Jdsk wrote: 4 Dec 2023, 3:12pm
Mike Sales wrote: 4 Dec 2023, 3:06pm
...
The conventional wisdom is that helmets are a good thing and are obviously effective. It would be useful to discover whether this is true, because it is far from evident.
I have tried several times to have a discussion in this forum about the evidence informing the several different questions.
It has always failed. With a couple of honourable exceptions there simply isn't enough commitment to evidence-based methods.
Jonathan
Well ... can you specify what evidence based methods for testing which functional performances of cycling helmets of what designs & materials would be revealing?
To do a comparison test, you would need to arrange cycling "accident" types that not only isolated or eliminated all sorts of other factors to ensure that only the helmet functions were being measured but also comparison experiments where cyclists were made to crash without a helmet, which might prove a helmet did this or that but which might also permanently damage the poor cyclist.
Can you emulate such human cyclists with a dummy? I doubt it as dummies are dumb, not reactive humans, so the constructed "accidents" will not really emulate real ones. Accidents also occur on real roads, not in labs.
Personally I feel that there are other ways to make a judgement about whether its worth buying and wearing a cycling helmet. A major factor is: how often (if at all) do you expect to fall off and bang your head seriously when cycling, going by experience (your own and that of others)? Another is: what amount of force does a cycling helmet absorb in various kinds of head-bang? (Not just the new and perfect helmets "tested" by manufacturers but those bought in a shop and used for significant time). Another is, does helmet wearing induce a feeling in some cyclists, or others on the road, that it will protect them from far more than it will, so that they take unjustifiable risks?
To "test" in these ways is also quite difficult, as there's an awful lot of subjectivity involved.
What we do know is that its pointless asking humans to judge such matters accurately as they'll consider them through a large lens of their current beliefs, which are often held with a religious zeal. The same applies to policemen, ambulance folk, doctors and nurses required to deal with head injuries from cycling. They know as little as anyone else abut what functional protections cycling helmets actually provide (and which they make worse).
In the final analysis, the choice is much like many other consumerist choices, in which the primary considerations are fashion, peer pressure, mass media prejudices and the Svengali effects of advertising. To get at the "true" value of cycling helmets as a protective device, you'd have to somehow sweep all that away.
In short, not every matter we humans need to make decisions about can be informed by "studies".
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
John Maynard Keynes
)