Dahon.Steve

https://www.amny.com/services/site/am...gation-default

This one came out of an article in AM New York.

1. While city law only requires helmets for riders under the age of 14, yesterday's report found that riders without helmets accounted for 97% of the bike deaths.

2. In their report, the agencies found that in the 10 years studied, only one of the 225 bike rider deaths occurered while the cyclists was in a designated bike lane.

I guess it makes sense to paint those "Dangerous" bike lanes and wear those helmets, even if the motorist gives you less space.

John E

Although I do wear and strongly advocate bicycle helmets, I would also observe that bicyclists who tend to ride visibly, defensively, and vehicularly, i.e., safely, are more likely to wear helmets than those who do not.

As for the bike lane statistic, I cannot judge the 224-to-1 fatality ratio without knowing the ratio of miles of bike lanes to miles of streets in NYC. For those who always strive to position themselves appropriately on the road, the presence or absence of bike lanes may not be terribly relevant.

Dahon.Steve

I think it's fair to say that 95% of all New York City roads do not have a bike lane. It would have been a more valid statistic if the all roads were 50% bike lane.

genec

But is it fair to say that by that statistic, Bike Lanes are not the "killers" that they are portrayed as, by some "experts."

closetbiker

First, what were those who died doing at the time of collision?

Like John E., I would also observe that bicyclists who tend to ride visibly, defensively, and vehicularly tend to avoid collisions and thus, deaths.

Second, I live in an area that has a high compliance rate of helmet wearing, due to a MHL for all ages and the death (and head injury) rate of helmeted and non-helmeted to be almost the same.

If 20% wear helmets, wouldn't a 80% death rate seem resonable? 97% is just 17% higher and if the non-helmet wearers are riding in a more dangerous fashion, doesn't that lead to a higher rate of death?

I'll bet that if 97% of bike deaths were helmetless cyclists, 97% of those deaths involved a motor vehicle.

There is not a single helmet manafacturer or advocate that will assure anyone that a wearing a helmet in a collision with a motor vehicle will save their life (unless they're lying or ignorant). They're not made to a standard that can withstand that kind of impact.

The article seemed pretty elementary with no examinations of how the deaths of cyclists occurred or could have been prevented. The last line kind of exemplified the tone of the article. Simple minded.

N_C

You're right a helmet is not designed to with stand the kind of impact caused by a motor vehicle. But it can & does reduce the impact to the head. Don't know about you but I'd rather have a fighting chance it being reduced then no chance at all by not wearing one. Not wearing one you have none to very little chance of survival, wearing one you at least something of a chance. BTW I think the same can be said for motor cycle helmets too. They are better designed to protect against an impact not involving another moving vehicle, just an impact with the ground, but again a fighting chance is better then none at all.

closetbiker

Well, like I said, just as many helmeted cyclists die as unhelmeted ones around here, so to conclude a helmet will save your life is just plain foolish.

As for the fighting chance, I'd doubt that. If a force applied is far in excess of the limitations, you might as well be wearing a do-rag.

Helmets mitgate a small fall that doesn't involve any other vehicle and is for single impacts only. Hit by a car (1 impact) and fall to the ground (second impact) and it's useless.

genec

Wonder how many helmeted ones might have died if they had not been wearing helmets.

closetbiker

Check out the same number of collisions when there are no helmets and when there are lots of helmets. There are lots of examples. There's a big article about this in the New York Times, showing that head injuries among cyclists went up 51% in the 1990's as more and more cyclists started wearing helmets.

Check out Vancouver (lots of helmets) and Montreal (much fewer helmets) or Vancouver in 86 (10 years before MHL), in 96 (MHL passed) and now, in 06 (10 years after). Not much difference in head injuries. Or maybe check out fatality trends in the whole country from before helmets were worn, to now when helmet levels are high.



There was a bigger drop in fatalities in the years before helmets were worn, than the years since they became popular.

genec

I wonder what other variables also changed. Early on there were some problems with helmets... weight caused some neck injuries, non-slick covers resulted in torsional injuries... so early helmets were perhaps more of a problem than a solution.

Since the introduction of helmets have road speeds also increased? How about ridership (actually I believe an Australian study said that ridership fell off due to the dork factor of helmets... a negative). There is also a rather poor study pointing to helmets as giving motorists a false impression (re rider skill) that causes closer passing.

Personally I find helmets hot and would prefer not to wear one. But I do wear a helmet on the marginal chance that it might offer some form of protection.

fordfasterr

Agreed.

closetbiker

That's fine but it doesn't really address the OP original post that mentions 97% of dead cyclists were not wearing helmets.

I'd say those 97% were dead from collisions with motor vehicles and a helmet doesn't help save a life in that situation.

I believe there is a lot of misunderstnding on this point and a lot of cyclists wear helmets because they think it will save their life in a collision with a motor vehicle, but that's just me (I could be wrong)

at https://www.helmets.org/limits.htm,
even the BHSI says,

but they also repeat many times on the site,

What they don't say, is that not a single helmeted cyclist considered in the study was involved a collision with a motor vehicle!

