Head injuries up %50 with mandatory helmet laws

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1031

New member
I saw a clip on the local news that said that a recent study was released showing that in the last 10 years, head injuries on bicycles have risen %50 with the introduction of mandatory helmet laws. That is a huge increase! Bicycle injuries already account for many thousands of children deaths each year (not sure of the exact number, but it is high on the list of death causes for children). I thought it was very interesting that in an attempt to make people ("children") safer, some people pushed mandatory helmet laws on the public, and instead of saving lives, it has lead to higher numbers of head injuries.

The advocates of helmet laws say they are baffled by the findings and their only explanation is that people may be taking more risks because they are wearing helmets.


"Do it for the children."


I think it just demonstrates that in some people's quest to make society safer, they often take unproven steps that seem to be obvious to make us safer, but without research we cannot assume that a new law is going to make everyone safer. In fact it may cause MORE harm. We need to really think before enacting laws to make everyone safer, because the outcome is not always predictable.

After all, "the road to Hell is paved with good intentions".
 
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Mike Irwin

Staff
I'm firmly of the opinion that I'm sitting here today typing, instead of drooling all over myself or pushing up daiseys, because of a bicycle helmet.
 
1

1031

New member
No one said that bicycle helmets are useless. The point is that in making a law that everyone has to wear them, these do-gooders actually caused a %50 increase in head injuries. Or to put it more accurately, they made yet another law for us to follow, and it did NOT bring injuries down.
They did it "for the children" or "for our own good" and yet they did not think far enough ahead that just maybe passing a new law really won't make us safer...in fact it might cause injury. Yes, free will is good.
 
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ICBentley

New member
Any idea why they say this? Or are there more details?

For instance, there are more minor injuries in car accidents with people using seat belts but the injuries, though fewer, are worse without a seat belt.

The simple datum that head injuries are up since helmet laws have become prevalent doesn't mean much alone. Anything from more people riding bicycles more, to different criteria for calling something a head injury might account for the report.

However, if folks are less careful because they rely on their helmets, or if the design of the helmet is poor and causes more frequent injuries, it may be meaningful.

On the other hand, I am against helmet laws while being generally in favor of helmets (as long as it is clear they are helpful). After all usually there should NOT be a law.

Bentley
 
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Skibane

New member
Exactly, ICBentley — The popularity of bicycles today (along the recent mountainbiking and "extreme" bike fads) could very easily account for recent higher injury rates. Also, as you alluded, kids tend to think they're invincible anyway, and a helmet only magnifies the illusion.

In short, this sounds like a non-statistic — the kind we're accustomed to hearing from HCI, John Hopkins and their kind.
 
4

45King

New member
Man is a "risk taking" animal. We thrive on risk, despite what the bliss ninnies say. Never mind them, they aren't really human anyway; they're just sheep in human's clothing.

Was watching a program on TLC on this very subject some months ago. The program recounted the following.

Somewhere in one Canadian province was a rural road with a train crossing. Since only 2 trains a week used this stretch of track, there were no warning lights or gates, just the crossed bars to indicate a RR crossing. In spite of the light traffic, there had been several near misses of trains/cars, and at least on collision which, thankfully, resulted in no harm to the auto driver.

A risk management team was called in to study the situation. They videotaped the crossing, 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week. They found that on average, there were about 535 cars which passed the crossing during a week. They also found that 95% of the cars approached the tracks at too high a speed to stop. People would wait until the last second, and then brake only slightly.

There were woods surrounding the whole area, and they grew right up to the sides of the tracks and the road. The RM team suggested that if the trees were cut back at the corners, this would give drivers approaching the intersection a view farther down the tracks, thus giving them more advance warning of an approaching train. The suggestion was followed, and the RM team again set up its video cameras to record the results.

The results were that 95% of the cars still approached too fast. Now that they could see a bit farther, they became even less cautious.

You can't make people "be safer." More often than not, they respond to such alterations by acting in a more unsafe manner; they believe they are protected by the object's built in safety devices, and fail to use ordinary precautions because they feel they're uneccessary. This leads to an even higher injury/death rate. The law of unintended consequences rears its ugly head.

1. Safety is between your ears, and not "built in" to an inanimate object.
2. All human progress has been made at great risk. To eliminate the desire to take risks is to eliminate the desire to succeed, overcome, and survive.
 
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griz

New member
Statistics can be misleading. First you need to know if the 50 percent number is a total of all injuries or 50 percent more per mile ridden or per 100,000 riders. Because the number of people has gone up in 10 years this makes a difference.
Next you need the death rate for riders. If it has gone down, you might conclude the helmets saved riders who would otherwise have died.
Always be careful with condensed news. The "factoids" CNN uses are a great example of near meaningless info.
 
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Borf

New member
Another question is "what are they calling injuries"??

Are *deaths* included under the injury stats?
If *deaths* are down and injuries up, that's a good thing.
 
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Scott Conklin

New member
Helmets? On a bike?!?!?! Go ahead and give me that ticket Mr. Occifer, cause it'll be a cold day before I ever wear a helmet on a bicycle. Or pay the freakin' ticket either! Jeez. :barf:
 
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dischord

New member
Skibane: The popularity of bicycles today (along the recent mountainbiking and "extreme" bike fads) could very easily account for recent higher injury rates.

Yes, extreme sports that's the likely "culprit."

Just like with gun statistics, you need to look at injury rates, not raw numbers. If -- let's speculate -- there has been a 500% increase in youth participating in extreme bike riding, but only an increase of 50% in the raw number of head injuries, the rate of head injury per bicyclist might actually have gone down.

