Helmets and crime

For all discussions about this "lively" subject. All topics that are substantially about helmet usage will be moved here.
Post Reply
PaulS
Posts: 105
Joined: 26 Jan 2012, 6:45am
Location: East Yorkshire

Helmets and crime

Post by PaulS »

From one of the lead articles in The Economist 27 March. Implies a link between children who cycle without a helmet, and going on to commit crime.

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2021/ ... -more-help

A knock on the head can change the course of a whole life. Traumatic brain injuries affect around one in ten people in rich countries. Those who have experienced such injuries are more likely to suffer mental-health problems and loneliness. They are more likely to struggle with addiction to drink or drugs, or to be homeless. They are also more likely to commit crimes, including violent ones, although most do not. Estimates vary, but they consistently show that people in prison are many times more likely to have brain injuries.

Preventing brain injuries would avert much suffering, both directly (by reducing the number of people so impaired) and indirectly (by reducing the number who hurt others). Education is a good place to start. Parents and children need to be taught about the risks, urged to wear bicycle helmets and deterred from drunk-driving. Schools and police should do more to curb violence—by far the main cause of traumatic brain injuries affecting women in prison is domestic abuse. Prevention policies would pay for themselves, because brain injuries are expensive. In Britain the average lifetime cost of one in a 15-year-old who goes on to offend is estimated to be around £345,000 ($475,000).

No mention of football, rugby, boxing, or other children's sports.
thirdcrank
Posts: 36764
Joined: 9 Jan 2007, 2:44pm

Re: Helmets and violent crime

Post by thirdcrank »

It seems to be behind a paywall.

The bit quoted suggests it's a load of non sequitur.
Jdsk
Posts: 24478
Joined: 5 Mar 2019, 5:42pm

Re: Helmets and crime

Post by Jdsk »

Thanks for posting that.

Neurological damage is an enormous issue for both the damaging effects of crime and for penal policy.

I think that it should have included more about the effects of alcohol in addition to "drunk-driving" and more about head injury from sport and what we're rapidly learning about that.

Jonathan
irc
Posts: 5189
Joined: 3 Dec 2008, 2:22pm
Location: glasgow

Re: Helmets and crime

Post by irc »

PaulS wrote:From one of the lead articles in The Economist 27 March. Implies a link between children who cycle without a helmet, and going on to commit crime.


Looks like rubbish to me. Where have they got reliable stats from for helmet wearing years earlier and criminal records? If there was evidence that proved non helmet children had higher crime rates in later life I would suggest it was nothing to do with helmets. My unscientific observations are that the prison population is largely from lower socio-econmomic groups. Around here (may vary nationally) middle class kids are almost always helmeted while working class areas have lower helmet wearing rates.

So if there was any relation between crime rates and childhood helmet wearing it is an effect of background and nothing to do with helmets.
User avatar
pjclinch
Posts: 5457
Joined: 29 Oct 2007, 2:32pm
Location: Dundee, Scotland
Contact:

Re: Helmets and crime

Post by pjclinch »

As digging a bit deeper in to the "seminal" Thompson, Rivara & Thompson study of '89 revealed, quite a lot of the difference in tendency to injury between helmet wearers and non wearers is probably about their societal group at least as much as their choice of hat.

It turns out that, say, helmeted affluent children riding in parks with their folks get head injuries at different rates to, say, unhelmeted poor kids riding on downtown streets with their peers. Who could have guessed?

It just might be the case that coming from the wrong side of the tracks might have a bit more to do with whether you end committing crimes then whether one rides in a lid.
Lower wearing rates tend to correlate with disadvantaged neighborhoods IIRC.
Often seen riding a bike around Dundee...
thirdcrank
Posts: 36764
Joined: 9 Jan 2007, 2:44pm

Re: Helmets and crime

Post by thirdcrank »

It just might be the case that coming from the wrong side of the tracks might have a bit more to do with whether you end committing crimes

Or how your alleged crimes are dealt with.
User avatar
Paulatic
Posts: 7796
Joined: 2 Feb 2014, 1:03pm
Location: 24 Hours from Lands End

Re: Helmets and crime

Post by Paulatic »

That’ll explain the crime rate in the Netherlands with all those helmet-less riders.
Oh wait ...
Total crimes
NL 1.42 million Ranked 13th.
U.K. 6.52 million Ranked 2nd. 5 times more than Netherlands
Whatever I am, wherever I am, this is me. This is my life

https://stcleve.wordpress.com/category/lejog/
E2E info
Stevek76
Posts: 2084
Joined: 28 Jul 2015, 11:23am

