefit didn’t
really exist. I.e. some companies give discounts for anti-lock brakes
and daytime running lights, but after further studies showed no
reduction in accident rates, many of the companies eliminated these
discounts, ending the incentive to spend the extra money for cars
equipped with these features.

Well well. Insurance company acknowledges risk compensation shock.
Here's the science:

Grant and Smiley, "Driver response to antilock brakes: a demonstration
on behavioural adaptation" from Proceedings, Canadian
Multidisciplinary Road Safety Conference VIII, June 14-16,
Saskatchewan 1993

Sagberg, Fosser, and Saetermo, "An investigation of behavioural
adaptation to airbags and antilock brakes among taxi drivers" Accident
Analysis and Prevention #29 pp 293-302 1997

Aschenbrenner and Biehl, "Improved safety through improved technical
measures? empirical studies regarding risk compensation processes in
relation to anti-lock braking systems." In Trimpop and Wilde,
Challenges to Accident Prevention: The issue of risk compensation
behaviour (Groningen, NL, Styx Publications, 1994)

And only a moment ago I was replying to a post from you in which you
apparently denied that risk compensation exists!

The ABS argument closely parallels the helmet argument. People who have
ABS often swear up and down that they KNOW that it's prevented them from
being involved in numerous accidents. But overall, ABS equipped cars
were no less likely to be involved in accidents, than non-ABS equipped
cars. OTOH, there were measurable decreases in accident rates for
certain types of accidents, where ABS provided the ability to maintain
control of the car. Also, insurance companies stated that many motorists
didn't use ABS properly, still pumping the brakes manually in a skid.

And still the penny doesn't drop! I am astonished that you haven't
realised what you have just written.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University

On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 11:19:30 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

This may be true with certain insurance companies. But as a past
president and long-time officer in our club, I know that club insurance
is available without a mandatory helmet provision, and it costs no more.

True enough: as a part of the membership fee of my cycle club, I get
insurance. Helmets are not even mentioned. The club has 80,000
members, and on a Sunday ride I guess somewhere under half the road
riders are wearing PFDBs.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University

RogerDodger wrote in
:


Dan Wrote:


Geez - we've got a doozy here. So "Helmets can an do SAVE LIFES" huh -
who let you out of school Danny boy?
Don't take your head out of the sand now Dan - just keep repeating
your affirmation...maybe it will come true, huh?

You'd have to be pretty stupid to fall for that line "what you should
be doing isn't what you are doing but [what a brainless bumpkin like
Dan here says you should be doing]".



Bicycle helmets = invasion of the dimwits.



Here's a perfect example of why your arguments fall on deaf ears. You
have an advocate that's a moron. Atleast my heads not up my ass,
Rogerboy! Obviously, you've been doing alot of riding without a helmet,
it shows.
Guy, your points are good and valid. I have no doubt you've
had to repeat this over and over to everyone that comes into this forum
with their own opinions. I just feel getting people to wear helmets is a
better solution to stave off regulations. Your responses, as well as
some of the others, has been educational and I'm sure statistically
sound. One last question, how do you get a statistic on how many people
may have been saved by using a helmet? You can't possibly know, because
they weren't a fatality. If I'm riding and T-bone a car, hit my helmeted
noggin' and there is no injury except my poor busted helmet (pocketbook
injury) and mangled wheel, where's the report that says, 'here is an
accident that could have been fatal but he was wearing a helmet'. Won't
be one!

Dan the DOOZY

Dan wrote:

One last question, how do you get a statistic on how many people
may have been saved by using a helmet? You can't possibly know, because
they weren't a fatality. If I'm riding and T-bone a car, hit my helmeted
noggin' and there is no injury except my poor busted helmet (pocketbook
injury) and mangled wheel, where's the report that says, 'here is an
accident that could have been fatal but he was wearing a helmet'. Won't
be one!

You keep track of the bike fatalities in a country for roughly 30 years.
Then (if you're New Zealand or Australia) you institute laws that
suddenly force everyone to wear bike helmets. You really enforce those
laws. And you look at the effects - that is, you look for the fatality
count to drop afterwards.

One caveat: You've got to keep track of the number of people who ride,
because the law _will_ cause big drops in cycling. (It did in those
countries.)

If you get a 30% drop in cycling, and you get a 30% drop in bike
fatalities, then you've done nothing for the remaining cyclists. The
fatality per cyclist ratio has not changed. So what you'd need to see
is a fatality drop _greater_ than the drop in cycling.

Another caveat: Bike fatalities are so incredibly rare (despite the
helmet promoter's horror stories) that it's still hard to get good data,
even counting nationwide data. That's why the Scuffham study I quoted
in another post looked at injuries that put cyclists in the hospital,
instead.

But again: they detected no improvement due to massively increased
helmet use. None at all.

--
--------------------+
Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com,
replace with cc.ysu dot edu]

Frank Krygowski wrote in news:4193c520
@news.ysu.edu:

Dan wrote:

One last question, how do you get a statistic on how many people
may have been saved by using a helmet? You can't possibly know,
because
they weren't a fatality. If I'm riding and T-bone a car, hit my
helmeted
noggin' and there is no injury except my poor busted helmet
(pocketbook
injury) and mangled wheel, where's the report that says, 'here is an
accident that could have been fatal but he was wearing a helmet'.
Won't
be one!