Clayton Cramer, in his book firing back, has an excellent example of a similar scenario about gun death numbers vs. rates following the 1976 D.C. gun ban -- if you look at the raw numbers, gun murders seem to decline, but when you factor in the excessively declining D.C. population of the late 1970s, and look at rates, the number of murders per 100,000 people spikes.
 
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Mike Irwin

Staff
The point is that in making a law that everyone has to wear them, these do-gooders actually caused a %50 increase in head injuries.
Click to expand...

Uhm... NO.

That is a conclusion that cannot be drawn based on the limited information that is given.

Do you have a link to the study?

Any number of factors could account for the 50% increase in head injuries, such as:

Increased reporting of head injuries from bicycle accidents.

The dramatic increase in the popularity of off-road bicycling.

Increased bicycling in urban areas.

One thing that I'm interested in is what exactly constitutes a head injury?

A scraped chin?

A concussion?

A fatality?
 
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jimpeel

New member
From the study at: http://i2i.org/SuptDocs/Personal ...Homeostasis.htm

IV. Risk Homeostasis in Other Contexts

A. Cycling

Bicycling is similar to driving in that if risk homeostasis is a valid theory, cyclists will "consume" their additional safety in faster or more exciting cycling. This turned out to be the case when the University of California at Santa Barbara tried to reduce the bicycle accident rate on its campus. With some 10,500 bicycles entering the campus each day, the campus suffered an average of 249 bicycle accidents per year. Measures to reduce this included the construction of a roundabout or traffic circle for bikes, a wider bike path and the closing of an accident-prone fare to bikes. Researchers found that most of the changes increased the accident rate including the accident rate at the bicycle roundabout. The study’s author wrote: "It is hard to immediately know what to make of this finding. Perhaps the round-about made bike riding more hazardous or, alternately, bike riders took advantage of the improved traffic flow to increase their speed. The latter is the interpretation apparently favored by University engineers."
Click to expand...

There is no reason to believe that the bicyclists would not "..."consume" their additional safety in faster or more exciting cycling." as the result of the addition of helmets just as they did with all of the cited safety measures in the report. This is in keeping with the "seat belt will save me" attitude as those so inclined will simply think "the helmet will save me".
 
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Christopher II

New member
Do bike helmets make you safer? Good question.

I've been riding and racing bicycles, on- and off-road, for the past five years. Sometimes I wear a helmet, sometimes I don't. I've had a number of memorable wrecks, but the only one in which I was badly hurt (dislocated collarbone, Type I seperated shoulder, sprained wrist) was during a race while I was wearing a helmet. Conversley, I've been hit by a car before while not wearing a helmet. I got up, picked up what was left of my bike, and carried it to the bike shop for repairs. Maybe I'm just lucky, or unlucky.

If you turn on the Tour de France, you'll see lots of racers wearing little nylon caps instead of helmets. These guys are pros, who probably ride more in a year than I have in my entire life. Are they being unsafe? Another good question...

I'm not trying to convince people to ride without helmets here. That would be like trying to convince you to go shooting without eye protection. But on the other hand, if you're really concerned about bike safety, the best way to prevent bike-related injuries is to leave the bike chained up in the garage and watch golf on TV. (Apologies to William Nealy.)

- Chris
 
O

OF

New member
This is a facinating topic, and very much in line with firearms rights, I believe. IMHO, even if, supposing, the world were better off without guns from a total number of accidental or malicious deaths POV, gun control would still be wrong. The beauty is that we are far better off with guns than without them. The same is true with the 'for the children' 'safer society' nonsense. Not only is the encroaching legal suffocation we are plagued with a burden and an affront to a free people, it is actually less-than-worthless in achieving it's stated goals.

These facts are extremely important for the average fence-sitter to understand. It answers their concern that we are sacrificing our 'theoretical' ability to oppose a tyrannical gov't for a real-world gain in safety and crime-reduction now. That entire equation is unusable because there has been an increase in safety since the invention of the firearm. Getting the fence-sitting anti- to have an understanding of the relationship between 'feel-good' law and actual on-the-ground consequences (such as child-safety caps on medicines...which have either caused or coincided with an increase in accidental poisionings) is a great angle, and I have used it in more than one argument to prove a 2nd Amendment related point...only to clear the way to be able to move on the next facet, and the next and the next...a war of attrition with some people.

- Gabe
 
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OF

New member
On the bike helmet issue directly, I think Oleg has the point here. Do bike helmets make you safer? I think undoubtably they do, but only if it was your choice to wear it, and you have a modicum of personal responsibility, common sense and understanding as to the true nature and limitations of the safety equipment you are using...the same as is true in anything else.


So, do they make you safer? Yes. Do laws mandating their use make us (as in society) safer? No.
- Gabe
 
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marley

New member
As someone who worked in bike shops I would say they are helmets are great if worn correctly. The fact is they are not. I don't think should be required by law. I think that parents just slap a helmet on a kid and think that are done. They are worn like baseball hats on the back of the head. Most crashes involve the front of the head. I think the kids would be better off with out the helmet if not worn properly. That said I wear mine on every road bike ride ( one to three hours a day ,five days a week)and most of my cruzin trips.:cool: Patrick

Some of those pros die Fabio did in 95
they also practice falling off
Ja ja fall was a work of art just a scrape on the arm.
I can't belive this thing does not have yellow GO lance three in a row!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
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