Jeeze, I’ll try again:

So are you volunteering then TJ?

🙄

risk and cycling – a load of data here which shows how safe it is.

http://cyclehelmets.org/1026.html
http://cyclehelmets.org/1011.html

Look I don’t care whether helmet usage makes some fatties decide not to use a bicycle and then die due to a myocaridal infarction as a result.

The point that heavy helmet usage increases disease is besides the point.

What needs to be asked is whether helmet usage reduces the rate of TBI’s suffered by keen cyclists in population groups that cycle with a helmet compared to a control population that cycle without helmets.

Problem **** solved. Why? Because if it can be proven that helmets do in fact reduce the amount of TBI’s, you can then wage a campaign to try to make helmets cool. Perhaps manufacturers could… say…… push the BMX pisspot lid design for urban commuter use etc.

TandemJeremy, references please? Got journal articles to back up our claims? Having difficulty finding them on NCBI.

EDIT: Found them. It appears the types of journal articles supporting your arguments are epidemiological and not case-controlled. So perhaps helmets are not a benefit for overall public health but may be of benefit for certain types of cyclists.

TJ – I thought you would have posted a vid by now of my road headbutting challenge. Hurry up, I could do with a laugh.

bwaarp

Waht in particular Bwaarp – I will dig stuff out if you are interested

Much can be found thru the CTC pages

Skywalker – read the stuff on relative risk in cycling yet?

Edited my post TJ.

I found them. It appears the types of journal articles supporting your arguments are public health type epidemiological surveys and not case-controlled. So perhaps helmets are not a benefit for overall public health but may be of benefit for certain types of cyclists.”

Mmmm maybe I could do this for my Medical Statistics Msc

No helmet= blood

390164_10150438237909566_690169565_8342952_958657515_n por kala y simon, en Flickr

Bwaarp – pisspots aren’t cool! they’re hotter, sweatier and almost always less comfortable/secure than an mtb lid.. plus TJ has one! 😆

I pretty much agree with all this… (the cyclists in the city stance, not the WI)
http://cyclelondoncity.blogspot.com/2011/12/please-sign-our-letter-to-womens.html

EDIT: Found them. It appears the types of journal articles supporting your arguments are epidemiological and not case-controlled. So perhaps helmets are not a benefit for overall public health but may be of benefit for certain types of cyclists.

Indeed. I would be very interested in explanation for the discrepancy because its huge.

Case controlled studies show massive protective effects, epidemiological show none or a negative effect.

IMO the case control studies vastly over estimate as they have a self selecting sample and only use a part of the data set and risk compensation, injuries cased by helmets and difference between helmet wearers and non helmet wearer may have some effect

certainly if the 60% plus protective effect from helmets espoused by some was a real effect we would expect to see it in the epidemiological studies of which there are a few but there is no seen effect of any reduction in head injuries

EDIT -Do it Bwaaarp – there is a real need to understand this difference

I think may be a problem related to the type of user. In populations that are keen experienced cyclists that are road aware then I bet there would be an increase in safety as these types of cyclists may know that helmets have their limitations, when compared to similar cyclists who do not use them.

But these types of cyclists are not not your average user and so other factors may decrease their efficacy in other cyclists. Perhaps that could be addressed.

As to the problem of putting off people from riding. Could we not develop some sort of lid with ballistic gel in it, that hardens up when impacted. You could put it in a beanie and it could also be sold to other users such as epileptics/syncope/avnrt patients who have to hear bulky headgear that never quite resemble proper beanies.

Mummy I want to go home now.

Elf, we all do.
Yawn, this is moronic.
They are not compulsory so who actually gives a damn?
I’ve fallen off my dh bike umpteen times and cracked my head into rock gardens, trees, hard packed trail and once a discarded steel wheel rim off a car. If it wasn’t for my lid I’d be very unwell or dead. It’s obvious. Get a grip. If you do not want to wear one, then just don’t, the rest of us don’t give a shit.

bwaarp
You are certainly looking for small changes that could get lost in large amounts of data. However a halving of head injury as is commonly claimed and a doubleing of helemt usage as has been seen you sholuld get a 25% reduction in head injuries that one would think could be seen and not lost in noise.

Of course you are also comparing different time periods as what they measure is head injury rates per mile cycled before and after helmet compulsion.

Lots of links on here to conflicting research although the whole site requires a healthy scepticism

http://www.cyclehelmets.org/

I’ve got some friends who are epidemiologists at the John Radcliffe hospital. I’ll track them down and get some advice. Time to nerd out and read my epidemiology textbook. I like a challenge. I’ll have a think about this subject over the next few days and post my thoughts.

I’ve come across similar public health topics before, where case control studies show a benefit but public health studies do not. It’s a distant memory but I seem to remember that health benefits can be lost in a large population because of the increased amount of variables inherent a large population. (However if there have been randomized case controlled trials done on helmet usage then there is something seriously odd going on)

Basically some people are doing something that may negate the protective affects of the helmets and are messing up the data. If you could find the cause of that you could potentially address it and lower the amount of injuries.

I don’t know much about this topic though at the moment.

bwaarp

Do it. I have loads of bits of research saved if you want more. there are at least half a dozen of these surveys – the Robinson one being the most often cited but others exist in the US and other countries and all show no effect

One thing that is really clear is the research is of ruddy awful quality mainly.

The cochrane rewiew is often taken as a defining piece of work – but here is a damning critique of it

http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1069.html

Okay will have a look TJ. It’s rather interesting actually especially if randomized case controlled studies have shown a benefit but public health studies have not. Finding the reason for that might get one a publication and a bit of attention in the academic world! 😀

I have loads of bits of research saved

Why?

