Helmet may actually have saved a life...

[[XAP]Bob]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/triathlon/44978252

From the description the helmet actuallyndisnwhatbitnwas designed to do (crushed) and they guy still ended up with a halo bolted to his head for three months...

[Mistik-ka]

Having spent decades working in a trauma/intensive care hospital, I am familiar with both these devices and their efficacy.

[softlips]

Having spent decades working in a trauma/intensive care hospital, I am familiar with both these devices and their efficacy.

Same here, helmets save lives all the time.

[Cyril Haearn]

Having spent decades working in a trauma/intensive care hospital, I am familiar with both these devices and their efficacy.

Same here, helmets save lives all the time.

Would either or both of you care to elaborate? Maybe on a new thread. There is a certain received wisdom on these fora, in particular against compulsion

Hoping for short texts and to learn and understand
Diolch yn fawr iawn

[[XAP]Bob]

Having spent decades working in a trauma/intensive care hospital, I am familiar with both these devices and their efficacy.

Same here, helmets save lives all the time.

That seems highly unlikely - assuming we are talking about cycle helmets on the road.
There simply aren't enough dangerous incidents to support any 'all the time' comments.

The statistics in terms of the ratio of limb injury to head injury don't change - even when helmet wearing rates change significantly. That alone implies that there effect is utterly minimal...

[Cunobelin]

Having spent decades working in a trauma/intensive care hospital, I am familiar with both these devices and their efficacy.

Same here, helmets save lives all the time.

That seems highly unlikely - assuming we are talking about cycle helmets on the road.
There simply aren't enough dangerous incidents to support any 'all the time' comments.

The statistics in terms of the ratio of limb injury to head injury don't change - even when helmet wearing rates change significantly. That alone implies that there effect is utterly minimal...

Oh dear, someone seems totally unaware of the evidence that helmets can cause spinal injuries (Elvik 2013)

So can we can justifiably make a claim that the helmet unequivocally caused the neck injury with the same authority that supports the claim that the helmet saved his life?

By the standard of evidence we have available.......Cycle helmets cause neck injuries all the time is an equally valid statement

[De Sisti]

Same here, helmets save lives all the time.

One would have to have the same accident, under the same circumstances, with and without a helmet
for that comment to be proven.

[Nigel]

Having spent decades working in a trauma/intensive care hospital, I am familiar with both these devices and their efficacy.

Same here, helmets save lives all the time.

Would either or both of you care to elaborate? Maybe on a new thread. There is a certain received wisdom on these fora, in particular against compulsion

Hoping for short texts and to learn and understand
Diolch yn fawr iawn

Compulsion is a different question to effectiveness. I'll leave effectiveness in preventing injuries as between "none", "marginally harmful" and "marginally beneficial" from my reading of the properly peer reviewed scientific literature.


Compulsion question is, to my mind, two different questions - comparative risk to other every day activities and basic libertarian right to do as one pleases provided not harming somebody else.
Taking the first, comparative risk. To those who say one should always wear a cycle helmet, or it should be compulsory, then why are they not also wearing them when walking on the pavement or when travelling in a car ? The head injury rates for those two activities are broadly the same as cycling, so if cycling is perceived as so dangerous that a helmet must always be used (and they instruct others on what they must wear), then why are those advocating cycle helmets not wearing them when walking along the street or travelling in a car ?

Then the second area, libertarian arguments, which applies to the compulsion argument.
The first half of this is comparative danger - how does cycling without a helmet relate to smoking ? There is no suggestion that the state will ban private people smoking in their own homes (all the smoking bans are about secondary smoking - the smoker inflicting their smoke on other people, or employees forced to work in smoke filled environments), yet smoking has provable connection to early deaths and diseases.
Moving from that, why should the state legislate as to what somebody wears? If the state does legislate, then should it start at higher risk activities ? So, compulsory hard-hats and eye protection when doing any DIY around the house, inside or out (accident rates from DIY are quite high), compulsory protective gloves, hard toed shoes, cut resistant clothing and ear defenders (as with professional chainsaw users), for any garden DIY involving any power tools (garden power tool accident rates are much higher accident than cycling). The long list of domestic activities which have far higher accident rates than cycling, yet there is no suggestion of compulsory clothing or banning of those activities ? Why not start where action might have a greater effect ?


