Re: Wife & Whether to Helmet or not to Helmet


frkrygow@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
Hold it. "Activity" does _not_ mean "sport." Climbing a ladder is an
activity. Walking down stairs is an activity. Walking down a sidewalk
is an activity. Don't use restrict definitions just to make cycling
look bad!

"Out playing", as in "the kids were out playing basketball" or "out
playing, riding their bikes".

Pass-time, recreation. Organized, semi-organized, not organized. That
data seemed applicable to me.

If you want to restrict it to the common definition of "sports," at
least count only the head injuries incurred by cyclists who _are_
engaging in a sport. That would be those who are in a race, or doing
BMX acrobatics in competition, or perhaps doing observed trials. The
suburbanites crowding the bike trail about five miles from here are
certainly not doing those things! Neither are the kids or adults
riding past my house, nor the old black guys I see riding around the
inner city, nor the kids riding from the dorms to the campus.

No, but they are bicycling, and almost 70,000 in that data were treated
for a real head injury. In one year. That doesn't include all those who
got a head injury and didn't get it treated. Since some 30% or more
(just guessing, it's increasing and over 40% in '05) are uninsured in
the USA, I'd guess that number is fairly large.

It's silly to say "there is no organized cycling for kids, so kids
don't ride bikes." Visit your local *-mart in the spring and look at
all the new bikes for sale. Cycling may be down, but it's still one of
the most common means of recreation.

Frank, I just don't see kids out riding their bikes, either while I'm
riding mine, or in the car, whatever. Neither of the schools my
children go to have more than a few kid bike commuters. Nothing like in
my childhood. Contrast to the playing fields full of kids every night
for soccer, football, baseball, softball, cheerleading and even
lacrosse. There are two private concerns locally, one of which has a
gym and pool inside, the other which uses outdoor spaces for ball/stick
games. Nothing at all for bikes except like I said, the Safety Rodeos,
about once a year. So yeah, not much kid biking in comparison to other
sports, and this is Austin, Texas which is a bike culture center next
to Houston, the only other city I've lived in recently enough to talk
about.

(him):
If you want to ignore anecdotes, that's fine by me - even though I have
some great ones. I certainly prefer more robust data. The problem for
you is that the data disproves what you apparently believe!

I posted some data about head injuries, which data could be used to
compare rates of head injury for sports, or better, "outdoor
activities". Bad enough to get your attention.

My "belief" is that cycling is pretty safe until you get run over by a
car or truck. Or ride/race amongst a bunch of doofuses. Repeating, I've
seen a few people land on their heads, with probably (I'm not a doc)
only a couple of concussions, compared to lots and lots of falls
including mass pile-ups in racing that resulted in some bone breaks and
joint injuries but in the vast majority only some several acres of lost
skin, and bruises. AFAIC, that's still pretty "safe", relative to
getting run over by a car if you catch my drift.

One of the differences between us is, apparently, that you've read
little on this subject. That's fine, of course - everyone has their
own interests. And while it's true that the "85%" figure is not used
_every_ time, I'd estimate it's present in over 90% of helmet
literature.

Which is, of course, absurd. It comes from one tiny 1989 study of
self-selected subjects, and has been thoroughly discredited not only by
its internal data and structure, but by the total lack of corroboration
with real-world, large population data and the many studies that have
examined such data.

No, I haven't read much. I see the ads, I've seen the lit that comes
home with the kids. You're right, I'm not exactly inflamed with
interest.

There is no MHL here, in part (I believe) because a friend and I
presented a legislative committee with some of the facts I've posted
here over the years. Despite a rather large collection of
hand-wringing PTA moms, nurses, and others (largely organized by Safe
Kids Inc, who get funding from helmet companies) the committee
examining the bill decided to kill it. And, some who had testified in
favor of the bill came to us afterward and indicated we had changed
_their_ minds. Driving to the state capitol was a pain, but it seems to
have paid off.

Good work. Big payoff on your hours of reseach. Sincerely. I'll agree
with you, no problem, that MHL's adversely affect cycling, and even, to
some extent, the lack of effectiveness in helmets' preventing brain
injury as part of the problem in presenting a net beneficial effect of
helmet use.

My kids still have to wear them (some slack in enforcement) on their
bikes, and I almost always do. Exceptions very rare, short.

I don't think you can prove "no effect on
serious head injuries" in the first place, since no one is gonna do
that science project ...

You really do need to study this issue more! It's been done. Try
these:

Whoa, Frank-- "science project" is a sarcastic reference I was making
to the time(s) people have retorted to "the helmet saved my life" folks
by saying "did you go back and try it without the helmet to be sure?

Frank Krygowski

.

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