Re: Helmets and crime

Post by Stevek76 »

Clearly I should be a criminal then and once of my elder brothers a bond/comic book level super villain with the head knocks we sustained in childhood (only one of mine of was actually related to an uncontrolled dismount of a bicycle) :mrgreen:
The contents of this post, unless otherwise stated, are opinions of the author and may actually be complete codswallop
Stevek76
Posts: 2084
Joined: 28 Jul 2015, 11:23am

Re: Helmets and crime

Post by Stevek76 »

On this topic there was this the other week:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... r-homeless

"In Seattle, where the debate has heated up, 43% of helmet citations since 2017 have gone to people who are homeless, according to an analysis by the news outlet Crosscut. A separate study of about 1,700 helmet infractions since 2003 shows that Black cyclists received citations at nearly four times the rate of white cyclists, while Native cyclists were cited at double the rate."
The contents of this post, unless otherwise stated, are opinions of the author and may actually be complete codswallop
User avatar
pjclinch
Posts: 5457
Joined: 29 Oct 2007, 2:32pm
Location: Dundee, Scotland
Contact:

Re: Helmets and crime

Post by pjclinch »

Stevek76 wrote: 4 May 2021, 2:30pm On this topic there was this the other week:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... r-homeless

"In Seattle, where the debate has heated up, 43% of helmet citations since 2017 have gone to people who are homeless, according to an analysis by the news outlet Crosscut. A separate study of about 1,700 helmet infractions since 2003 shows that Black cyclists received citations at nearly four times the rate of white cyclists, while Native cyclists were cited at double the rate."
Always handy when the more typical charge of "Driving while black" is not available...
Often seen riding a bike around Dundee...
Red Kite
Posts: 47
Joined: 10 Sep 2012, 5:20pm
Location: Hertfordshire, UK

Re: Helmets and crime

Post by Red Kite »

I don't think they are even claiming a relationship between helmet wearing and crime, or even helmet wearing and brain injury are they?

They have done some data studies and found what seems to be a link between earlier brain injury and subsequent criminal tendencies. From there they have decided that avoiding brain injury is worth the effort (who would have guessed?) and suggested wearing bike helmets would help.

What they haven't done (I infer, I can't read the article either) is to quantify the brain-injury-reducing effects of helmet wearing, which as we all know has been the subject of endless studies (not controlled trials, the "control group" has always been people who choose not to wear helmets) and much debate.

It seems unlikely that somebody like me who has given probably 15 minutes' thought to this in his entire life can say anything in the least new or insightful on the subject, but it seems to me that people who choose not to wear helmets (or the parents of children who don't wear them) are less risk-averse generally than those who (or whose children) do wear them. I would expect the second group to be more careful.

Of course there are many other confounding variables.

FWIW I wear a helmet, I am very risk averse, I did get a major bang on the head at about 12 when I saw stars, and I don't have a criminal record.
Cube Touring Hybrid One e-bike, Brompton P6R with Swytch conversion
User avatar
Mick F
Spambuster
Posts: 56349
Joined: 7 Jan 2007, 11:24am
Location: Tamar Valley, Cornwall

Re: Helmets and crime

Post by Mick F »

Red Kite wrote: 4 May 2021, 5:27pm ............ I did get a major bang on the head at about 12 when I saw stars, and I don't have a criminal record.
I fell out of a tree I was climbing aged 11 and broke my right wrist. Hurt like hell! :shock:

I don't go round thumping people.
Mick F. Cornwall
ClappedOut
Posts: 585
Joined: 30 May 2020, 12:43am

Re: Helmets and crime

Post by ClappedOut »

Criminal is a interesting concept and those who don’t identify as criminals are criminals- a prime one speeding and caught 3 points and a speed awareness tax and those will tell you they are law abiding.

The motto speed kills is rhetoric as inappropriate speed kills as does violent stopping.

So are we talking hard core gangsters for merely banging head as child and wearing a helmet :lol:

What a perfectly useless statistic-as lots of criminality which is variations of social acceptability.
De Sisti
Posts: 1507
Joined: 17 Jun 2007, 6:03pm

Re: Helmets and crime

Post by De Sisti »

CBA reading it all in detail, but not all criminals ride bikes when they're young. Tenuous linking
of helmetless children riding bikes, to them becoming criminals?
Post Reply