N_C

So the fact that a helmet saved me from death, twice, is not proof enough they do save lives? Granted neither accident involved an impact to my head by a motor vehicle but my life was still saved by a helmet.

Once was because a motor vehicle bumped or brushed me & I went down along the curb hitting my head on a utility pole, then the concrete curb as I fell. Don't know which impact would have been fatal, but there were 2 compressions on the helmet where my head struck the pole & the curb. I did have a concussion, went to the ER. The dr. who checked me out, CAT Scan, etc, saw the helmet & advised had it not been for it I would have died.

This was not a small fall, I was going about 20 mph & it involved 2 impacts. At the time I wore my helmet intermittingly, I decided to wear it that day. Since then I never ride with out it on. This was about 10 years ago.

unkchunk

Does that statistic include helmets older than 5 years, as helmeted or non helmeted? (The link went to the Sept 14th issue, where the article in question was on the 13th.) Just curious after reading another thread about needing to replace helmets every 5 years.

Eli_Damon

Many of you are misinterpreting the statistics which, as given, do not lend themselves to any reliable interpretation.

First, the purported purpose of helmets is not only to prevent death, but to prevent and mitigate (not necessarily fatal) head injuries. However, the data only concerns deaths. Data like this could only tell you whether it is worth wearing a helmet if you didn't care how serious your injuries are as long as you didn't die,

Second, even if we disregard non-fatal injuries and just focus death, the statistics still don't tell us anything unless we also know what fraction of riders wear helmets. Actually, something like the fraction of total rider-miles or rider-hours ridden without helmets would be more telling.

Third, you have to assume that rider who wear helmets and riders who don't wear helmets ride, on average, the same amounts under the same conditions using the same habits and techniques.

The report is an irresponsible and manipulative use of statistics.

chephy

There is no proof that it saved you from death.

And what does the doctor know? He's a doctor, not a physicist/applied mathematician who can model the impact and accurately established the forces involved and what their impact on the brain would have been. Anyone making such a conclusion just from the way helmet looks is making wild uneducated guesses. Lots of doctors do that, I'm afraid - in fact, a lot I've met were surprisingly dim for a profession that requires impressive academic achievement to get into. Truth is, even though they are often thought of as high-powered intellectuals or something, they are just relatively high-level technicians. Their opinion on helmets is no more expert than yours or mine, but they present it as if they actually knew something.

Eli_Damon

Making judgements about what kinds of physical trauma would cause death is nowhere in the realm of expertise of physicists or applied mathematicians. If you presented the scenario to one, they'd probably say, "I don't know. I'm not a doctor." Making these judgements IS IN FACT in the realm of expertise of a doctor. Experts aren't always right, but if I was going to trust someone's judgement on this, it would be a doctor. It sure as hell wouldn't be a physicist.

closetbiker

The opinion of Brian Walker, one of the leading experts on the mechanics of helmets, and whose company Head Protection Evaluations is the principal UK test laboratory for helmets and head protection systems of all kinds

from https://www.cyclehelmets.org/papers/c2023.pdf

Unless a qualified expert went out in the feild and did a proper recreation of a situation and measure everything correctly, it's all just speculation. How is it possible anyone would know just what "would have" happened? People fall every day. Would they all die if they weren't wearing helmets?

Some impacts are just not strong enough to kill us, but it's a reasonable guess that cars and trucks and trains can kill cyclists, even with helmets on. So when someone says, 97% of dead cyclists were helmetless, I'd say, I bet a good bunch of them were killed by cars, not because they weren't wearing helmets.

Hambone

to extrapolate from that article to the type of riders reading BF seems to me fool-hardy.

The majority of serious injuries to cyclists in NYC is to delivery guys.* They don't wear helmets, they routinely ignore even the basics of traffic laws/good cycling behavior, and the only thing they have in common with most commuters/recreational cyclists is the bike.

I live on a poorly lighted one-way street. Delivery guys ride the wrong way up it as often as they ride the right way down it. They never have lights, no matter how late at night.


* I base this on nothing more than experience.

N_C

I'm convinced it did save me from certain death. I believe the dr's. word more then your's, anyone else's in this forum, or a physicist.

Erick L

Closet, children head injuries went down twice as much in provinces with MHL than provinces that don't have MHL.

Hambone

I'll play devil's advocate here...

I think we can we agree:
The more dangerous you make an activity appear to the general public -- the less likely it will be that parents let their young children do it.

So then the issue becomes, Do MHLs make bicycle riding appear more dangerous?

If you say "yes" than of course MHLs will make head injuries to children less common. The riding population is decreased, therefore the injurie rate almost has to go down.

If you really want to see to the kids' well being, make Mandatory Get Off Your Fat Arses Laws.

closetbiker

Yeah, well there's a thread for it if you want to discuss the merits of helmets. (You might want to look at post #754 on the last page)

All I'm doing is relating to the thread topic and how the situation in NY can be easily misunderstood resulting in a poor attempt to make things better. Helmets and bike lanes are not the best way to improve things.

Hambone

Are they not the best or not the only? I'd add rider education to round out the top three.

closetbiker

Not by a long shot.

Your #1 goal should be to avoid getting hit in the first place.