TJ your previous statements on here have included such gems as “the majority of helmets are so badly fitted as to be useless” and “an ill-fitted helmet will strangle you or snap your neck”.

Those are not rational statements supported by peer-reviewed evidence.

You come across as someone who has been nagged on a few group rides for not wearing a lid and has come home seething with potential ripostes that just HAVE to be vented.

The OP didn’t ask for a debate about helmets, he just asked if anyone could recommend one. His decision was already taken and it’s typical of the sort of unhelpful response some posters on here choose to give* that it was quickly sidetracked into the usual repetitive pro/anti debate.

*Eg poster asks for advice about suspension forks, response is “get some rigids”, poster asks about advice on setting up gears, response is “go singlespeed”. STW Bingo at its finest.

Sheeshhh…

Can anyone lend me a Mint Sauce keyring?

I then am subject to a series of pejorative ad personal attacks based on a lack of understanding of the data and a total misrepresentation of my position.

you say this every time you TJ a thread EVERY SINGLE TIME- what you are saying is people disagree with you because they are thick 🙄 – out of interest how is that not an insult?

Perhaps you should re read the thread, lets call it evidence eh?

anyone actually interested in learning about his rather than relying on their predjudices

So you are saying i am prehjudiced in your very first reply to me basically because I disagree with you- would you be insulted if i called you prejudiced?
http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/bike-helmet-for-kids#post-3864169

your secong reply to me

You claiming this shows you haven’t actually looked at at the papers or understood the issues

So i am liar and still stupid
It later became clear you were not reading the links – not mine nor your own
You told me I was completely wrong both times as well

And your third reply to me

Yes I know you don’t understand the science

So despite my First class honours degree in a science subject and being published apparently TJ can lecture me on science and my comprehension It’s atronising insulting twaddle and yet you accuse others of doing it to you
Yes someone had a go at you because they are thick…again i cant fault your data analysis

You are not great with evidence and even worse with self awareness.

Its not the forum here TJ it is you – why do you think it always happens to you from different people including people you would consider friends?
You insult folk and their intelligence and they think when they eventually get rude back to you that they started it and everyone is picking on you.
It really is pointless trying to do this with you so really I am out

But on this forum no one is allowed to question the efficiency of helmets. Too many folk on here uncritically accept any data that shows reductions in injury and dismiss by reflex any data that shows no reductions in injury. Anyone who questions the efficincy of helmets is dismsissed a s a crank

It is pretty amusing that you still think this is about helmets. 😥

Junkyard -Why do you claim that I say all these things I have not said? Why do you make such a series of rude and unpleasant personal attacks on me?

Why when evidence points both ways do you insist only one side can be right?

have you actually bothered to read any of the various critiques I have posted. You know the peer review journal papers?

How about the debate on the BMJ site?

I just wished they made these:

in bigger sizes. Why is it only kids get to have mad flowery helmets. I want one 🙁

binners, sod the flowery ones, have you seen these?!

[img]http://www.sustransshop.co.uk/assets/0001/2070/RK22C_skull.jpg[/img]

http://www.sustransshop.co.uk/products/6089-crazy-stuff-kids-helmets

Make informed choices – but be informed and above all else if you are going to use a helmet get one that fits properly( not using a “retention system” to take up slack) You should not be able to get a little finger between the shell and the head at any point. a helmet that is too big with a “retention system” to take up slack is virtually useless – TRL who are very pro helmet even say this.

TandemJeremy – Member

But before getting sidetracked please note FIT is all – do not get one big enough to grow into, do not get one with a one size fits all shell. do not rely on a cradle to take up slack a

Someone else makes a series of comments about the efficiency of helmets that I try to add to by making this fairly uncontentious statement

this (helmets preventing injury) is has not been shown at all. Some evidence points that way, some does not.

COOL!!! There’s got to be a market for adult versions of those!

I’m thinking of asking some Yanomami Indians if they can shrink my head.

Good thinking!

😆

Why do you claim that I say all these things I have not said? Why do you make such a series of rude and unpleasant personal attacks on me?

did the quote marks not sort of give it away , I even referenced the first one so you could then read to see what you did. YOU SAID ALL OF THOSE THINGS
What more can I do …why not just reread the thread and get back to me about this.
TJ we cannot even debate this is what you actually said to me on this thread – WHY oh why are you denying this?
Nonetheless I am still the one doing the rude and unpleasant personal attacks, TJ this is absolutely ridiculous.
This really is an all time low for “debating”

have you actually bothered to read any of the various critiques I have posted. You know the peer review journal papers?

