Re: Helmet efficacy test

On 3/26/2025 4:19 PM, Zen Cycle wrote:

On 3/26/2025 12:51 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:

 Regarding relevance: What are you trying to achieve?

 A factual discussion on helmet efficacy.

OK, I'd say we're doing that.

Do you promote helmets in hopes of lowering society's overall medical expenses?

 nope.

OK, I'm wondering why you promote bike helmets.

Are you saying "Forget the monetary cost. Brain injuries are so terrible we need to prevent them any way possible."?

 nope

Then again, I'm wondering why you promote bike helmets.

Are you focused ONLY on calling attention to bicycling's dangers?

 nope

So I wonder why you advocate helmets only for bike riding, not for other more important causes of TBI injuries and fatalities.

you're dissuading people from riding. That means they miss the health benefits of riding, and society misses the benefits of more people on bikes.

 I promote riding in general. If I didn't I wouldn't have run boy scout cycling merit badge rides, cub scout cycling safety classes, worked a few stints with one of my sponsor shops at the town 'safe bicycling' days.
 I promote helmets because they work.

But your promotion efforts seem to apply only to bicycling. I very much doubt that you really feel foam helmets "work" _only_ in bicyclists.
I think at the root of your helmet enthusiasm is a belief that bicycling really is a very important source of serious and/or fatal TBI. But it is not. And spreading the view that it is extra dangerous in that way must dissuade people from riding bikes.
I don't know of any other normal, everyday activity for which people are advised to strap on protective helmets. The closest I can come is motorcycling, which is over 30 times more deadly per hour than bicycling, and without bicycling's counterbalancing health benefits.

Maybe I should have said "I found no good evidence." National counts show no drop in either fatalities or concussions that are attributable to helmet uptake.

 Not true. Maybe it was in 1989, but not now.

Please show me the national cycling fatality counts with drops corresponding to increased bike helmet use. I've already linked several articles documenting increased concussion rates despite increased use of bike helmets.

 

And again, the trouble with such "case-control" studies is the assumption that those presenting to ER are adequately representative of all people riding bikes. I submit they are not.
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To put it in blunter terms: If you're riding badly enough that you're going to crash hard enough to go to ER, you may be better off wearing a helmet. But most people _never_ crash that hard, in part because they are more sensible about risks. Most people still do not wear helmets even here in the U.S., let alone worldwide; and only a tiny percentage of unlucky or unskilled or gonzo riders ever end up in ER.
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 So lets ignore it...back to Johns assault weapons argument.

Let's not grossly exaggerate it, and cause people to lose the health and societal benefits that cycling provides!

Bicycling is NOT very dangerous. It does us no good to pretend it is.

 I never said it was, I said helmets work. Current science proves they do.

We disagree. Most (not all) "case-control" studies _of cyclists presenting to ER_ indicate some benefit; but again, "cyclists presenting to ER" are almost by definition different from almost all cyclists. Data regarding all cyclists shows no obvious benefit regarding fatalities or concussions.
The entire reason for examining those samples is to make predictions and recommendations regarding the entire population. We certainly have enough long term data to show that the predicted benefits of widespread helmet use have not occurred in the general population.
And the low level of actual risk makes the entire exercise pretty worthless. Researchers should instead be studying the benefits of helmets on much bigger sources of TBI: motoring and pedestrian travel. Oh, and just walking around one's home, which IIRC causes more TBI than all the above.
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- Frank Krygowski