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I know, I know. this has been hashed to hell and back,
but I figured some of you might actually want to read real research. see the most recent issue of the Journal of Public Policy (Vol. 23, Issue 23 - June 2004) - Wiley, Inc. Publisher - can get abstract from the wiley site. The Effect of Bicycle Helmet Legislation on Bicycling Fatalities - Grant and Rutner. First pass is that it was a pretty good article for what it is worth. p by the way. don't bother replying. I dont use that hotmail account anymore. |
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#2
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patrick wrote:
I know, I know. this has been hashed to hell and back, but I figured some of you might actually want to read real research. see the most recent issue of the Journal of Public Policy (Vol. 23, Issue 23 - June 2004) - Wiley, Inc. Publisher - can get abstract from the wiley site. The Effect of Bicycle Helmet Legislation on Bicycling Fatalities - Grant and Rutner. First pass is that it was a pretty good article for what it is worth. p by the way. don't bother replying. I dont use that hotmail account anymore. I recently heard something on NPR to the effect that the wearing of helmets and the rate of bicycle fatalities is hard to draw claer relationships to because many of the fatalities are/were children vs auto, where a helmet (while still a great idea) is not going to have as big an effect as it will in a one cyclist Done Fall Over incident, or even in an adult vs auto. FB - Thinks that all research aside a helmet is a good idea. (Imperically speaking of course..) |
#3
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![]() "Faster Bordello" wrote in message ... patrick wrote: I know, I know. this has been hashed to hell and back, but I figured some of you might actually want to read real research. see the most recent issue of the Journal of Public Policy (Vol. 23, Issue 23 - June 2004) - Wiley, Inc. Publisher - can get abstract from the wiley site. The Effect of Bicycle Helmet Legislation on Bicycling Fatalities - Grant and Rutner. First pass is that it was a pretty good article for what it is worth. p by the way. don't bother replying. I dont use that hotmail account anymore. I recently heard something on NPR to the effect that the wearing of helmets and the rate of bicycle fatalities is hard to draw claer relationships to because many of the fatalities are/were children vs auto, where a helmet (while still a great idea) is not going to have as big an effect as it will in a one cyclist Done Fall Over incident, or even in an adult vs auto. FB - Thinks that all research aside a helmet is a good idea. (Imperically speaking of course..) Where's the proof? Where's the proof? People around here don't need any real proof to be convinced that Lance is a doper, but they need proof that a helmet makes sense to wear. Bob C. |
#4
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"psycholist" writes:
People around here don't need any real proof to be convinced that Lance is a doper, but they need proof that a helmet makes sense to wear. Nah, lots of us want proof on both counts. |
#5
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![]() "patrick" wrote in message om... I know, I know. this has been hashed to hell and back, but I figured some of you might actually want to read real research. see the most recent issue of the Journal of Public Policy (Vol. 23, Issue 23 - June 2004) - Wiley, Inc. Publisher - can get abstract from the wiley site. The Effect of Bicycle Helmet Legislation on Bicycling Fatalities - Grant and Rutner. First pass is that it was a pretty good article for what it is worth. It can be found he http://economics.uta.edu/grant/helmet.pdf Gemma |
#6
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Tim McNamara wrote in message ...
