Helmet manufacturer confirms helmets are not designed for incidents involving motorvehicles

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tim-b
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Re: Helmet manufacturer confirms helmets are not designed for incidents involving motorvehicles

Post by tim-b »

Hi
Reductions like these should be unmistakable

And then there's the statistic that is frequently used that cyclist numbers declined dramatically
Regards
tim-b
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Jdsk
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Re: Helmet manufacturer confirms helmets are not designed for incidents involving motorvehicles

Post by Jdsk »

Mike Sales wrote:I would have thought that if helmets saved a detectable number of lives, we shoild be able to tell.

Jdsk wrote:What type of study would you expect to tell us. please?

Mike Sales wrote:I guess whole population studies, where a law mandating helmets has produced a large and sudden increase in wearing, by all sorts of cyclists.
It is difficult to reconcile the results of laws in Oz and NZ with estimates published by some reserarchers, that helmet wearing would save 85% of cyclist head injuries. Did not an earlier contributor to this thread claim a 50% reduction?

https://www.cyclehelmets.org/1242.html

Reductions like these should be unmistakable.

Thanks.

Even with that kind of study you'd need an external control group. And then you'd have to argue that all of the same factors applied to both groups except for the intervention of interest.

And then you'd have to decide (agree?) on the important outcome measures.... deaths, injuries, head injuries, head injuries that might have been avoided etc? Totals or allowing for number of journeys or distance travelled (see tim-b's above)?

And then you'd have to look out for side effects and unexpected effects.

It's very very difficult.

And it's so important to know that we should be setting up these experiments as soon as possible and they should be designed to produce the highest level of evidence possible.

Jonathan
Last edited by Jdsk on 8 Jul 2020, 9:08pm, edited 1 time in total.
Mike Sales
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Re: Helmet manufacturer confirms helmets are not designed for incidents involving motorvehicles

Post by Mike Sales »

You can look at the experiences of Australia and the Netherlands as large scale experiments.

The Nertherlands has not always been the cycling paradise we now think it. In the fifties and sixties it was following much the same course as the UK. Plunging cycling rates and more and more traffic. But a campaign began, Stop der Kindermoord and they began to build roads and facilities safe for cyclists and children. Now they have much higher rates of cycling than us, much lower rates of injury to cyclists, and children can ride safely to school and play.

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/may/05/amsterdam-bicycle-capital-world-transport-cycling-kindermoord

Australia, concerned at their high rates of cyclist casualties, decided that the answer was helmets. Casualty rates did not change, but there was a big drop in cycling, which has begun to recover, but in that sunny, sporting country people ride about half our miles, at about twice the risk.

As Goldacre and Spiegelhalter wrote,
The enduring popularity of helmets as a proposed major intervention for increased road safety may therefore lie not with their direct benefits—which seem too modest to capture compared with other strategies—but more with the cultural, psychological, and political aspects of popular debate around risk.


"Too modest to capture compared with other strategies".

I think that the wasteful campaigning around getting us to wear helmets is because the alternative might impinge on the freedom of drivers to behave as if they own the roads. We should not be collaborating with helmet promotion if we want to see the real advantages of cycling making our roads and planet a better place to live.
It's the same the whole world over
It's the poor what gets the blame
It's the rich what gets the pleasure
Isn't it a blooming shame?
Jdsk
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Re: Helmet manufacturer confirms helmets are not designed for incidents involving motorvehicles

Post by Jdsk »

I'd apply exactly the same evidence-based approach to all other safety issues in transport: vehicles, roads, drivers, devices...

Jonathan
Mike Sales
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Re: Helmet manufacturer confirms helmets are not designed for incidents involving motorvehicles

Post by Mike Sales »

Jdsk wrote:I'd apply exactly the same evidence-based approach to all other safety issues in transport: vehicles, roads, drivers, devices...

Jonathan


Good.
Are you aware of John Adams's work, his book Risk and his website http://www.john-adams.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/RISK-BOOK.pdf?
It's the same the whole world over
It's the poor what gets the blame
It's the rich what gets the pleasure
Isn't it a blooming shame?
Jdsk
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Re: Helmet manufacturer confirms helmets are not designed for incidents involving motorvehicles

Post by Jdsk »

No, but I'll have a look.

Thanks

Jonathan
Jdsk
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Re: Helmet manufacturer confirms helmets are not designed for incidents involving motorvehicles

Post by Jdsk »

philg wrote:Presumably the collisions where the helmet did make a large difference didn't show up in A&E?

Do you know the story of where to put more armour in bombers? Told about Operational Research in both Britain and the USA:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operations_research#Second_World_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias#In_the_military

Great story and even possibly true.

Jonathan

PS: Survivorship bars has suddenly become relevant in understanding what's happening in the outbreak.
Mike Sales
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Re: Helmet manufacturer confirms helmets are not designed for incidents involving motorvehicles

Post by Mike Sales »

tim-b wrote:Hi
Reductions like these should be unmistakable

And then there's the statistic that is frequently used that cyclist numbers declined dramatically
Regards
tim-b


That is why the rate is calculated. The figures are taken from traffic surveys.
It's the same the whole world over
It's the poor what gets the blame
It's the rich what gets the pleasure
Isn't it a blooming shame?
Mike Sales
Posts: 7860
Joined: 7 Mar 2009, 3:31pm

Re: Helmet manufacturer confirms helmets are not designed for incidents involving motorvehicles

Post by Mike Sales »

Jdsk wrote:And it's so important to know that we should be setting up these experiments as soon as possible and they should be designed to produce the highest level of evidence possible.

