[PLUG-TALK] Bike helmets, science, and anger

[Denis Heidtmann]

I recall that at the beginning of the essay the author quoted many studies
which showed convincingly that riders wearing a helmet involved in
accidents had far fewer head injuries compared to those without a helmet.
But since pedestrians do not wear helmets there is no comparable data.

I have two personal experiences:  I did an endo, cracked my helmet in 7
places, cracked a vertebra, but had no concussion.  Another involved my
5-year old son.  He was out biking with my wife.  They stopped for lunch.
He sat on a heavy park bench which was not anchored down.  It tipped over
on top of him, and wacked him in the head.  A dent on his helmet, but no
head injury.  So wearing a helmet as a pedestrian saves heads.

-Denis

On Wed, Jan 27, 2016 at 5:31 AM, Michael Rasmussen <michael at jamhome.us>
wrote:

> On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 09:50:48PM -0800, Russell Senior wrote:
> > >>>>> "Paul" == Paul Heinlein <heinlein at madboa.com> writes:
> >
> > Paul> Risk of head injury per million hours travelled: Motorcyclist -
> > Paul> 7.66 Pedestrian - 0.80 Motor vehicle occupant - 0.46 Cyclist -
> > Paul> 0.41
> >
> > Paul> The science here says that, on a per-hour-travelled basis, helmets
> > Paul> would actually be more effective at preventing injuries on
> > Paul> pedestrians and motorists than bicyclists.
> >
> > I'm not sure it says that.  Those are the rates of head injuries per
> > unit time, but don't indicate anything about relative risk between
> > wearing and not wearing a helmet.  It might be that riding a motorcycle
> > you'll die anyway just because of the speeds/energies involved.  It
> > might be that head injuries as a pedestrian come from getting creamed by
> > a car, and the outcome doesn't change significantly.
> >
> > It seems there is an opportunity for some better study design in there
> > somewhere.  The metric should really be something more like
> > mortality+morbidity vs treatment (helmet-vs-no-helmet) times exposure.
>
> Both of those objections apply to bicycling injuries also. That is indeed
> a major criticism of helmet reliance - riders, like pedestrians, die from
> the blunt force trauma of being hit by an object with 20x to 30x greater
> mass.
>
>
> --
>       Michael Rasmussen, Portland Oregon
>     Be Appropriate && Follow Your Curiosity
> Actually _everything_ about fixed-gears sounds nuts to those who have
> not been inducted into the cult. ;-)
>     ~ Sheldon Brown
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