Oxford newspaper launches helmet campaign after cyclist's death

drosco wrote:

Rather than trying to convince me of the errors of my ways with evangelical zeal,

Except that he's not ... is he?  It's the inverse.  In the midst of a crusade to Save the Unhatted you've posted about your magical moment in which you walked on water and saw the dead rise from the grave in support of the idea that everyone ought to be like you.  I can see that from your point of view it must be like being a  missionary and upon ringing the doorbell getting a punch in the mouth.  But being fair (maybe you need to wear the magic hat for that to happen)... you are the one testifying to the higher power which defies all the evidence of the unbeliever.

drosco wrote:

why not let me decide the benefits from my own experience?

Ah... I see what happened.. you are not wearing the Thought Control Prevention helmet.  If only you had then you would be able to have your own thoughts pure and unsullied with no nasty counter-evidence to disturb them.    Onward the helmet jihad!  The unbelievers shall die crushed by buses(*) while the pure in head shall float to heaven accompanied by the sound of the heavenly choir of helmet manufacturers and the mighty bleating of ignoramuses.

*  Book of Headwinds 6:27 "And in the darkness they made motorvehicles in mockery of the two-wheeled and set them forth fuming upon the Earth to destroy and befoul. And Headway said `It is good.  Let those that are pure don the raiment of the righteous and Lo! they shall pass under a bus unscathed.'"

Drinfinity wrote:

However, unlike Ben, internet opinion seems to keep cherry picking two studies from 30 years ago, and ignores the much more recent Cochrane review and subsequent work.

Dont wear a helmet if you don't want to, but please don't claim your position is evidence based.

The Cochrane report was Cochrane in name only, and it blatantly ignored the most basic rules for such reviews, that the authors are unbiased and independent, and that a wide range of studies are examined.  The authors of this report were the infamously zealous helmet promoters, Thompson, Rivara and Thompson, and they excluded any study which didn't fit with the predetermined conclusion.  Anyone who uses this report as evidence clearly doesn't understand the situation.

Your following sentence is supposed to be so completely ironic?

Kadenz wrote:

Whether you agree with their advice or not, the Oxford Mail was trying to be helpful. It's a reaction to the death of Claudia, who was a very popular PhD student who also worked in a bike workshop. Her death shocked the local community, cyclists and non-cyclists alike. It's good that the OM is trying to tackle the issue of cycling accidents and while not everyone will agree with their advice, it helps to keep the issue of cycle safety alive.

I'll differ with that in the mildest way I know how:  fuck the Oxford Mail and their ignorant faux helpfulness.

Banning private automobiles is the only reasonable path forward.  

drosco wrote:

Conversely, after a big accident where my head was probably the only bit of me not injured and a shattered helmet the result, I wouldn't ride without one, statistics or no statistics. Arguments about sedentary behaviour, risk taking etc. of the wider population aside, on a personal level it makes sense to me that a properly fitted helmet must offer more protection in a head impact than none.

Christ, where to start.

1. if you've injured every other part of your body as you're claiming I would think that a smashed helmet is the least of your problems.

2.  a smashed helmet is a great indicator that the forces involved were massively past the test peramters of the helmet, that is that it failed by 'smashing'. Even IF it did compress a small amount before it failed the forces it can withstand (remember the maximum amount is right on the top part only) you're looking at 70joules in terms of what it theoretically could absorb. this is about the same forces involved when an adult trips whilst walking an bangs their head.

However that it smashed means that those forces will be multiple times more than that, from that if your skull is intact then it is your skull that took the brunt of the forces in your all body injured crash/altercation with something solid.

3. Then we turn to the brain injury, because the helmet failed in so far as it's smashed and cannot physically absorb any more than it is designed to do this still means your brain is sloshing around inside your skull having a hard time overcoming the g forces involved. We know helmets don't prevent brain injury, just ask the armed forces, just ask the ABA (Boxing, the did an aboutface on headgear), just ask the NFL (maybe you haven't heard of the TBI thing over in 'murica?) You can also discount the slanted and cherry picked nonsense 'studies' (AKA government sponsored metaanalysis) that make ridiculous claims for TBI/brain injury prevention.

Additionally evidence suggests some instances of helmet contacting the ground can induce brain rotation injuries due to the design nature of the helmet itself as it can induce a twisting motion.

4. You totally overlook the fact that you are statistically more likely to hit your head/have a crash/get a TBI whilst wearing a helmet in any case (prevention better than cure right?), the risk compensation is a huge factor as well as the simple fact that increasing the circumference of your head significantly means you're more likely to come into contact with something (& it 'save your life') as opposed to not hitting your head at all because you weren't.

Those headache/lower level head strikes are massively less likely to occur for non helmet wearers, they are also unlikely to lead to TBI/serious injury, otherwise the Dutch/Danes and indeed us in the UK pre helmet craze would have being dying in our tens of thousands long before helmets became a thing. that all the evidence shows this didn't happen again disproves the 'helmet saved my life' bollocks.

6. Those going faster that take more risk should be the ones to have helmets banned from use, it's no wonder the pro ranks crash so often since the introduction of helmets and indeed more deaths in the pro ranks too comparatively to before helmets were made mandatory, can't possibly be true right? again the forces involved in higher speed cycling mean the helmets are just for show, they won't do shit aside from prevent a few grazes/minor bruising if you're really unlucky.

