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You don't need an expensive bike helmet to ride safely---BHSI LabTests Finds no difference between expensive and cheap helmets.



 
 
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  #31  
Old April 12th 10, 06:21 AM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
[email protected]
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Posts: 7,934
Default You don't need an expensive bike helmet to ride safely---BHSI Lab Tests Finds no difference between expensive and cheap helmets.

On Sun, 11 Apr 2010 21:34:12 -0700 (PDT), Peter Rathmann
wrote:

On Apr 10, 10:11*pm, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Apr 10, 9:59*pm, SMS wrote:

They tested six helmets, priced between $10 and $207, and found no
difference in simulations of real-world impacts.


"http://www.bhsi.org/testbycost.htm"


"http://www.hometownlife.com/article/20100408/NEWS10/4080579/1027/You+..."


Wow. *According to that article, "Medical research shows that bike
helmets can prevent 85 percent of cyclists' head injuries."

Isn't that astonishing?


I also like this more recent study:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19944823
where the abstract gives their results as:
"RESULTS: Of 324 patients with bicycle-related head injuries, 90
(27.8%) had severe head injuries. Boys compared with girls had a
higher proportion of severe head injuries (34.1% vs 23.4%; P = .048).
Children aged 5 to 9 years had a higher proportion of severe head
injuries compared with ages 10 to 14 years (65.2% vs 6.4%; P = .043).
Bicycles without reflectors had a higher proportion of severe head
injuries compared to bicycles with reflectors (69.0% vs 5.7%; P = .
004). Bicyclists carrying goods (such as backpacks or weighted toward
the road) and speeding were associated with severe head injury (P .
05). Collisions with vehicles of a larger size resulted in a higher
rate of severe head injury compared with collisions with pedestrians
(76.9% vs 3.6%; P = .043)."

Note the apparent effectiveness of having a reflector on the bike -
the chance of a severe head injury dropped from 69% to 5.7%, so the
presence of the reflector was over 90% effective in preventing severe
head injury. More effective than a helmet, much less expensive, and
far more convenient to use (just install once and leave it on the
bike).

Once again showing the problems associated with taking case-control
studies (and their inherent self-selection bias) at face value.


Dear Peter,

Thanks for a nice example!

Cheers,

Carl Fogel
Ads
  #32  
Old April 12th 10, 06:31 AM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Tom Sherman °_°[_2_]
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Posts: 2,312
Default You don't need an expensive bicycle foam hat to ride safely---BHSILab Tests Finds no difference between expensive and cheap foam hats.

On 4/11/2010 11:34 PM, Peter Rathmann wrote:
[...]
I also like this more recent study:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19944823
where the abstract gives their results as:
[...]
Bicycles without reflectors had a higher proportion of severe head
injuries compared to bicycles with reflectors[...]


How does a bicycle have a head injury?

--
Tom Sherman - 42.435731,-83.985007
  #33  
Old April 12th 10, 10:35 AM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
SMS
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Posts: 9,477
Default You don't need an expensive bike helmet to ride safely---BHSILab Tests Finds no difference between expensive and cheap helmets.

On 11/04/10 10:34 PM, Phil W Lee wrote:

And of course, all the riders who had a close call while not wearing a
helmet - close enough that the helmet would have made contact.
Think truck mirrors.


Right. There must be millions of cyclists who have been injured because
of truck mirrors that that one extra inch of helmet thickness is
responsible for.

Please don't ever attend a hearing where a helmet law is being debated
and bring that myth up. Just stay home and keep telling yourself about
the truck mirrors, or have a little get-together with Frank where he can
talk about gardening helmets and you can reassure yourselves of that
which is not so.
  #34  
Old April 12th 10, 10:39 AM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
SMS
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Posts: 9,477
Default You don't need an expensive bike helmet to ride safely---BHSILab Tests Finds no difference between expensive and cheap helmets.

On 11/04/10 9:34 PM, Peter Rathmann wrote:
On Apr 10, 10:11 pm, Frank wrote:
On Apr 10, 9:59 pm, wrote:

They tested six helmets, priced between $10 and $207, and found no
difference in simulations of real-world impacts.


"http://www.bhsi.org/testbycost.htm"


"http://www.hometownlife.com/article/20100408/NEWS10/4080579/1027/You+..."


Wow. According to that article, "Medical research shows that bike
helmets can prevent 85 percent of cyclists' head injuries."

Isn't that astonishing?


