Helmets for cricketers, footballers, motorists, not cyclists

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mikeymo
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Re: Helmets for cricketers, footballers, motorists, not cyclists

Post by mikeymo »

pjclinch wrote:
mikeymo wrote:
mattsccm wrote:"Surely professional exposures to hazards of that nature should be properly assessed and regulated by the HSE".
Page 1
Surely just the opposite. No one but the individual should have any decision what so ever in that individual's safety.


Just to be clear, are you talking just about cycling helmets and football headers?

Or do you think that "No one but the individual should have any decision what so ever in that individual's safety" in any context?

Do you include children in that? Should they be allowed to make their own decisions about safety? The mentally ill? How about employees who are asked by their employer to work on unguarded machinery? Should that still be up to the "individual" employee to make their own decisions about safety?


Good questions.

In the cycle training community for training children, helmet use is not down to the individual. Parents/carers make the decision, noting that a school/local authority providing training is in loco parentis and can (and very often does) make that decision. I don't think the idea of parents making safety decisions for their children (including the decision to let them decide for themselves) is controversial.

When you get past children to adults it typically comes down to contract small print. If my small print says I'm uninsured if you don't wear a lid (British Cycling's small print says this, which is why their events require lids) and I need to be insured to give you the training as a business transaction covered by the contract then the decision isn't so much "it's up to me whether I wear a lid" as "it's up to me whether I take the training under these pre-stated contractual conditions".

Pete.


My question was directed at mattsccm. It is not clear from his statement whether he is talking about safety and cycle helmet use, or safety in general.
Jdsk
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Re: Helmets for cricketers, footballers, motorists, not cyclists

Post by Jdsk »

pjclinch wrote:
Jdsk wrote:
pjclinch wrote:Motor crashes are the #1 cause of head trauma in the UK. Trips and falls are second.

Aren't falls the most common cause of traumatic brain injury?

bmjopen2016012197f02.jpg
https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/bmjopen/6/11/e012197.full.pdf


Looks like it could be overall from that, I was quoting from memory (memory suggested there wasn't much in it). First noting that head trauma and TBI aren't quite the same, it's also the case that given the breakdown there looks to make falls at home among the elderly a particular problem and whatever it was I'd read may well have been some sort of sample that wouldn't take that in to account (?)

Yes, it's different for different subgroups, eg by age:

Screenshot 2020-12-31 at 10.44.40.png

Jonathan
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531colin
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Re: Helmets for cricketers, footballers, motorists, not cyclists

Post by 531colin »

pjclinch wrote:
531colin wrote:(more head injuries to occupants of motor vehicles than cyclists in the average year, I believe)


Motor crashes are the #1 cause of head trauma in the UK. Trips and falls are second. Cycling hardly gets a look in... but with so many more people getting about by car and foot than by bike a simple count isn't a useful figure. ..........Pete.


If you want to save human suffering and reduce the workload of the NHS, then the simple count is everything, isn't it?
So why is there no public pressure for helmets for occupants of motor vehicles and everybody over about 40 .....that would answer the most common head injury stats?
Drink helmets wouldn't hurt, either!
Jdsk
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Re: Helmets for cricketers, footballers, motorists, not cyclists

Post by Jdsk »

531colin wrote:So why is there no public pressure for helmets for occupants of motor vehicles and everybody over about 40 .....that would answer the most common head injury stats?

Which answer would you like... one about the public debate or lack of debate?

Or one about the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of helmets for people in cars?

Or one about protection against falls and similar for people at higher risk of injury from falls?

Jonathan
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pjclinch
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Re: Helmets for cricketers, footballers, motorists, not cyclists

Post by pjclinch »

531colin wrote:
pjclinch wrote:
531colin wrote:(more head injuries to occupants of motor vehicles than cyclists in the average year, I believe)


Motor crashes are the #1 cause of head trauma in the UK. Trips and falls are second. Cycling hardly gets a look in... but with so many more people getting about by car and foot than by bike a simple count isn't a useful figure. ..........Pete.


If you want to save human suffering and reduce the workload of the NHS, then the simple count is everything, isn't it?


What I'm getting at is it isn't useful as a comparison because you have very different exposure rates. For example, you'll actually get far more people dying riding their bikes to work than BASE jumping, not because it's more dangerous per trip but because there are far, far more people doing it.

The simple count would arguably be everything if overall population risk reduction was the only consideration, but it isn't. If we really wanted to minimise human suffering and NHS load through travel accidents we'd ban private motor transport, but it turns out that as a society we don't want that!

531colin wrote:So why is there no public pressure for helmets for occupants of motor vehicles and everybody over about 40 .....that would answer the most common head injury stats?
Drink helmets wouldn't hurt, either!


Here we see that bike helmets are about culture and psychology more than actual risk. Culture, loosely defined as "what people typically do and view as normal", tells folk that driving is "safe". It tells folk that because millions of people get in their cars every days, day after day, and typically don't get in to serious injury situations. That so many do get in to serious injury situations is ignored because that, by and large, is "other people".
Bikes are different. Cyclists aren't "normal people", they start off as "other people" and so they can have all sorts of things pushed on to them as obligations. Cycling can be defined as dangerous simply by being something "other people" do where problems can be imagined. Must be their fault, so they have to do something about it. Helmets are something, so they must do that. What makes it worse is the number of cyclists joining in the blame game.

(it probably wouldn't solve the head injury problem for cars any more than it does for bikes, just the way that seatbelts and airbags haven't, and having drunk people wearing armour they can bang in to one another "in perfect safety" in would not, I suggest, be a great idea for city centres on Saturday nights)

Pete.
Often seen riding a bike around Dundee...
50sbiker
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Re: Helmets for cricketers, footballers, not cyclists

Post by 50sbiker »

Stevek76 wrote: 8 Nov 2020, 8:23pm The point of risk compensation is it's subconscious, people don't deliberately ride less safely with a helmet on or drive less safely with a seatbelt on, they just inevitably tend to. With seatbelts, the safety provided to the user generally outweighed the riskier driving (most stats aren't quite as rosy for vulnerable road users outside of the car mind). With cycle helmets the evidence is far fuzzier, for whatever reason the safety gains shown in the event of a crash do not translate into population level stats. That could partly be risk compensation, but it could also be partly that people who wear them are more likely to be roadies/mtbers already engaging in riskier behaviour.

But there is the far more salient point about actual risk levels. Regular, non sportsing, cycling is not a risky endeavour. GB transport stats indicate you are more likely to be killed walking somewhere than cycling there, particularly in urban areas, and the vast majority would look at someone as if they'd gone a bit mad if they started suggesting pedestrian helmets.
You can play around with statistics and human behaviour to show a vague link about any point you like...Some people think they are An F1 driver in a car..Some think a seatbelt makes them invincible.Some think they are As good a dancer as M Jackson after a pint..others think they are Heavyweight champion boxer after a pint...Does not make it true.Sure,some will think a helmet makes them invincible..Some think alcohol improves driving.Maybe some studies show it is linked...I have no concept at all that wearing a helmet saves me from your average motor vehicle collision..A helmet no way makes be braver...I do not wear a seat belt and feel the slightest less risk adverse on the roads.If NOT wearing a helmet or NOT wearing a seatbelt was made compulsory..certain sections of society would insist on wearing them, such is human nature and bloody mindidness to stick the v up at rules.
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