7. Pushing a belief system that is cycle helmets, because there is no evidence to support the 'facts', so it's like an extreme religion, helps no-one at all on bicycles, it only helps to push the responsibility away from those doing the most harm. It creates a scenario where governments have avoided taking responsibility (Read Australia/NZ as prime candidates) for the safety of their citizens by forcing those that do no harm to don ineffective 'safety' equipment as a preventitive measure which we have seen has failed massively and motorists are worse than ever because those governements were just of the thinking well they're wearing helmets, that's us covered.

7. Injustice in court, because of the propagation of cycle helmets and the lies and misleading regarding their efficacy victims of crimes who have sustained head injuries are being basically told, tough shit, it's partly your own fault. not only is this bias, discriminatory but is unlawful as the same application/test of responsibility is not applied in the same way to other modes of transport. It's akin to blaming a woman for being raped on the streets because she failed to wear an anti rape device that could be pulled off in seconds and because she was in the wrong place wearing the wrong clothes.

8. Your evaluation of risk seems to be massively skewed, if you wear a helmet for cycling, please ensure you wear one for walking and getting into a motorvehicle, the risk of a head injury is higher as a pedestrian and not too far short in a motor, that's despite the steel shell, airbags etc.

More children die of head injuries in England and Wales in car crashes than do total number of children killed on a bicycle, none of which could be demonstrably proven to be prevented by a cycle helmet even if they were all head only injury deaths. S if you have kids make sure they wear a helmet whilst you drive them about, I would also pass this onto friends and family just in case they have an all body injury because their helmet could save their life right??

burtthebike wrote:

I can only assume that the editor of the Oxford Mail has shares in a helmet company.

All the long term, large scale, reliable scientific evidence shows clearly that helmets do not improve the safety of cyclists.  The problem being that to so many people it's common sense, but it's also common sense that the earth is flat and that the sun goes around it.

Please post links to all that reliable evidence to which you refer, so we can all read it.

Kadenz wrote:

burtthebike wrote:

I can only assume that the editor of the Oxford Mail has shares in a helmet company.

All the long term, large scale, reliable scientific evidence shows clearly that helmets do not improve the safety of cyclists.  The problem being that to so many people it's common sense, but it's also common sense that the earth is flat and that the sun goes around it.

 

Please post links to all that reliable evidence to which you refer, so we can all read it.

T.B.H. the analysis is probably a bit beyond your capabilities as you have apparently not yet mastered the arcane arts of the search engine, but this is a good overview http://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.f3817.full?ijkey=I5vHBog6FhaaLzX&keyt...

Kadenz wrote:

burtthebike wrote:

I can only assume that the editor of the Oxford Mail has shares in a helmet company.

All the long term, large scale, reliable scientific evidence shows clearly that helmets do not improve the safety of cyclists.  The problem being that to so many people it's common sense, but it's also common sense that the earth is flat and that the sun goes around it.

Please post links to all that reliable evidence to which you refer, so we can all read it.

You're new to this helmet debate aren't you?  cyclehelmets.org

The whole myth of helmet effectiveness is based on the most biased, unscientific, unsound piece of research ever, the Thompson, Rivara and Thompson report of 1989 "A case control study of the effectiveness of bicycle safety helmets."  This compared two groups of children, with one group of middle class white kids riding around parks with their parents and wearing helmets.  The other group were lower class kids riding around on the road on their own and not wearing helmets.  The three researchers attributed the difference in the death and serious injuries entirely to the helmets, and claimed that they prevented 85% of them.  This was clearly nonsense, has been disproved on peer review, has never been reproduced by any other research or demonstrated in real life, but the 85% figure is the most quoted statistic about cycle helmets, being repeated ad nauseum as if it was proven fact.  This single, invalid, dishonest report, done by blatantly biased researchers, is the whole basis of the cycle helmet industry.

The previous year, a much more reliable scientific study (Rodgers, 1988) found that cycle helmets increased risk.  Guess how much publicity that report got?

http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1012.html

WillRod wrote:

Helmets aren't tested at higher speeds and testing of impact resistance is limited.

I would argue that a helmet is likely to be safer than none, but serious trauma to your chest or stomach can kill you just as easily as head trauma. And as pointed out above, a bus is still going to crush a bike helmet.

 

The Dutch and Danish seem to avoid helmets, but do they have the same rates of cyclist deaths? I very much doubt it, as they have more segregation from cars and lorries.

total number of cycling deaths is always misrepresented, this is done by the Eu and WHO who have both attacked the Danes and the Dutch for not wearing cycle helmets yet have the lowest death rates per journey/billion miles travelled.

netherlands model share is 27:1 compared to the UK, 98-99% of dutch cyclists don't wear helmets.

They had 189 bicycle related deaths as of 2016 (208 in 2007), 47 of those are over 70, 61 of those are over 80s, an issue that is also seen is that 45% of all cycle miles in the over 75s are done on an e-bike (34% 65-75) which is classified in the fiets section, this I am told has had an impact on number of deaths in that age group as they can go considerably faster than if they were on a non e-bike.

In 2007 the death rate in the over 70 group was 45 and over 80s 43.

when you consider the benfits of huge numbers over 70s continuing to cycle (compared to UK even bigger than the 27:1 overall modal share) and the 60:1 benefit ratio of health benefits with cycling infra investment imposing helmet use which we know puts people off from cycling and diverts responsibility away from the motorist not to mention victim blaming by all and sundry helmets are a massively bad idea.

Grahamd wrote:

Whilst it may be well intentioned, no helmet will save you if you are run over by a bus! 

Clearly you're wearing the wrong brand of helmet; as I understand it, a properly fitted cycle helmet will protect you from all injuries including but not limited to scrapes, bruises, broken ribs, broken limbs, being struck by motor cars, tipper trucks, and buses, solar flares, falling meteors, and dinosaur attacks.