Cycling UK Forum

Most accidents are caused driver sees the cyclist, but either through a lack of skills or the all too common concept that somehow cars "have priority" that they will then carry out a totally inappropriate and dangerous manoeuvre.

This is where Ian Walker and the DfT transport research fills (partially) the gap. Driver education is needed, and if only the same money, time and effort was employed in this education as is applied to "protecting" cyclists when the driver makes this inappropriate response.

This is also where I have a problem with this concept. I cannot "protect myself" against the driver who is speeding, overtakes dangerously and knocks me off..... the whole road experience depends on others carrying out a preconceived set of manoeuvres and responses - You assume that cars (and bikes) will stop at a red light, not overtake and turn left at a junction etc.

We all rely on this completely and the road environment is by definition made more damngerous by anyone who is unable or unwilling to conform with these is also by definition dangerous. Any breach should be seen as wholly and completely at fault and responsible for their actions.

Mike Sales wrote:ianr1950 wrote:-

<Statistics can prove anything you want them to depending on how they are presented.>

So, do you therefore ignore all statistics and rely on common sense, or do you make sure statistics are used properly? The latter is the scientific approach, which is the method by which we have greatly increase our understanding of the world.
The statistics which show helmets don't work are those collected by the governments which made helmets compulsory. They show that head injuries to cyclists go down after a law, but by less than cycling. This has happened in several different countries. The interpretation is limited to very simple arithmetic. Please point out any trickery.

Mike Sales

There are two other points here, one is the confounding of the statistics by other effects. In the Australian research it is conveniently foprgotten that Helmet compulsion was brought in along with a raft of other meaures including a clampdown on dangerous driving, untaxed or uninsured vehicles, drink driving, speeding and others.

Even without a helmet compulsion there should have been a decrease in accidents -to contribute ALL the reduction to helmets is naive and an error. In fact there is an argument that this shows that the small decrease in cyclist accidents is even poorer argument for helmet compulsion than previously.


Secondly statistics are not inclusive.

I work in the NHS and see head injuries on a daily basis and the fact is that cyclists are a small minority of the patients. Now hilst we can hypothesise about "risk" and argue the fact is that if anyone claims that helmets work then they must also recognise unequivocally that the reduction in the actual number of head injuries, cost etc would be rduced even more if other groups such as pedestrians or drivers wore them!

Mike Sales wrote:ianr1950 wrote:-

<Statistics can prove anything you want them to depending on how they are presented.>

So, do you therefore ignore all statistics and rely on common sense, or do you make sure statistics are used properly? The latter is the scientific approach, which is the method by which we have greatly increase our understanding of the world.
The statistics which show helmets don't work are those collected by the governments which made helmets compulsory. They show that head injuries to cyclists go down after a law, but by less than cycling. This has happened in several different countries. The interpretation is limited to very simple arithmetic. Please point out any trickery.

Mike Sales

Do you believe everything the governments tell you then


What I am saying is that any statistics can very often be interpreted in a variety of ways to prove whatever point you may want to emphasize.

I have never said that helmets are 100% effective but they are effective in some circumstances. When people start arguing that if cyclists are made to wear helmets then so should pedestrians then I just cannot agree with that argument.
I do not think that they should be made compulsory and have never said so.

ianr1950 wrote:-
<:?: Do you believe everything the governments tell you then >

I don't think they lie when saying, "Last year we counted x many head injuries to cyclists on the road", and especially when it is in their interest to prove that helmets work I don't think they fiddle the figures to show they don't work.

<What I am saying is that any statistics can very often be interpreted in a variety of ways to prove whatever point you may want to emphasize.>

I ask again, how do you think these figures have been misinterpreted? The counts are done by the governments which introduced the laws, and all show that injuries and deaths reduce less than the number of cyclists. The same results have happened in all countries or states which have introduced a law. The interpretation is minimal. It is done out in the open, the papers doing it are available on the web to criticise. If you can't find them I can help.

Mike Sales

Cunobelin wrote:There are two other points here, one is the confounding of the statistics by other effects. In the Australian research it is conveniently forgotten that Helmet compulsion was brought in along with a raft of other measures including a clampdown on dangerous driving, untaxed or uninsured vehicles, drink driving, speeding and others.