"psycholist" writes: People around here don't need any real proof to be convinced that Lance is a doper, but they need proof that a helmet makes sense to wear. Nah, lots of us want proof on both counts. As a significant comment on the pertinent article - they claim that a helmet seems to save some 15% of youth fatalities. I haven't read the article yet (I just got it) but in the abstract they say that 15% equals some 1,500 kids. Firstly, 25 years of fatalities is some 15,000 deaths. Of that only 40% or less are children or 6,000. 15% of 6,000 is 900. Furthermore, the claim is that the benefits of helmets do not seem to cross over to adults. Could this be because: 1) An adult is a lot higher from the ground. 2) An adult is a great deal heavier than a child. 3) Because helmet laws tend to heavily discourage bicycle use by children the statistics become highly skewed in directions that are difficult to quantify. 4) Since the number of deaths of bicyclists are so small the statistics are almost meaningless. "Typical" child fatalities are from riding out in front of a vehicle in motion. In these cases the specific impact points are far more important than body armor. I'll read the article tonight and be able to analyze it more fully. I will say that most articles on helmets that have been written by college professors, as this one appears to be, aren't written to be scientific knowledge but are written instead only to fulfill their collegian duty of "Publish or Perish". |
#7
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#8
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#9
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Ronaldo Jeremiah wrote:
(Tom Kunich) wrote in message . com... Tim McNamara wrote in message ... "psycholist" writes: People around here don't need any real proof to be convinced that Lance is a doper, but they need proof that a helmet makes sense to wear. Nah, lots of us want proof on both counts. As a significant comment on the pertinent article - they claim that a helmet seems to save some 15% of youth fatalities. An important distinction - they say this about *helmet laws*, not helmets. The actual effect for helmets themselves may be higher if we account for noncompliance, which may be substantial in this case (or not, but still the distinction needs to be made). In other words, requiring kids to wear helmets does not mean every one of them will. This study appears to be examining the effect of the legislation, which can only approach and never exceed the effect that would be attained by perfect compliance. Based on my quick skimming of the article, it appeared they did not have any direct data on changes in ridership resulting from the introduction of helmet laws. They claimed that there was no such effect based on not seeing any increase in pedestrian fatalities (which might be expected if cyclists switched to walking instead) or in motor vehicle miles. I'm skeptical of their conclusions since even a pretty substantial reduction in ridership with previous riders now getting rides from parents would have only a very minor impact on total motor vehicle miles driven and might not be detected in the statistics. Also recreational (i.e just for fun) riding by juveniles may have been replaced by other activities such as playing video games, etc. Previous studies have shown substantial reductions in ridership upon the introduction of helmet laws and such a reduction could easily account for all of the observed 15% decline in fatalities even if helmets were totally ineffective. Locally (northern Cal.) there was an obvious reduction in the number of bicycles in school bike racks immediately following the introduction of the juvenile helmet law and the numbers have remained lower than they were before. Their discussion of cost/benefit ratio appeared to assume the only cost of the helmet law was the monetary and inconvenience cost of the helmets. But if ridership decreases then there are also the health benefits of cycling that are lost as a consequence of such laws. Hillman's study for the British Med. Assoc. indicated that for every year of life lost due to cycling accidents there were 20 years of life gained due to the beneficial effects of the cycling-related exercise. A helmet law that results in reducing ridership by as little as 5% would therefore have a net detrimental effect on overall years of life even if helmets were 100% effective in reducing fatalities (which is clearly not the case). |
#10
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In article ,
Ronaldo Jeremiah wrote: (Tom Kunich) wrote in message . com... As a significant comment on the pertinent article - they claim that a helmet seems to save some 15% of youth fatalities. An important distinction - they say this about *helmet laws*, not helmets. The actual effect for helmets themselves may be higher if we account for noncompliance, which may be substantial in this case (or not, but still the distinction needs to be made). Or the effect could be lower. Helmet laws change behavior, especially among children, there is no doubt about that. If you assume children are safer with their parents than when unsupervised, and that a helmet law will decreases juvenile ridership more for children riding alone than with their parents, then it's possible that the effect of helmets for children is less than a 15% reduction in fatalities. |
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Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
published helmet research - not troll | Frank Krygowski | General | 1927 | October 24th 04 06:39 AM |
First Helmet : jury is out. | Walter Mitty | General | 125 | June 26th 04 02:00 AM |
Reports from Sweden | Garry Jones | General | 17 | October 14th 03 05:23 PM |
France helmet observation (not a troll) | Mike Jacoubowsky/Chain Reaction Bicycles | General | 20 | August 30th 03 08:35 AM |