BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

is there any way we can prevent news outlets from mentioning whether a bike accident victim was wearing a helmet?

since it's a very good idea that cyclists wear helmets, I think it's important that we are reminded of the repercussions of not wearing one. Same as seat belts in cars...let me know that some dude got jacked up because he wasn't wearing either, hopefully next time I get in a car or on a bike I'll remember to buckle up or slap a dome on my head.

They have some fancy police cruisers down there in Florida. Guess that laptop also has the Google software that drives the car.

Since, in this case, a helmet or lack thereof is utterly irrelevant to how the guy ended up colliding with the cruiser, can we NOT start a helmet thread? Especially since we don't even know what injuries the cyclist suffered...

/+1

i just hate it because it comes across as blaming the victim. in this case, the victim may be to blame for not properly operating his vehicle (according to the police), but in stories where the driver of the automobile is clearly at fault, people look at the story and say "oh he wasn't wearing a helmet, it's his own fault." and i just wish they wouldn't print that.

@pratt I think it's important that we are reminded of the repercussions of not wearing one.

Could you show me some good science that measures these repercussions? This is the most excellent paper I've seen on bicycle helmet safety (and I have looked). It says helmets don't prevent head injuries.

http://www.mendeley.com/research/changes-head-injury-new-zealand-bicycle-helmet-law/

@reddan can we NOT start a helmet thread?

I respect that, and I'd rather not get into a large debate, but I would not like the thread to propagate the idea that riding bicycle is an unsafe activity of the sort that requires a helmet.

Making mention of whether the accident victim was wearing a helmet in these contexts is like describing the outfit a sexual assault victim was wearing.

The suggestion being that not wearing a helmet, or wearing some sort of alluring outfit somehow made the victim responsible for the event. It's misleading, and distracts from the real issue, which is the act itself (ie: the accident or sexual assault).

(Please forgive me for making the analogy to sexual assault - I don't intend in any way to diminish such things, it just seemed an appropriate analogy.)

yes and when hit by a car a helmet is often not even going to do a whole lot. not saying that helmets are worthless (quite the opposite) but i am saying that whether or not a bike vs car victim is helmeted is somewhat irrelevant

I guarantee my helmet has saved my life, more than once. When you get up from a crash and there is a huge gash or break in your helmet, and not your head...that's a good thing. Dirt and road crashes, I've experienced them all.

In fact, I've smacked my helmet so hard off a rock that I've punctured and crushed a full face downhill helmet...don't tell me they don't save lives, that's bullshit.

I'm glad to see helmets mentioned whenever and wherever for whatever reason.

And it's not irrelevant if your head bounces off the car or the cement after you're hit by a car. Wear a helmet you can fix your hair later.

rant over

ALMKLM - there's a crazy florida politician saying that dress codes for school children are necessary to prevent incidents like one recently in Texas a group of older teenagers (~18) gang raped an 11 year old (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/16/texas-gang-rape-aftermath-florida-law_n_836841.html)

Blame the victim is very, very easy when the victim is minority/voiceless(female/child, elderly/cyclist).

Helmets have nothing to do with it. "But he had no helmet, how could I NOT hit him?" no.

@ejwme -- I think the implication is more along the lines of "He wasn't wearing a helmet, so clearly he's an irresponsible cyclist. He probably was probably riding in the lane and not on the berm like a good person should. (Roads are for cars don'cha know.)"

The writer might as well have said that he was not wearing body armor at the time because nothing will protect an 85 year old man from an incident like this. Funny that they don't mention if the driver was wearing his seat belt, but that's probably because there wasn't a driver involved.

pratt - what i'm getting at is, the bigger negligence is the driver hitting the cyclist, not the cyclist wearing or not wearing a helmet. yes a helmet is crucial but if hit by a car i'd say it offers far less protection than the driver not hitting the cyclist in the first place... in other words... mentioning helmet or no helmet is assigning blame on the cyclist.

@ejwme: what myddrin said.

@ pratt a full face downhill helmet...don't tell me they don't save lives,

Perhaps a full face helmet would. I wouldn't know.

Those aren't used for regular transportation bicycling.

I haven't seen good evidence that regular bike helmets protect adults. If you know of any good evidence? PLEASE point me to it. Or else stop spouting bullshit (your words) about helmets. Put up or shut up.