Were the bits where i quote them back to you and explain the links dont work not enough for you to work this out?

FFS when I referenced the cochrane review you clearly did not read it[ said it was a review of the review when it was a new review of the latest data as the methodolgy showed ] and then got the date of the actual report wrong [ that is on the first page ] despite me giving it to you twice in my post. You then have the bare faced cheek to ask if i read your links …its clear you dont read my links and tbh there is some evidence you dont/cant read your own

For example you cant read most of your links to the BMJ ones which only include a gives summary and oddly not the abstract. You need to be a member to see the reports, are you a member? so I am uncertain as to whether you can even read your own links – you never did give me your copy of the american report you linked to that cost $41 dollars to purchase..I mean you must have a copy as you have read your own links havent you ?

WOW TJ Just WOW

TJ everything you accuse me of is exactly what you are doing in this thread – I have given you the evidence rather than just make an unsubstantiated claim or just deliver a gentle personal attack…i am not sure why I bothered as I dont understand science but I thought i would take a punt 🙄

That first bit where you deny saying what you say is just not true READ THE THREAD

You should read your own posts junky: so really I am out 😉

Junkyard – I have not said the things you claim I have. Thats why I anm denying it as I have not done what you claim

what you are saying is people disagree with you because they are thick

copy and past please

So you are saying i am prehjudiced in your very first reply

copy and paste please – I said SOME FOLK relying on their predjudies – not the same thing

So i am liar and still stupid

Copy and paste please

i HAVE SAID NON OF THESE THINGS AT ALL

I have sent you one of the main critiques – I have extensively quoted them at you with links, I have furnished you with multiple working links, I have linked to the BMJ site with working links to dicussion

You need to be a member to see the reports, are you a member?

I have an athens passwod. I have sent yo the full text of one of the main critiques.

working links to bmj discussion

http://www.bmj.com/search/compulsory%2520cycle%2520helmets

http://www.bmj.com/search/cycle%2520helmets

http://www.bmj.com/search/bicycle%2520helmets%2520cochrane%2520review%2520

Discussion fro the cernow paper published in 2005 critiquing the cochranre review

I have put in bold a little of the discussion on the point you didn’t understand about why the use of the sample they did introduces possible bias
The review’s conclusion that its case–control studies establish scientific evidence that helmets protect against brain injury and its recommendation that cyclists should be encouraged to wear them are not supported. First, the studies’ primary choice of outcome of interest is inappropriate and disregards the science; second, bias in their control groups is likely; third, their findings are too limited and outdated to be useful now.

Referring to the first point, the review dismisses both randomised controlled trials and cohort studies because head injury is a relatively rare outcome, but this is a reason based on cost advantages of the case–control design when cyclists with head injury are cases, rather than on need for thorough scientific assessment of preventive health care. Indeed, such advantages enter into the choices of head injury (of all kinds) as cases and other injury as controls. This conforms with popular belief that equates head injury and the risk of the even rarer death and chronic disability, but it jumbles together problems for scientific research that involve disparate injuries and risk factors and it distracts attention from the important outcome of interest, intracranial trauma of severity AIS 4–6. Such trauma would be the appropriate choice for cases, but none of the studies collects, treats and interprets data in accordance with scientific knowledge of it and its causes, and findings of empirical association between reduced head and brain injury and the wearing of helmets say nothing about their efficacy against it.

Second, sub-analysis of data of Thompson 1996, like that made by Thompson 1989, suggests that the cases and controls of those studies differ in the prevalence of risk factors for brain injury; unmeasured factors may exist and add significant bias. This implies that the review’s flat conclusion that helmets reduce brain injury by 88% (the estimate of the small 1989 study) may be grossly in error. Further, that conclusion disregards the 75% derived from the larger sampling of 1996 and the possibility that the difference is just due to chance. Yet Cummings says that I do not consider the role of chance in the decline from 1989 to 1996 in the stated protective effect and that I suggest it is evidence. I do not; I acknowledge that the confidence intervals overlap—but the p-value of 0.08 is very suggestive of a real decline.