Even without a helmet compulsion there should have been a decrease in accidents -to contribute ALL the reduction to helmets is naive and an error. In fact there is an argument that this shows that the small decrease in cyclist accidents is even poorer argument for helmet compulsion than previously.

Yes, I would have said that the fact that other safety measures were brought in, should have exaggerated the safety effect of helmet promotion.

The reason the statistics are not confounded is that they still show no significant reduction in the head injury rate, *despite* the addition of all the other laws to the helmet one.

In fact, most research seems to agree that the rate of cyclist head injury is proportional to the rate of pedestrian head injury, whether the country has 80% cycle helmet wearing, or 0.8%. In other words, helmets make no significant difference to the rate of head injury.

ianr1950 wrote:<What I am saying is that any statistics can very often be interpreted in a variety of ways to prove whatever point you may want to emphasize.>

I agree with what you're saying, and if there had been only one study that refuted helmet use I would be *extremely* skeptical. But all the studies, in every country, which look at the 'big picture' of head injury rate agree.

To me, the argument seems a little like people who say "well, evolution is only a theory". The only studies supporting helmet use effectively start from the fact that a crash/head injury has occurred, and observe that the helmet is reducing the damage in some of these cases. This is such a small snapshot of the reality of helmet use as to be worse than useless.

It's like saying "a lower proportion of miniature unicycle riders who hit their heads are injured VS normal cyclists who hit their heads" and then calling for miniature unicycle compulsion. Reality doesn't get a look-in

ianr1950 wrote:Statistics can prove anything you want them to depending on how they are presented.

Alternatively I could ignore statistics and rely on my direct experience to make a responsible judgement of the risk for myself. I have never hurt my head cycling on the road, and I don't know anyone who has, and I don't know anyone who knows anyone. That tells me the risk is low, maybe not zero, but very very low. I choose to mitigate that very very low risk by trying not to fall off too often, and that has been 100% effective in avoiding head injury.

aesmith wrote:

ianr1950 wrote:Statistics can prove anything you want them to depending on how they are presented.

Alternatively I could ignore statistics and rely on my direct experience to make a responsible judgement of the risk for myself. I have never hurt my head cycling on the road, and I don't know anyone who has, and I don't know anyone who knows anyone. That tells me the risk is low, maybe not zero, but very very low. I choose to mitigate that very very low risk by trying not to fall off too often, and that has been 100% effective in avoiding head injury.

Whereas form my experience there are more elderly males who would have benefited than cyclists. As a Health Care professional should I not be promoting helmets for these individuals?

Yes. That's why the whole idea of the BMA etc promoting safety helmets for cycling (an activity that is already safer than living your normal life) is so ridiculous.

I have a friend who is an A&E doctor who is quite strongly pro-helmet - based on the fact that all the people she sees have already hurt their heads.

However she didn't have a good answer when I asked her if she would accept one extra seriously injured cyclist a year, in exchange for a thousand less deaths from diabetes/heart attack/etc.

She simply said that the ideal would be for everybody to wear a helmet from dawn to dusk, and that it's easy to guilt cyclists into putting one on, compared with people at more risk (like the elderly, kids, pedestrians in general and drivers).

I didn't find this particularly satisfying.

Dropping into stereotype mode, my stereotypical consultant was immortalised by James Robertson Justice in the role of Sir Lancelot Spratt. Probably an unfair caricature even then, but I still fancy that familiarity with cycling is not a strong point on the professional cv. I can well imagine that anybody whose life involved trying to repair / rehabilitate damaged brains would urge that prevention is a whole lot better than an uncertain cure, and 'hear hear!' to that. It is then easy for such a person to believe that head protection is the answer. The only time I have been in a position to discuss this face-to-face with a consultant was a decade ago at a big Leeds City Council / Health Authority seminar about the direction of health and safety policy. When we split into groups for the inevitable workshop, somebody mentioned cycle helmets as an icebreaker(I think it was the black tights and flourescent jacket that gave the game away for me ) so I fished out mine. With the 3 1/2 oz of my Specialised Sub Four* on the table there was some general gasping at the futility of perching something like that atop the bonce. To be fair to the consultant (and I don't know what her speciality was) she did refer to the BMA policy (at that time BMA policy was against helmet compulsion) and she said you would need something like a motorcycle helmet for it to do a ha'porth of good. So, I really do believe that when top docs opine on helmets, they may well have in mind something that would work, without really thinking through the effect that would have on cycling levels. At some stage in the conversation she did mention that she would like to cycle to work but was frightened of doing so in Leeds. On 'road safety' the final report concluded that everything would be OK for the next five years till the next conference. I did write to the consultant - who was the seminar organiser - suggesting that the conclusions on road safety were complacent and a measure of success might be roads which made her feel safe when cycling. Her response was that everybody else who had attended had been very satisfied with the outcome. Of course they were, I think the lady from the Pedestrian Association was the only other person not on the 'supply side.' Five more years of 'steady as she goes' would have suited all the professionals from the various disciplines represented down to the ground.