I used to think the two cracked helmets I had saved me from serious injury. Then I read the science. I re-examined my cracked helmets and my assumptions. At most, one of them saved me from a small amount of road rash.

A helmet is no more "crucial" for a bicyclist than it is for a passenger in a car or a pedestrian. Bike helemts are not even designed to save lives. They are designed to reduce head injuries at near-pedestrian speed - and the evidence for them doing that is poor.

Never mind the helmet. I want to know whether the cyclist really did weave into the path of the cruiser. And where in the lane was the cruiser and headed which way?

Chances are excellent there's a full-motion video of the critical moments immediately prior to the collision.

I hope this info gets made publicly available.

mick there are studies that prove anything and everything. I know from experience that my helmets have saved me from serious damage or death. you keep riding however you feel safest, I'll do the same.

I hate to add to the derailment of the thread, but when I went over my handlebars last month, and I felt my helmet scraping the ground, I remember thinking, "That would be my face if I wasn't wearing my helmet."

Of course if I ever forget my helmet now, I feel fairly certain that I'm going to die, haha. I need to be less paranoid.

Noah I understand the way some may interpret the statement that the biker was or wasn't wearing a helmet as positioning of blame.

I don't see that at all in this report. All it says was the biker cut in front of the car and was hit. That statement assigns the blame, not the mention that the biker wasn't wearing a helmet and went to the hospital.

The suggestion in this article, I think, is that he sustained more injuries because he wasn't wearing a helmet. And I contend that this is a good thing. As I said before, it makes people think about wearing helmets when they bike.

I see lots of car accident reports where we are told that injuries sustained in the crash may have been lessened if the passengers in the car had been buckled up.

@pratt

mick there are studies that prove anything and everything

We have all heard what you are saying before. I'd like to see the evidence.

If you know of a well-designed study that really shows bike helmets to improve safety in adults, please post it. I'd love to see it.

Thanks.

“We found no randomized controlled trials, but five well conducted case-control studies met our inclusion criteria. Helmets provide a 63 to 88% reduction in the risk of head, brain and severe brain injury for all ages of bicyclists. Helmets provide equal levels of protection

for crashes involving motor vehicles (69%) and crashes from all other causes (68%). Injuries to the upper and mid facial areas are reduced 65%.”

Full PDF:

http://www.thecochranelibrary.com/userfiles/ccoch/file/Safety_on_the_road/CD001855.pdf

It’s not a randomized trial, so it’s not a definitive study by any means, but the data is leaning in the "it works" direction. OTOH, I believe the rider should make his or her own choice as to wearing a helmet, using a seatbelt or eating a big mac.

good point, Marko. Personally, I sometimes go sans helmet, rarely sans seatbelt, and never eat the big mac. How you determine your risks is pretty personal.

I didn't read the article, honestly I just don't read those types of reports much anymore. But when I think of an 85 yo driving or riding a bike I wouldn't be surprised if maybe they didn't have the best reflexes and sharp sensory input.

@ marko

Thanks.

This is an excellent format, because it includes criticism, both postive and negative, of the paper at the end of it.

I could read it carefully and check criticism of it. That would take somne time. Please read what I say here and help me decide if it is worth the time.

Thompson, Thompson and Rivera are actually, more than anyone else in the world, responsible for the current high level of helmet advocay in the US. Their "...research on the effectiveness of bicycle helmets led to the creation of community-based bicycle helmet campaigns that have spread throughout the United States and the world."

http://sph.washington.edu/news/article.asp?content_ID=503

So this paper is good to evaluate.

The results they get are very strong claims. If the methodolgy is as strong, one would have to accept that helemts are beneficial.

So they are right at the center of all this. These guys have made extremely successful careers out of their helmet advocacy.

I have to say, one of the authors' other papers have struck me as spotty (understatement) in terms of rigor.

I looked for that paper. The first thing that came up was this (which isn't about the paper I mentioned):

http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/7/4/343.1.full

Excerpt: ...those familiar with our previous writings on the subject were puzzled by the claim of the Thompsons and Rivara, in what appeared to be the conclusion, that we agreed with them that “bicycle helmets are effective in decreasing head injuries to cyclists.”

[snip]

It will then be clear that “We did not accept that bicycle helmets are effective in reducing head injuries” and, of crucial importance to the debate, why.

