Has a test been done to assertain the effectiveness of helmets?

[Cyclopathic]

I would think the answer to whether or not helmets provide any protection would be if there had been a study which recorded accidents and the damage done to the rider. With a big enough survey it would be possible to see exactly what benefits or protection a helmet really offered. I would have thought this sort of test would have been carried out by the same sort of organisation who collected data an seat belts and the protection offered.

Wouldn't hospitals be able to provide information to an organisation or individual who wanted to asses the protectiveness of helmets? Excuse my niavety or ignorance but it seems to me that these figures should be available somewhere and if not it would be easy enough for an intersted body to find out (with enough resources) If that is the case then I can't see why the debate over helmet use is as subjective as it appears to be. Either they prevent and lessen injury or they do not. This will be shown in the data.

There may be reasons why people don't wear helmets but I just feel that the reason that they provide no protection is one that could be settled in a trice if there was a will. Can someone please tell me what I'm missing here.

 

[Little yellow Brompton]

I would think the answer to whether or not helmets provide any protection would be if there had been a study which recorded accidents and the damage done to the rider. With a big enough survey it would be possible to see exactly what benefits or protection a helmet really offered.

It has, it was called "Australia" Results where head injuries fell by a % smaller than cycling fell. The only real problem with this is that those who know "it's common sense innit?" won't believe the figures because " Statistics don't show anything/ will show whatever you want" *



* The flat helmeters aren't quite sure how the figures are to be disbelieved, but they do know that they can't be right , because they know someone who wou;dn't be here now if it wasn't for their helmet cracking into pieces!

 

[Red Light]

Its all been done - Rodgers study of 8 million cyclist accidents in the US done for the Consumer Product Safety Commission, found no evidence that helmets reduced head injuries and that helmet wearing was associated with a small but significant increased risk of fatal head injury. In the UK, Hewson's study of police and accident data sets showed no benefit from helmet wearing for road cyclists.

What you are missing though is that for a large number of people its not a matter of fact but of faith and whatever the evidence is, they will still not believe it if it conflicts with their faith. You see it on here all the time.

 

[sunnyjim]

A proper engineering-cum-medical analysis & test programme would be worthwhile, using rather more accurate models of real life than the metal head profile & anvils proscribed by EN whatsit.

Detailed structural simulation model of helmet + skull + contents & relevant body bits analysed in a selection of test case collision examples, backed up with experimental data under controlled conditions crash dummy style with instrumented physical model of head, brain, neck etc if possible. (better not suggest monkey heads..)
Medical analysis of effect of resultant injuries skull cracks, brain slopping about, neck compression etc.

Relate theoretical studies and models to thousands of post-crash helmets and info on crashes/actual effect on wearer. Needs to be collected worldwide to get enough examples, but probably no shortage of potential data. Unfortunately many helmet manufacturers offer to swap broken helmets for new replacements, so they aren't generally available for independent failure analysis.

Any university / collaborating group of universities with relevant medical & engineering departments could probably do this sort of thing.

It wouldn't be cheap. Who would pay for it? Helmet manufacturers? Goverment? a cycling organisation? Even then, who would be willing to accept the results?

No one (except the consumer cyclist, who isn't important) has anything to gain from the truth being known, whatever it is, so an internet flame war is as likely to provide as good an answer as anything else.

 

[Cyclopathic]

It has, it was called "Australia" Results where head injuries fell by a % smaller than cycling fell. The only real problem with this is that those who know "it's common sense innit?" won't believe the figures because " Statistics don't show anything/ will show whatever you want" *



* The flat helmeters aren't quite sure how the figures are to be disbelieved, but they do know that they can't be right , because they know someone who wou;dn't be here now if it wasn't for their helmet cracking into pieces!

Please beawith me here but I can't make out from that whether you are saying that the results showed helmets did reduce death and injury or that they did not. Please can you put it into these very simple terms so that I can keep up with the rest of the class. Thanks.
P.S.
What are "flat helmeters"?