- Nigel

[Cunobelin]

To those who claim to have such a vast experience, and with this experience are unequivocally convinced that cycle helmets save lives

Why do you not promote pedestrian helmets?

After all, these are far more common, and surely should be prevented in the same way?

Why are you not promoting pedestrian helmets?

Or are we back to the absurd point where evidence based practice doesn’t apply?

[bovlomov]

Why not start where action might have a greater effect ?

Because a large part of this is about the resentment that the majority (non cycling) has for the minority (cycling). Our choice to ride a bike is seen as self-indulgent, exhibitionist, provocative and egotistical. Thus we need to be taken down a peg or two by the application of pettifogging rules, the practical effects of which are entirely irrelevant.

If they're not angry about our bare heads they are angry about our lack of a bell. Or that we dare to ring a bell. Or because we aren't wearing hi-vis. Or because we aren't on the cycle path. Or because we are on the cycle path (you should see the looks I get sometimes, when I encounter a walker on the cycle path). Or because of our clothing choices. Or because of our headphones. Or because we don't pay road tax. Or because we aren't registered. Or because of our smug and entitled attitude.

I can't help feeling that the key to defeating compulsion is to be found in the field of psychology rather than in materials science or accident stats. After all, if we want to understand persecutions for witchcraft, we don't usually start with the science of broomstick aeronautics.

[thirdcrank]

the science of broomstick aeronautics.

[bovlomov]

Room on the Broom.jpg

Look at the smug, self-indulgent egotist! She doesn't even pay air tax.

[Cyril Haearn]

But she does get her animals to clean up after themselves, Plus One

[Nigel]

Why not start where action might have a greater effect ?

Because a large part of this is about the resentment that the majority (non cycling) has for the minority (cycling). Our choice to ride a bike is seen as self-indulgent, exhibitionist, provocative and egotistical. Thus we need to be taken down a peg or two by the application of pettifogging rules, the practical effects of which are entirely irrelevant.

Maybe, but doesn't explain the cyclists with a compulsion agenda. The small local social cycle rides groups (not race clubs) with "no helmet no ride" policies. Cycle groups who are able to take over the closed roads before a major professional race for the public to ride on those roads, and have a "no helmet no ride" policy for the fun family riding on closed roads. Some slightly different social or psychological thing happening there.

[Thornyone]

Why not start where action might have a greater effect ?

Because a large part of this is about the resentment that the majority (non cycling) has for the minority (cycling). Our choice to ride a bike is seen as self-indulgent, exhibitionist, provocative and egotistical. Thus we need to be taken down a peg or two by the application of pettifogging rules, the practical effects of which are entirely irrelevant.

If they're not angry about our bare heads they are angry about our lack of a bell. Or that we dare to ring a bell. Or because we aren't wearing hi-vis. Or because we aren't on the cycle path. Or because we are on the cycle path (you should see the looks I get sometimes, when I encounter a walker on the cycle path). Or because of our clothing choices. Or because of our headphones. Or because we don't pay road tax. Or because we aren't registered. Or because of our smug and entitled attitude.

I can't help feeling that the key to defeating compulsion is to be found in the field of psychology rather than in materials science or accident stats. After all, if we want to understand persecutions for witchcraft, we don't usually start with the science of broomstick aeronautics.

Whilst I agree with many of the points you make in your second paragraph, I don’t think that the urge to compel cycle helmet wearing springs from anti-cyclist attitudes, but from the modern obsession with perceived risks. Nowadays I frequently see large groups of junior- and younger - schoolkids. Whether having some sort of lesson in my local Waitrose (!) or visiting a nature reserve, every child is dressed in a high-viz yellow safety jacket like a highway worker. Or when the PM or some other bigwig visits a factory or even more absurdly, stands in the middle of an empty field to ceremonially dig up the first sod on a new hospital site, they wear the inevitable high-viz jacket and hard hat (possibly to keep off stray seagull crap?). In other words, I think that it is simply part of our current, risk-obsessed culture, rather than stemming from an anti-cyclist stance. Not many years ago I saw many horse riders who wore no head protection. Nowadays hard head protection seems to be the norm for horse riders.