Vaguely reminiscent of Jim Morrison.

Seems to me to confirm the opinion of T, T, & R that I had when I first read one of their papers a few months ago.

I'm very pleased that Dorothy Robinson is one of the commenters in the Chochran pdf. She wrote what I think is the best paper ever on bike helmet safety - which I cited earlier in the thread.

Here's the first thing she says about this paper (on page 18 or 20 of the Chochran pdf):

"1. This Review cannot be recommended as a valid interpretation of the existing published information on helmets."

@marko (and anyone else who cares to comment): Do you think I should take the time to read the 21 pages of the study and 10 pages of commentary? I know that sounds sarcastic, but this is a serious question. It's a lot of work.

May of you have have tech backgrounds. If you say you think this paper is worth pursuing beyond this, I will.

I can now guess how I might respond to the specifics of this paper, though.

@reddan - nope.

Mick, I don't think you need to analize the whole thing. It's always going to come down to a personal choice no matter what the data tells us. How many studies does it take to prove that smoking is bad for you yet people still smoke. I don't think you or anyone else is saying that wearing a helmet is "Bad for you", just that it might not be as important as everyone seems to be suggesting. As lone as you are not claiming the -not- wearing a helmet is safer than -wearing- one, I'm o.k.

http://www.bhsi.org/stats.htm#ny

Most fatal crashes (89%) occurred at or near intersections.

Nearly all (94%) fatalities involved human error.

I wear a helmet for all urban and mountain rides, and not always on slow trails but I have never hit my head in a crash. I have bashed my face off of rocks, banged my knee into the side of a car but I have yet to actually use my helmet.

So, the key element in the discussion against helmet use would remain, does the excessive publication FOR helmet usage create the perception of cycling as a dangerous activity and cause some number of people to reject cycling as an acceptable activity, which would be so difficult to measure as to be intangible, wherein more cyclists on the road would in measurable actuality make cycling a safer activity across the board.

The intangibility of this factor, to me, means that it should not be figured into anyone's personal decision to use or not use a helmet, but this returns the discussion to the question, do news reports have to incessantly comment on whether or not the cyclist was wearing a helmet, as opposed to whether or not the officer was looking at his laptop, or was speeding, or wearing a blue shirt, or the like.

Interesting reading from the always thoughtful Kent Peterson. Please read the post he links to as well.

(Via Reddan's Reader feed)

The question isn't whether wearing a helmet is safer than not wearing a helmet. It's whether what you're doing is dangerous enough to merit one. Carefully riding at 15 mph isn't significantly more dangerous than walking, and is safer than riding in a car at 60 mph. I've never heard a pedestrian or driver scolded for not wearing a helmet.

My friend Khalil references

an excellent article about the culture of fear as it applies to cycling, including some mention of helmet and safety gear promotion. You can get there through his blog.

^ good post. The Culture of Fear applies to way too many things these days.

@edmonds:

IMHO, No. I feel the issue of publicizing whether the cyclist/victim was wearing a helmet goes more to the supposition by the police/media that, well, they (the cyclist/victim) were obviously careless, otherwise they would have been wearing a helmet, and therefore must in some measure be responsible for the event itself.

And I don't feel general media reporting promoting or commenting upon helmet usage presents a perception of heightened risk or danger of the activity to the extent that it would depress participation.

I think general perception is that there is a risk to cycling, but it is an acceptable risk, and I think most casual media observers would view reporting of accidents involving cyclists through the lens of "that's what can happen if you are not careful" regardless of how much care the cyclist may have been taking at the time of the accident, or who was at fault.

(Thoughtful framing of the issue, by the way.)

A comment on Vic’s article referenced above. Vic suggests that it’s better to take a less traveled street to avoid traffic than it is to wear bright colors and use lights, a helmet etc. Fair enough. He asserts that the culture of fear causes us to unnecessarily go overboard adding safety gear on top of safety gear in an effort to feel “safe” (if two lights are good, then seven must be better). OK, I’m guilty. But then again I don’t always have the luxury of traveling nice leisurely routs. I want motorist to see me -and I want them to see that I am going out of my way to be seen. Vic seems to have a problem with the logic of “the more safety stuffs the better.” Ok, let’s use his logic, “just avoid the safety risk.” I guess I should then just stay in bed. No wait, I can get an embolism...