Missing the point
Repo Man said:
Nowhere does any helmet claim to protect your head if you are catapulted off your bike at 35mph. These helmets are designed for low-impact crashes. If you go flying off your bike at 35 mph and hit the pavement headfirst the jolt is going to cause your brain to rattle around and probably result in some type of head trauma. Also it will probably have some impact on your spine too. However if you were riding slowly and simply hit a deep pothole and flew over your handlebars and hit headfirst, the helmet would definitly help. You cite ONE study, but I could find a whole bunch of other studies that would say that they do reduce the risk of head injuries in certain cases. The study you cite even outlines the obvious flaws in the data gathering such as bikers feeling more invincible becuase they have the helmet and thus riding more carelessly.
Why don't you check out some of these links and the refrences cited in them:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00036941.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/PDF/rr/rr4401.pdf
Repo Man:
I guarantee you I've read more studies than everybody else in this thread put together.
In science, if you have a bunch of hypotheses based on statistical analyses (such as hospital admissions with and without helmets), and you make some preliminary conclusions, such as "helmets reduce head injuries by 85%", but then the actual populational data does not support your preliminary conclusion, you withdraw that conclusion
completely .
It appears to only be in the case of safety devices that the normal rules don't apply.
The fact is that nearly every helmet study (other than the populational results) have roots in Thompson and Rivera, which could be used in an elementary statistics class as an example of how you can really mess up with the self-selected sample bias. Others have used the same study to 'prove' that wearing a helmet cuts your rate of a major leg injury by 90%, by the way.
There is no reliable evidence that helmets work. The fact that the large-scale population result showed no detectible benefit suggests that the initial studies were invalid. And, in fact, a cursory analysis of those studies based on hospital admissions shows problem after problem - no peer-reviewed journal other than in the safety field would
ever let such shoddy work in the door.
Repo Man said:
Nowhere does any helmet claim to protect your head if you are catapulted off your bike at 35mph.
Oh, and, it wasn't my claim. It was made by Annie, but it is quite common in the field for people to claim that their helmet is going to save them from a major injury in a collision with an automobile at high speed.
boiker said:
please re-read your last statement. Helmets may offer as much protection as a banana peel on serious head injuries, but what about the rates of minor head injuries?
Have the amount of minor head injuries also risen? Is it possible that helemt use has caused the rates of minor head injuries to dramaticaly increase, while serious injury showed no change? I'd be interested on that information.
If no helmets were in use, could it be even more possible that serious head injury rates could be even higher?
Even seat belts don't prevent death in SERIOUS motor vehicle accidents, but in other moderate and minor accidents, you can sure as hell bet that seatbelts have prevented major injury by making them minor injury.
The introduction of seat belts, and gradual increase in their usage, did in fact correlate with a detectible reduction in major automobile crash injuries.
UNLIKE WITH BICYCLE HELMETS.