Originally Posted by
jon c.
The evangelists would say their short piece and be on their merry helmeted way were they not without fail confronted by those who must assert that there could not possibly be the slightest reason a helmet could ever make a difference for anyone and all studies proving otherwise are so flawed and biased that they are wholly without value.
Please quote three posts where the posters said helmets do not ever make the slightest difference in any situation.
I have read some of these threads (before the got transferred to one of the Helmet threads) and I don't recall Ever seeing that claim. Most anti-helmet wearers claim that the statistics about the amount of safety provided by helmets are flawed---and I think an intellectually honest examination would show that the studies don't show what people claim they do---but I have never heard anyone say helmets cannot help in some situations.
Te argument isn't that helmets never help at all ... the argument seems to be that helmets don't do as much as some peple claim, and as far as I have seen, there are no definitive studies (please provide links if you have them) which showw that helmets are as good as some claim.
I know there are reports---not scientific studies---from first responders and ER techs about the damages they see, and how in some cases a helmet has lessened injury ... but those are anecdotes, compiled by biased parties. ER docs and EMTs see the aftermath of some wrecks .... but they also see people who come in with helmets who die. And according to what I have seen, ninja salmons and drunks are the tree most prevalent cycling fatalities ... so whether or not they wore helmets is sort of moot. Further, no way to know if helmets would have helped or not.
Even the riders here whohave taken head-shots.... they have no way of knowing what might have happened had they not been wearing helmets. possibly nothing but scrapes, possibly concussions, possibly death---but that is Not scientific date, it is more anecdote. The simple fact that people die while wearing helmets shows that a lot depends on the force and the angle at which that force is applied. Rid e head down into a parked van at 20 mph, and helmet or not, you will die (as happened to a Canadian rider whose story was shared here.) Did he die from head trauma, a broken neck ... or something else? No data.
As far as scientific data is concerned there really is not---there have been no studies I can recall seeing here any attempt was made to recreate in a lab the various types of collisions which might cause a cyclist to take a blow to the head. Again, please provide links if you have them.
As for ER docs .. they have no way of knowing. They see an injury and Imagine that the person might have survived or been much less injured if the person wore a helmet ... but they don't know a thing about what happened. EMTs can reconstruct t what they think happened, but they have no idea if a person who died or was severely injured would have lived or escaped injury had the person been wearing a helmet.
We all can see without needing to think that in some cases, helmets provide a measure of protection. The actual amount of protection has not been quantified. Again if I am wrong I am eager to learn. Post links.
As I have said a few times in this thread, I would very much like to see better data on head injuries among cyclists ... but if it is just going to be more propaganda fodder, what a waste.
As it stands, helmets can be safely said to provide a certain measure of protection to skull and scalp in low- and medium-speed accidents, and some equally unknown but obviously smaller amount of protection in more severe cases. I don't recall anyone saying otherwise.