Jonathan


I have argued this before here.
Neither helmeteers nor sceptics place enough emphasis on this. It needs work done on gathering figures before any law change, as well as after.
I would hope that it could be agreed that if a law did not have the required effect, it would be repealed.
It's the same the whole world over
It's the poor what gets the blame
It's the rich what gets the pleasure
Isn't it a blooming shame?
Mike Sales
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Joined: 7 Mar 2009, 3:31pm

Re: Helmet manufacturer confirms helmets are not designed for incidents involving motorvehicles

Post by Mike Sales »

philg wrote:
simonineaston wrote:Donks ago, I knew an A&E consultant who simply remarked that she'd not seen a single serious injury resulting from cyclist v motor vehicle, where the helmet had made the tiniest bit of difference...

Presumably the collisions where the helmet did make a large difference didn't show up in A&E?

Anecdotes, even relevant ones, can slice many ways depending on your PoV.


We use the excess over average death rates to assess the impact of Covid.
In the same way, these putative saved lives should show up in reduced cyclist casualty rates.

On the only occasion I hit my head in a bike tumble I was wearing a cotton Festina casquette. Not even a bruise! I do not put this down to the efficacy of the cap, as I am not a believer.
It's the same the whole world over
It's the poor what gets the blame
It's the rich what gets the pleasure
Isn't it a blooming shame?
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The utility cyclist
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Re: Helmet manufacturer confirms helmets are not designed for incidents involving motorvehicles

Post by The utility cyclist »

mjr wrote:
philg wrote:
simonineaston wrote:Donks ago, I knew an A&E consultant who simply remarked that she'd not seen a single serious injury resulting from cyclist v motor vehicle, where the helmet had made the tiniest bit of difference...

Presumably the collisions where the helmet did make a large difference didn't show up in A&E?

But then we'd see the number of cyclists showing up in A&E varying with changing helmet use. And we don't. It varies by cycling prevalence.

Anecdotes, even relevant ones, can slice many ways depending on your PoV.

Or be twisted. That's a problem with anecdotes instead of data.

Since the mid 00s there has been a 50% increase in cycling KSIs but no increase in modal share, small % of increase in distance travelled but actually no increase in journey numbers.
The only significant thing to change is the amount of helmets being worn by those riding bicycles and the push by police, local authorities and cycling clubs/orgs for people to wear them.
If helmets were a vaccine then the makers would be getting lawsuits and people questioning government policy and that of all others pushing it as an intervention.
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The utility cyclist
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Re: Helmet manufacturer confirms helmets are not designed for incidents involving motorvehicles

Post by The utility cyclist »

Mike Sales wrote:
Jdsk wrote:And it's so important to know that we should be setting up these experiments as soon as possible and they should be designed to produce the highest level of evidence possible.

Jonathan


I have argued this before here.
Neither helmeteers nor sceptics place enough emphasis on this. It needs work done on gathering figures before any law change, as well as after.
I would hope that it could be agreed that if a law did not have the required effect, it would be repealed.

Well the government have failed to grasp that a reaction to a minor virus strain has basically killed the economy, killed prematurely tens of thousands of people and negatively changed the face of society forever and still won't change the 'laws' they created despite all evidence that they were wrong.
Governments everywhere make laws up that are @@@@ and then don't change back, you only need look at Australia and NZ for a start off with regards helmet rules. Changing the law to include death by careless driving due to a cruddy 'justice' system that meant even fewer people convicted of killing whilst operating a motor and lesser sentences for same is another example of bad law making that has not being removed and changing to something that actually makes sense!
Jdsk
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Re: Helmet manufacturer confirms helmets are not designed for incidents involving motorvehicles

Post by Jdsk »

The utility cyclist wrote:[Since the mid 00s there has been a 50% increase in cycling KSIs but no increase in modal share, small % of increase in distance travelled but actually no increase in journey numbers.

What's the dataset for those KSIs, please?
The utility cyclist wrote:The only significant thing to change is the amount of helmets being worn by those riding bicycles and the push by police, local authorities and cycling clubs/orgs for people to wear them.

What's the evidence that "the only significant thing to change" is wearing helmets and their promotion, please?

Thanks

Jonathan
tim-b
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Re: Helmet manufacturer confirms helmets are not designed for incidents involving motorvehicles

Post by tim-b »

Hi
Mike Sales wrote:
tim-b wrote:Hi
Reductions like these should be unmistakable

One assumption is that all riders in Oz and NZ wear the helmets, and those that do fit and wear them correctly. It's a bit like saying that drivers in the UK don't use hand-held mobile phones when driving
Regards
tim-b
The wearing rate went up to close to 100% from about a third. It is easier to spot and catch a bare headed cyclist than a phoning driver. The large sum imposed in fines shows that enforcement is not neglected.
The idea that wearing helmets poorly fitted must be the reason for no detectable improvement in injury rate is a bit desperate, and certainly unevidenced.

You offered https://www.cyclehelmets.org/1242.html, but fig 1 seems to show that adults wearing helmets went from 1/3 in Victoria to 3/4, and children aged 12-17 from 1/4 to 1/3 wearing helmets. Only in the under 12s did it get close to 100%. I don't know if that's changed with the decrease in cyclists and as time has marched on
Will the police not check fitting?

I've no idea for the State of Victoria. I've never heard of checks in the UK
Regards
tim-b
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tim-b
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Re: Helmet manufacturer confirms helmets are not designed for incidents involving motorvehicles

Post by tim-b »

Hi
Mike Sales wrote:
tim-b wrote:Hi
Reductions like these should be unmistakable

And then there's the statistic that is frequently used that cyclist numbers declined dramatically
Regards
tim-b


That is why the rate is calculated. The figures are taken from traffic surveys.

If the sample size is reduced the standard error increases, this causes less accurate stats after helmet laws were introduced??
Regards
tim-b
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