I also like this more recent study:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19944823
where the abstract gives their results as:
"RESULTS: Of 324 patients with bicycle-related head injuries, 90
(27.8%) had severe head injuries. Boys compared with girls had a
higher proportion of severe head injuries (34.1% vs 23.4%; P = .048).
Children aged 5 to 9 years had a higher proportion of severe head
injuries compared with ages 10 to 14 years (65.2% vs 6.4%; P = .043).
Bicycles without reflectors had a higher proportion of severe head
injuries compared to bicycles with reflectors (69.0% vs 5.7%; P = .
004). Bicyclists carrying goods (such as backpacks or weighted toward
the road) and speeding were associated with severe head injury (P .
05). Collisions with vehicles of a larger size resulted in a higher
rate of severe head injury compared with collisions with pedestrians
(76.9% vs 3.6%; P = .043)."

Note the apparent effectiveness of having a reflector on the bike -
the chance of a severe head injury dropped from 69% to 5.7%, so the
presence of the reflector was over 90% effective in preventing severe
head injury. More effective than a helmet, much less expensive, and
far more convenient to use (just install once and leave it on the
bike).

Once again showing the problems associated with taking case-control
studies (and their inherent self-selection bias) at face value.


Actually, what it shows (once again) is something that many people are
unable to understand--correlation does not equal causation.
  #35  
Old April 12th 10, 01:41 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
(PeteCresswell)
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Posts: 2,790
Default You don't need an expensive bike helmet to ride safely---BHSI Lab Tests Finds no difference between expensive and cheap helmets.

Per Frank Krygowski:
_If_ helmets kept people from showing up in the hospital, it would be
detected by the reduction in percentage hospitalized due to head
injury. Seriously - Isn't that clear?


Maybe it was covered somewhere and I didn't see it, but the first
thing that jumps into my mind is the World War I anecdote where
some government (Great Britain?) introduced protective helmets
for their troops and saw the number of head injuries skyrocket.

The explanation being that soldiers that would have been dead
without the helmet were showing up in hospitals.
--
PeteCresswell
  #36  
Old April 12th 10, 03:13 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Tim McNamara
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Posts: 6,945
Default You don't need an expensive bike helmet to ride safely---BHSI Lab Tests Finds no difference between expensive and cheap helmets.

In article ,
SMS wrote:

On 11/04/10 9:34 PM, Peter Rathmann wrote:
On Apr 10, 10:11 pm, Frank wrote:
On Apr 10, 9:59 pm, wrote:

They tested six helmets, priced between $10 and $207, and found
no difference in simulations of real-world impacts.

"http://www.bhsi.org/testbycost.htm"

"http://www.hometownlife.com/article/20100408/NEWS10/4080579/1027/
You+..."

Wow. According to that article, "Medical research shows that bike
helmets can prevent 85 percent of cyclists' head injuries."

Isn't that astonishing?


I also like this more recent study:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19944823 where the abstract
gives their results as: "RESULTS: Of 324 patients with
bicycle-related head injuries, 90 (27.8%) had severe head injuries.
Boys compared with girls had a higher proportion of severe head
injuries (34.1% vs 23.4%; P = .048). Children aged 5 to 9 years had
a higher proportion of severe head injuries compared with ages 10
to 14 years (65.2% vs 6.4%; P = .043). Bicycles without reflectors
had a higher proportion of severe head injuries compared to
bicycles with reflectors (69.0% vs 5.7%; P = . 004). Bicyclists
carrying goods (such as backpacks or weighted toward the road) and
speeding were associated with severe head injury (P . 05).
Collisions with vehicles of a larger size resulted in a higher rate
of severe head injury compared with collisions with pedestrians
(76.9% vs 3.6%; P = .043)."

Note the apparent effectiveness of having a reflector on the bike -
the chance of a severe head injury dropped from 69% to 5.7%, so the
presence of the reflector was over 90% effective in preventing
severe head injury. More effective than a helmet, much less
expensive, and far more convenient to use (just install once and
leave it on the bike).

Once again showing the problems associated with taking case-control
studies (and their inherent self-selection bias) at face value.


Actually, what it shows (once again) is something that many people
are unable to understand--correlation does not equal causation.


Whoooossshhhh!
  #37  
Old April 12th 10, 03:18 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Tim McNamara
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Posts: 6,945
Default You don't need an expensive bike helmet to ride safely---BHSI Lab Tests Finds no difference between expensive and cheap helmets.

In article ,
SMS wrote:

On 11/04/10 7:42 PM, wrote:

How about the FACT that people who are not injured generally don't
go to the hospital? If they don't go to the hospital they are out
of the count - right?


