Before repeating quotes off the Internet, one should examine the
underlying data. Clinical research is tainted by politics so one has to
look at them with skeptical eye. This study suffers the same inherent
methodological flaws as the 85% one previously mentioned. Back in 1998
and 1999, the Cambridge study generated the following comments both of
which suggest self-selection of the sample:
Dorre Robinson, a published Australian statistician
"The helmeted riders in the Cambridge study were different to the
non helmeted riders. Children under 16 were twice as likely to wear
helmets as older riders. Helmeted riders were more likely to have
suffered bike only falls, compared with other types of accidents.
Interestingly, one poster who lived in Cambridge at the time thought
that helmet wearing was much lower than 11% - perhaps only 3 or 4%
from his counts. If true, then the head injury rate would be little
different from the helmet wearing rate."
David Martin, British clinical scientist:
"What was not considered in this study is exposure to motor vehicles.
Kids tend to have a far lower exposure than adults (especially in
Cambridge as there is a very large student population who can generally
be described as incompetent when it comes to traffic (and traffic in
Cambridge is busy) who tend to not wear helmets. The modal share for
commuting in Cambridge is something like 45% by bike. We contrast that
to non commuting kids who have a much higher helmet
wearing rate but don't hit cars so often as their exposure and pattern
of riding is different. "The significant thing here is the influence of
a motor car on the rate of head injury. THe data needs to be better
segregated to examine individual groups in order to get a better
understanding of the injury pattern."
... end of quotes ....
BTW, contemporaneously with the 1994 Cambridge study, UK road user
fatalities owing to head injury were: motor vehicle users 41%,
pedestrians 40%, and cyclists 8%. Now if helmets saved lives, which
group should be forced to wear helmets first?
Regarding the Leggrant "study", Dorre described it as a disgrace
although I don't have her critique of it. A quick look suggests it's a
piece of fanciful nonsense. Needless to say it's on a helmet propaganda
site and hasn't been peer reviewed.)
Tom Trottier wrote:
...... snip
> http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/308/6943/1537?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10
> &RESULTFORMAT=&titleabstract=helmet%2C+helmets&searchid=1027431923314_72
> 06&stored_search=&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=1,2,3,4,10
> "Conclusion : The findings suggest an increased risk of sustaining
> head injury in a bicycle accident when a motor vehicle is involved
> and confirm protective effect of helmet wearing for any bicycle
> accident. "
>
> This study also reviews the previous literature. Since all state helmet
> laws cover only children, this applies to children 16 & under.
> http://www.helmets.org/leggrant.htm
> "Section V. Conclusion.
> Bicycle helmet legislation is effective at achieving its desired
> goal: a reduction in bicycle accident fatalities for younger riders.
> Estimates of the effect of the legislation, using a large panel data
> set and a variety of regression approaches, robustly indicate that
> legislation requiring youths to wear bicycle helmets reduces juvenile
> fatalities by about 15%, without leading to an increase in juvenile
> pedestrian or motor vehicle fatalities as an offsetting effect.
> Currently, this would represent a savings of about twenty lives per
> year in states that do not currently have such legislation"
>
> See other info at http://www.helmets.org/mandator.htm
>
> The question in my mind is not whether helmets, or helmet laws,
> save lives. They do.
As does the tooth fairy.
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