Use of case–control studies to obtain data derogates from the normal standard for Cochrane systematic reviews, randomised controlled trials—which Cummings suggests would be unethical. I comment on the ethics elsewhere (Curnow, 2006). Here, I point to the contrast with compulsory wearing of helmets, despite experimental evidence that helmets can increase axonal shear injuries (Corner et al., 1987). Further, the review finds only an empirical association between the wearing of helmets and brain injury. To establish scientific evidence, data would need to be obtained, treated and interpreted to test a hypothesis in accord with scientific laws and knowledge of brain injury. Neither the review nor its studies do this. Also, some in the Collaboration seem to have lost sight of this point, on the specious argument that Cochrane reviews need to focus on “real-world effectiveness” without concern about scientific theory. Though no coherent theory may be available for evaluating some kinds of health care, disregard of available scientific knowledge cannot be justified.

Third, the review’s conclusions are too limited and outdated to be useful. They are limited because they are explicitly restricted to cyclists who crash. The conclusions would hold for the whole population of cyclists only if those who crash are representative of it, which would not be so if wearing a helmet affected the risk of having an accident. The risk would be less if the more cautious cyclists chose to wear helmets, or greater if a helmet gave its wearer undue confidence, resulting in a little less care being taken. Such risk compensation has been suggested as an explanation for some safety devices in motor vehicles not performing as expected. It would appear to be likely for cyclists too; a study conducted in Victoria following publicity about helmets found that teenagers believed helmets would save them in a serious accident with a bus or a truck! (Elliott and Shanahan Research, 1986). I therefore suggest that an assumption that wearing a helmet does not affect the risk of having an accident is of dubious validity. Hence, there can be no certainty that the conclusions of the review can usefully be applied to the whole population of cyclists, contrary to its aim of “establishing the real-world effectiveness of helmets … for the promotion of helmet programs”. See also the comments in my Section 2.3.

The review’s estimates that helmets reduce the risk of head and brain injury by 85% and 88% date from the 1989 study, when almost all helmets had hard shells capable of protecting the skull. The indications are that present-day soft helmets cannot do this (Curnow, 2003), but the 1989 estimates continue to influence policy makers. For example, a leaflet issued by the US Department of Transportation in 1998 to promote the wearing of helmets states these estimates as fact and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission cites them in a press release of 29 March 2006. But the reviewers continue to uphold these estimates, despite knowing their influence on policy and that the adequacy of the control groups used to derive them has not been confirmed by sub-analysis like that used in Thompson 1989.
5. Conclusions

In view of the influence of a Cochrane review of bicycle helmets on policies for wearing, it should have the utmost reliability. All evidence should be obtained from experiment or randomised controlled trial based on relevant scientific knowledge. The current review should be removed from the Cochrane library.
Acknowledgements

Finally you claimed this

Instead you should cite an article from a cycling pressure group which only mentions the risks to us as a group, due to numbers, rather than mention what it does for an individual when they crash.

Wheras what I actually did was quote peer reviewed published papers from a multitude of sources that critiqued the cochrane review – and also a discussion piecve for the cycling pressure group that in turn referenced the studies

Don’t let us stop you guys. Its fascinating

really? 🙂 😯

I just hate being told I have said and done things that I have not said and done

whats that quote about arguing on the internet? 🙂

3 pages of helmet suggestions, the knowledge on STW never fails to amaze.

Oooh look, another TJ/Helmet thread….

Copy and paste please

What again 😯
Do I have to Binners?

Junkyard – you have claimed I have said things I have not done

If you could point out where I called you thick, prejudiced a liar and stupid I would be obliged – because I have not said any of those things.

I’ll bang your bloody heads together if this doesn’t stop!!!

*is scared*

*awaits argument to begin over whether to wear helmets while getting heads banged together*

😀

I’ll shortly be publishing my first piece of research.

It’s an investigation into whether opponents of helmet compulsion tend to be borderline autistic middle aged blokes with a higher than average risk of CTC membership, who specialise in doing the internet equivalent of walking into a Babylon 5 fan convention and engaging the nearest stranger in a debate about the merits of the Phantom Menace.

If you could point out where I called you thick, prejudiced a liar and stupid I would be obliged – because I have not said any of those things.

Ok TJ you win I dont understand science, you really do read links and got the dates , the methodologies and what the review was about wrong because of some ill defined reason not to do with you not reading the link. Even though you state i dont understand science,say I have not read links i have both read and quoted back to you and you say I dont understand the issues. Despite all this you hold me and my views in the highest possible regard, think I am as bright as can be and despite making an appeal to those without prejudice when replying to me you in no way shape or form meant that I was prejudiced.
Happy now

Is this the sort of rigorously sound analysis of data that appeals to your great scientific mind 😀

Even though you state i dont understand science

I don’t.

You see I have not said any of those things. I simply have not.