So, I also think, that no matter how expert some people are in their own field, that does not necessarily give them a wider vision than anybody else, even when it affects them personally and as motorists - for that is my stereotype of the typical hospital consultant - the idea of drivers modifying their behaviour to protect vulnerable road users is not an easy one for them to grasp.
* Might have beeen a Sub Six - can't remember.

... and of course health care professionals would be less good than materials scientists at saying whether a helmet would provide protection. Having been told by the materials scientists how great the protection would be, the health care professionals could then credibly estimate the benefit in terms of injury saved.

It's unlikely that a doctor's guess is better than anyone else's, in terms of protection.

As a material scientist, I could be quite happy about what would happen to the helmet during a crash. Havent a clue about what happens inside of it.

Mike Sales wrote:ianr1950 wrote:-
<:?: Do you believe everything the governments tell you then >

I don't think they lie when saying, "Last year we counted x many head injuries to cyclists on the road", and especially when it is in their interest to prove that helmets work I don't think they fiddle the figures to show they don't work.

<What I am saying is that any statistics can very often be interpreted in a variety of ways to prove whatever point you may want to emphasize.>

I ask again, how do you think these figures have been misinterpreted? The counts are done by the governments which introduced the laws, and all show that injuries and deaths reduce less than the number of cyclists. The same results have happened in all countries or states which have introduced a law. The interpretation is minimal. It is done out in the open, the papers doing it are available on the web to criticise. If you can't find them I can help.

Mike Sales

Why do you think that I need your help to find anything.

Have I actually disagreed with anything you have said or am i missing something. Will you actually read what I have said then.

What I said was that statistics can be used in various ways to give different angles on the results, but I do not believe everything governments actually publish no matter what side they are coming from.

aesmith wrote:

ianr1950 wrote:Statistics can prove anything you want them to depending on how they are presented.

Alternatively I could ignore statistics and rely on my direct experience to make a responsible judgement of the risk for myself. I have never hurt my head cycling on the road, and I don't know anyone who has, and I don't know anyone who knows anyone. That tells me the risk is low, maybe not zero, but very very low. I choose to mitigate that very very low risk by trying not to fall off too often, and that has been 100% effective in avoiding head injury.

Thats what I do anyway even though I have had direct experience of a head injury whilst cycling and a helmet did save me from a far more serious injury.
I also had a friend who died as a result of coming of his bike and his head hit the ground and very similar to the late Natasha Richardson he also got up and seemed fine but died a couple of days later. He did not wear a helmet and even now I don't wear one all the time and as I have also said before I don't think they should be compulsery.

ianr1950 wrote:Thats what I do anyway even though I have had direct experience of a head injury whilst cycling and a helmet did save me from a far more serious injury.

I fell off my bike on the ice a few weeks ago, and did not suffer a head injury.
Fortunately, I wasn't wearing a helmet at the time, otherwise I would certainly have caught it on the kerb, and the rotational injury would certainly have killed me.

It is amazing how much more robust conclusions can be drawn from single sample anecdotes, without controls than is the case from large population level studies.

EdinburghFixed wrote:She simply said that the ideal would be for everybody to wear a helmet from dawn to dusk, and that it's easy to guilt cyclists into putting one on, compared with people at more risk (like the elderly, kids, pedestrians in general and drivers).

Presumably, she was wearing a helmet while saying this?