That's a big problem with the case studies. They can compare helmeted
versus unhelmeted cyclists that have injuries serious enough to
warrant medical treatment, but they leave out all the cyclists where
the helmets prevented any injury or mitigated the injuries to a level
where no hospital treatment was sought by the cyclists.


There you go again with your faith-based mathematics. Really, Steven,
did you even take high school algebra? Is your best defense of helmets
positing an unknown but presumably massive number of people whose
life-threatening head injuries were prevented by 8-10 ounces of
styrofoam who just never show up in the data? What about the massive
number of people not wearing helmets who didn't get a brain injury and
didn't go to the hospital. You can't prove there weren't 7.3 times as
many of them as people whose foam hats saved them.

I'll say this for you, Steven: you're consistently entertaining in your
dreadful earnestness.
  #38  
Old April 12th 10, 03:20 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Tim McNamara
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Posts: 6,945
Default You don't need an expensive bike helmet to ride safely---BHSI Lab Tests Finds no difference between expensive and cheap helmets.

In article ,
SMS wrote:

On 11/04/10 5:47 PM, AMuzi wrote:

I know a few right wingers, none of whom wears a helmet.


That's the best explanation I've seen of what happened to the brains of
Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, etc.


None of those would be caught dead on a bicycle. Maybe Coulter.
Hannity and Beck could obviously use some exercise, though. Coulter and
Palin look like they keep fairly fit.
  #39  
Old April 12th 10, 03:28 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Jay Beattie
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Posts: 4,322
Default You don't need an expensive bike helmet to ride safely---BHSI LabTests Finds no difference between expensive and cheap helmets.

On Apr 11, 8:13*pm, SMS wrote:
On 11/04/10 7:42 PM, wrote:

* How about the FACT that people who are not injured generally don't go
to the hospital? If they don't go to the hospital they are out of the
count - right?


That's a big problem with the case studies. They can compare helmeted
versus unhelmeted cyclists that have injuries serious enough to warrant
medical treatment, but they leave out all the cyclists where the helmets
prevented any injury or mitigated the injuries to a level where no
hospital treatment was sought by the cyclists.

As we've seen, it's a good idea to seek medical treatment even if you
feel okay after a head-impact crash.


I think its a good idea if you have symptoms. Otherwise, its a waste
of resources. The new way of making money for health insurers is to
raise premium and decrease reimbursement rate for certain procedures,
including sophisticated imaging (CT, MRI, PET, etc.) Emergency room
co-pays are also high and there is a lower reimbursement rate under
many plans. So in the typical "I bumped my head" scenario, if you go
to an ER and complain enough to get a CT, you will be out of pocket
about $1,000 -- or more, depending on where you are with your
deductibles. If I feel O.K., I don't go to the doctor. OTOH, if I was
knocked out, I do -- or if I have other symptoms. -- Jay Beattie.
  #40  
Old April 12th 10, 04:08 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Frank Krygowski[_2_]
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Posts: 7,511
Default You don't need an expensive bike helmet to ride safely---BHSI LabTests Finds no difference between expensive and cheap helmets.

On Apr 12, 8:41*am, "(PeteCresswell)" wrote:
Per Frank Krygowski:

_If_ helmets kept people from showing up in the hospital, it would be
detected by the reduction in percentage hospitalized due to head
injury. *Seriously - Isn't that clear?


Maybe it was covered somewhere and I didn't see it, but the first
thing that jumps into my mind is the World War I anecdote where
some government (Great Britain?) introduced protective helmets
for their troops and saw the number of head injuries skyrocket.

The explanation being that soldiers that would have been dead
without the helmet were showing up in hospitals.


Pete, you're hoping to find _some_ excuse to continue believing in
magic protection. Why not read the paper I cited to see what it
actually says?

On that particular point you raise: there were never anywhere near
enough cyclist fatalities to produce the effect you seem to be hoping
for. Footnote #2 of the paper says "There were approximately 10
cyclist fatalities in each six-month period of the study. The
majority of these fatalities had sustained severe injuries to multiple
body regions, including the head."

Translation: The number of fatalities didn't drop after helmet use
suddenly jumped to 90% for kids, 70% for teens and 50% for adults.
The number of fatalities didn't make any difference in the hospital
results. And most fatalities wouldn't have been prevented by a helmet
anyway.

Now why not go to the library and ask them to get you the paper?

- Frank Krygowski
 




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