You keep track of the bike fatalities in a country for roughly 30
years.
Then (if you're New Zealand or Australia) you institute laws that
suddenly force everyone to wear bike helmets. You really enforce
those
laws. And you look at the effects - that is, you look for the
fatality
count to drop afterwards.

One caveat: You've got to keep track of the number of people who ride,
because the law _will_ cause big drops in cycling. (It did in those
countries.)

If you get a 30% drop in cycling, and you get a 30% drop in bike
fatalities, then you've done nothing for the remaining cyclists. The
fatality per cyclist ratio has not changed. So what you'd need to see
is a fatality drop _greater_ than the drop in cycling.

Another caveat: Bike fatalities are so incredibly rare (despite the
helmet promoter's horror stories) that it's still hard to get good
data,
even counting nationwide data. That's why the Scuffham study I quoted
in another post looked at injuries that put cyclists in the hospital,
instead.

But again: they detected no improvement due to massively increased
helmet use. None at all.


I can see where that would be more of a represented figure. That
answered my question to some degree. While winding down this tit for tat
conversation, of which I seem to be losing badly, Did you know that the
city that Lance calls home (Austin), has a helmet law and is enforced
vigorously. Other than Austin and Dallas, there is no Texas state law
other than 18 and under regulating helmet use. Is it possible this is a
test bed as well?

Dan and out!

On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 18:20:37 GMT, Dan wrote in
message :

Guy, your points are good and valid. I have no doubt you've
had to repeat this over and over to everyone that comes into this forum
with their own opinions.

There may be a degree of truth in this :-) The issue is vastly more
complex than the single-issue campaigners would have you believe.
That, of course is why they get so much coverage, because they use
soundbytes and pop science, whereas those of us who are sceptical have
a much more detailed tale to tell.

I just feel getting people to wear helmets is a
better solution to stave off regulations.

Be very careful about this. Like I said, in the UK we have a Morton's
fork: the gubmint says no compulsion because wearing rates are low,
but the Liddites say wearing rates are low so we need compulsion to
boost them. So low wearing and high wearing are both used as arguments
for compulsion.

Your responses, as well as
some of the others, has been educational and I'm sure statistically
sound.

I hope so. At least with robust debate you find out if an argument is
sound or not. Once you've weeded out the idiots who dispute data on
religious grounds it is perfectly fair to challenge sources and
interpretations of data.

One last question, how do you get a statistic on how many people
may have been saved by using a helmet? You can't possibly know, because
they weren't a fatality.

A good way to work this out is to track the way the proportion of
injuries which are head injuries (%HI) and the wearing rate over time,
and see if they vary together. New Zealand is often cited because
over a three year period wearing rates went from under 45% to about
95%, but %HI followed exactly the same trend as for (unhelmeted)
pedestrians. You can then draw a number of possible conclusions:

- helmets prevented no injuries at all
- helmets were effective in some cases but risk compensation and other
effects eroded the benefit so there was no net benefit overall
- helmets were very effective but something else changed so radically
as to outweigh the benefit

There may be others, but I think broadly speaking these are the main
possibilities.

The third is simply implausible, but it is the only one which squares
with the idea of 85% head injury savings. So we go back to the source
of the 85% figure and find that it was derived by comparing two
completely different populations. Which suggests the 85% figure is
likely wrong. Much the same criticism can be leveled at other
observational studies.

How can that be? We have a clue in recent debate regarding the
relationship between hormone replacement therapy and coronary heart
disease. I have only recently found out about this particular
controversy and found it so interesting I put up a page on it:

http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk/web/...tional_Studies

So then we have to trawl through all the studies and look for robust
methodologies. One study for which the reference escapes me
momentarily has an estimated efficacy of about 10%. It is entirely
plausible that efficacy of that order could be blown away by risk
compensation and by the well-documented link between numbers cycling
and risk (more people cycling = lower risk, fewer people cycling =
more risk).

So we arrive at the position that helmets may or may not be a good
thing for individuals, but that as a matter of public policy, forcing
people to wear them has no measurable effect other than to deter
cycling. The same has been found wherever helmet laws have been
enforced, so it seems to be a robust conclusion.

If I'm riding and T-bone a car, hit my helmeted
noggin' and there is no injury except my poor busted helmet (pocketbook
injury) and mangled wheel, where's the report that says, 'here is an
accident that could have been fatal but he was wearing a helmet'. Won't
be one!

If the crash has enough energy to kill you, a helmet won't make any
significant difference. And how do you know you would not have been
riding slower and more vigilantly if you had not been wearing a PDFB?
The question is whether, all other things being equal, you would be
better off helmeted in this case, but my answer is that the evidence
shows that all other things would not be equal.

Any attempt to simplify the helmet debate into soundbyte examples
will, by its very nature, ignore at least one crucial fact or effect,
to the point that the simplified example will necessarily be more
misleading than informative.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University

On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 21:34:14 GMT, Dan wrote in
message :

I can see where that would be more of a represented figure. That
answered my question to some degree. While winding down this tit for tat
conversation, of which I seem to be losing badly,

You are not losing, you are learning. There is a difference :-)

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University