Because he’s a medic. I’m not a medic but a biomedical scientist. We are an odd bunch that find this sort of thing interesting.

It’s why you don’t die at the age of 40.

And would do us all a service.

Have a look at the critique of the cochrane review some of what is said is consistent with all case controlled studies.

This is interesting and has a load of references

http://www.cycle-helmets.com/robinson-bmj.pdf

Thanks for the link TJ….interesting.

Just looking at the rest of that paper at the bottom entitled “
Arguments against helmet legislation are flawed”. Have you read it? What are your thoughts?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1410864/ Here we go.

Fairly unconvincing I thought. Its all data and argument to consider however. The thing is the Original Robinson paper showed conclusions that were unexpected and there has been a search for “why” since with a lot of folk desperate to find the major flaw but I have not seen any analysis that shows any major flaws in the work. Others have seen the same effect in other countries.

I cannnot get the full refernces to check but I bet she is using the cochrane review and case controlled studies to back up the claim that helmets do reduce injuries.

Its between these two positions that there is a lack of reasons whey this difference occurs.

Edit – I wrote that before you posted that link. Intersting and yes she does refer tot eh cochrane review

Jesus Christ TJ; why? WHY?

Why do you go on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on about this quite frankly boring bloody subject what you’ve done to death and beyond, for years and years and years (you get the picture by now…) on this forum?

Why? Seriously?

Don’t you ever get bored of it? Does there not come a point where you think ‘bored now said me piece I’ll leave them to it’?

FFS give it a rest mate. Chill out. So, you’ve got some valid points. So have others.

Why can’t you just be more like me, and be nice and friendly and non-argumentative? 🙂

I struggle with long sentences, can I get a summary please?? Extra points for delivering it in the style of a limerick. Ta

I wear a lid because I reckon it tips the odds slightly more in my favour of not getting a brain injury that might either kill or incapacitate me. Same reason I wear a hard hat on a building site. I don’t give a **** what a bunch of statisticians say, in the couple of serious crashes I’ve had that involved my bonce, the hat DEFINITELY mitigated the injury. That’s good enough for me, and good enough for my kids.

Elf -I was actually having an interesting conversation with bwaarp. I gave up arguing with others ages ago if you care to look after giving them links to the data

Oh ok then fair enough.

FWIW my helmet’s not at all uncomfortable, and the only time it’s ever been all that sweaty was august in the south of france (coincidentally, I wrote off a helmet in that same week, so, glad I was wearing it.)

OTOH, I like this guy.

As for Cracknell? Doesn’t practice what he preaches

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1379107/No-helmet-James-Cracknell-minus-head-protection-saved-life-cycle-smash.html

As for whether a helmet saved his life. Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Avoiding the crash in the first place is better though. Like using a mirror and swerving to avoid the truck hitting him in the first place. Riding east towards a rising sun at dawn is best avoided as well.

“The accident happened just after sunrise at 5.30am “

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/7904182/James-Cracknell-fractures-skull-in-Arizona-truck-crash.html

TJ, go and have a cold beer or something instead. Please.

irc, what an incredible discovery, do you think thats perhaps why he preaches duh..

jesus, this old chestnut…

just decide for yourself if you should wear a helmet or not, and dont force your opinion on anyone else. can we please stop having these threads now please…?

I could not give a sh*t about “data” I can only relay my own real world experiences

from both 30+ of racing and recreational cycling including BMX, Mountain Bike (XC, DH, FR) and commuting

and from running the Esher Shore mountain bike park for 5+ years and dealing with too many accidents including head injuries, broken bones and more serious..all of the riders at Esher wore helmets as a condition of entry to the bike park

the most serious head injuries were severe concussions, and each of the 12 riders who smashed /split their helmets, I have NO DOUBT (and neither did the paramedics) that their head injuries would have been substantially more damaging without a helmet?

if you are going to get thrown over the bars into a tree, why not wear a helmet?

in my own experiences, I have had many big slams over the years, especially during BMX and commuting :

-having my BMX land chainring first on my head from 6 feet up and split my BMX piss-pot helmet down the middle and give me a sore head for several days

-having a pedestrian in Surbiton, Surrey step off the pavement without warning whilst I was doing 20+ mph, causing me to go head first into the road, split my helmet open, cut my eye brow and need medication for several days

-having a speeding driver in Akeley, Buckinghamshire run into the back of my bike (squashing the stays and back wheel flat against the seat tube) and catapult me head first into the kerb edge, splitting my helmet and knocking me unconsciousness until a Police car found me lying on the road

-taking a detour to avoid some ramblers and suddenly putting my front wheel into a 2 foot deep hole, getting thrown over the bars and smacking my head on the ground, cracking a Giro Xen helmet in 1/2 and having a nasty head ache for days

no doubt, without a helmet in each of these situations, I would not be here typing these messages on a computer:- would either be dead or dribbling into my soup 🙁

CFH – I gave up arguing with folk on this thread ages ago – But I was having an interesting discussion about the discrepancies in the data with bwaap, Is that allowed?

You gave up arguing “but….”. You see, it’s that “but” which ruined it. 🙂

Yeah but Flashy; it were you what summoned him in’t first place, so it’s all your fault I’m afraid. 😐

(Gives Flashy a virtual Chinese Burn and a Wedgie)

Aye but it wasn’t the usual daft argument with people who think anecdote is evidence or who prefer their commonsense to real data 🙂

But which is the real data…the research you promote or the research you dismiss out of hand TJ?

Plus there is some very misleading arguments eg, confusing the issue of fatal injuries versus other injuries and inflammatory (unsupported) comments such as:

So the FACT that across the whole population promoting helmets cost lives does not move you?

So working out the daft arguments becomes a challenge!!