 

[ufkacbln]

Please beawith me here but I can't make out from that whether you are saying that the results showed helmets did reduce death and injury or that they did not. Please can you put it into these very simple terms so that I can keep up with the rest of the class. Thanks.
P.S.
What are "flat helmeters"?

Not quite that simple, but...

In Australia they introduced a whole raft of road safety measures including clampdowns on speeding, dangerous driving and other standards

Included in this was the compulsory wearing of cycle helmets

When the figures were looked at there was a reduction in the number of head injuries, attributable to either the increased road safety or use of helmets

Unfortunately a number of people decided not to ride bicycles rather than wear a helmet


The maths then showed (figures for illustration only )


If there was a ten per cent decrease in cyclists then there should be a ten per cent decrease in head injuries

Unfortunately the decrease in head injuries was only seven percent

this meant that the number of head injuries per cyclist had in fact been increased by compulsion

 

[Little yellow Brompton]

Please beawith me here but I can't make out from that whether you are saying that the results showed helmets did reduce death and injury or that they did not. Please can you put it into these very simple terms so that I can keep up with the rest of the class. Thanks.
P.S.
What are "flat helmeters"?

Number of killed and serrioursly injured ( KSI) fell!

YAyyyyyyy! Went those who pushed for it, " See we were right !" They said.

The problem was yes, KSI fell by X% ( I haven't the figures to hand) but that simple answer was caused by forcing cyclists off the roads, the number of cyclists fell by a larger percentage than the KSI figures.

As an example ( and these figures are NOT real)

If there are 100 cyclists in the country and 10 of them KSI you have a KSI rate of 10%

If you force them to wear helmets and the No of KSI is now 8 but out of 50 cyclists you have a KSI rate of 16%

 

[Little yellow Brompton]

Please beawith me here but I can't make out from that whether you are saying that the results showed helmets did reduce death and injury or that they did not. Please can you put it into these very simple terms so that I can keep up with the rest of the class. Thanks.
P.S.
What are "flat helmeters"?

OOps sorry missed the PS

Flat helmeters are the helmet advocate equivilant of flatearthers. They will refuse to look at the science , relying instead on their " experience " or "common sense".

 

[Red Light]

In Australia they introduced a whole raft of road safety measures including clampdowns on speeding, dangerous driving and other standards

Included in this was the compulsory wearing of cycle helmets

That's not correct. It is claimed by the helmet lobby to discredit the Australian results but the only change at the time that helmet laws were introduced was a reduction by a year in the age at which you could get a provisional driving license in one state, Victoria.

 

[Red Light]

Please beawith me here but I can't make out from that whether you are saying that the results showed helmets did reduce death and injury or that they did not.

They reduced the head injuries in the same way a ban on cycling would reduce injuries i.e. the only reason they reduced was because fewer people cycled. If you look at the numbers the reduction in head injuries was less than the reduction in the number of people cycling meaning if you were one of the ones that kept cycling, your risk of head injury went up. Reductions in cycling were particularly strong in children with figures of up to 90% for teenage females. Overall about third of cyclists gave up when the helmet law came in.

Perhaps more interesting though is the Canadian experience in Ontario. There a helmet law was introduced but the head injury rate did not go down despite an almost doubling in helmet wearing. But the helmet law was not enforced so within a couple of years helmet wearing halved but despite that head injuries rates did not go up either. In fact you can see no effect at all of helmet wearing on head injuries there.

 

[StuartG]

NO.

There have been many tests on the protection in the event of a crash. Rather fewer on whether helmets effect the chance of a crash. All that I have seen are statistically flawed (including all the above) and are only given as proof by those using it to support an agenda (for or against).

Not only my opinion. The excellent 'More or Less' statistics OU programme on Radio 4 did a great review of the stuff and came to the same conclusion. There was no way studies could even balance the benefits of helmets against disbenefits. And also that if you could the results may be very different for individuals (children, urban/rural riders, commuters/tourers/racers etc).

Hence the choice should rightly be yours and yours alone. The choice may be different if you pootle down to the supermarket on a Dutch bike to race down Reigate Hill after a frost ...

 

[Nantmor]

NO.

There have been many tests on the protection in the event of a crash. Rather fewer on whether helmets effect the chance of a crash. All that I have seen are statistically flawed (including all the above) and are only given as proof by those using it to support an agenda (for or against).

Not only my opinion. The excellent 'More or Less' statistics OU programme on Radio 4 did a great review of the stuff and came to the same conclusion. There was no way studies could even balance the benefits of helmets against disbenefits. And also that if you could the results may be very different for individuals (children, urban/rural riders, commuters/tourers/racers etc).

Hence the choice should rightly be yours and yours alone. The choice may be different if you pootle down to the supermarket on a Dutch bike to race down Reigate Hill after a frost ...

If the risk homeostasis hypothesis is correct then the reasons for your choice are inextricably linked with the effects of risk homeostasis.
E.g. A racing cyclist may absorb any protective benefit by feeling safe to go faster with a helmet. A utility cyclist may put on a helmet in order to feel safe enough to ride to the shops on an icy day.
The choice is yours of course, but that does not mean that risk homeostasis does not operate. On the contrary, it may be HOW it operates. The effects of a change in diet or of smoking may be difficult to unravel in an individual case, but scientists use large number studies, epidemiology, to assess the effect.
Some studies of case by case effects have claimed an 85% efficacy for helmets. If this was anywhere near true the large scale studies mentioned above should give unequivocal results.

 

[StuartG]

Yes Nantor - the advantage/disadvantage overall doesn't show a clear statistical trend that, for example, Doll found in smoking which, at the time, was counter intuitive (smoking relieved stress). So strong statistical evidence it fuelled the research to find the causal link and justify restrictions on tobacco marketing. Or to get to road safety the justification for seat belts or lower speed limits. There may be something there but like the perenial Daily Mail exposes of whether Red Wine is good/bad for you - we just don't know. The helmet safety issue is just a confused mess.

There are both good and bad reasons why it is probably going to stay a mess which i won't go into here. Suffice to say it is unsafe to have an overall belief that helmets are good or bad. People, and there are plenty here, (and even more out there), who won't recognise both the benefits and disbenefits let alone can make a sensible judgement on how to balance them on such scant evidence.

 

[Nantmor]

Yes Nantor - the advantage/disadvantage overall doesn't show a clear statistical trend that, for example, Doll found in smoking which, at the time, was counter intuitive (smoking relieved stress). So strong statistical evidence it fuelled the research to find the causal link and justify restrictions on tobacco marketing. Or to get to road safety the justification for seat belts or lower speed limits. There may be something there but like the perenial Daily Mail exposes of whether Red Wine is good/bad for you - we just don't know. The helmet safety issue is just a confused mess.

There are both good and bad reasons why it is probably going to stay a mess which i won't go into here. Suffice to say it is unsafe to have an overall belief that helmets are good or bad. People, and there are plenty here, (and even more out there), who won't recognise both the benefits and disbenefits let alone can make a sensible judgement on how to balance them on such scant evidence.

I think that the country or state wide studies where compulsion has been introduced do have a clear trend. That evidence is that helmets have no beneficial effect on casualty rate.
My own belief is that this is because of risk homeostasis, which is very difficult to study in action, in a scientific way. I say "scientific" because there is a lot of anecdotal evidence available. Indeed, some examples are universally accepted. People do change their behaviour in the presence or absence of risk, and generally this idea is uncontroversial.
The evidence of seat belt efficacy is likewise clear in states where they have been introduced. Before our seat belt compulsion law was debated in Parliament the Dept. of Transport commissioned a study of those countries which already had a law. It showed that no effect could be detected. The report was suppressed though one might think it relevant to the upcoming debate. It was leaked to the New Scientist some years later. It can be found on John Adam's website, along with much other material on the Risk Compensation hypothesis.

http://www.john-adams.co.uk/

Anyone interested in the topic of cycle helmets should read what he has to say.

 

[screenman]

Would the Foster drinkers figures show those people who escaped head damage because they wore a helmet?

Would somebody tell my wife to stop putting home made puddings in front of me every night. Huge homemade mince pie and custard tonight, last night apple pie, night before something else.