Talk:Bicycle helmet

Hi - I have removed a broken link in the 'Reduction in bicycle participation' section. I also re-worded the corresponding sentence, since it originally referred to 'evidence', but no evidence aside from said broken link was provided. If 'evidence' is supposed to mean a published study, shouldn't it be referenced in a non-temporary fashion (e.g. journal, volume, pages - as elsewhere in this artile - or a Pubmed ID) rather than a link to some webpage? Generally, although I found the information on this page informative, I agree with the discussion below (Neutral Point of View) that it seems biased. For reasons stated in this article, it may be difficult to assess the utility of mandatory bike helmet laws and apparently there is conflicting evidence in this field. Near the beginning of 'The helmet debate' section there are strong criticisms of the evidence in favour of helmet use; however, I did not notice a similar discussion of the limitations of the evidence against mandatory helmet laws. I grew up in a city which adopted mandatory helmet usage long ago (Vancouver, BC), which also has quite high participation and am now living in a city with no such law (Montreal) and relatively low participation and have been a cyclist for many years. Personally, I find it very difficult to believe that helmet laws are not effective at preventing some types of serious injury, such as smashing your head on the pavement or another obstacle after getting 'doored', cut off, or simply wiping out. Helmet laws may eventually lead to a culture of helmet usage and possibly to increased awareness of other safe-biking behaviours. I would strongly advise against exaggerating the strength of evidence in support of hypotheses which may dissuade someone from wearing a helmet! --Doug

SF I thnk that while the material is intimately involved with the risk compensation debate, it is just one example of risk compensation. So the risk compensation article maybe wouldn't be the place to go into it in the same detail. Also if the issue of seatbelt laws are going to be discussed, and if NPOV is to be observed, then surely all sides of the debate must be represented in the same article? (This was clearly not the case with the original article.) Perhaps an alternative is to separate the seatbelt law section out into its own article? Separate from seatbelts? --Sf 15:47, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Hi Re: Bicycle helmets Somebody has now added to the related section on risk compensation I have added to the section on seatbelts. Both pages give more information of relevance to the ongoing bike helmet controversy. Shane F.

Hey, I had a look at the seat-belt page. I see what you're saying about it. Personally I think that it might be better to move a lot of this stuff to just the Risk Compensation page. Also, if you register, it makes it a lot easier for people to track your related edits, and easier to sign them. (The edit summary box isn't really the best place to try to squeeze your e-mail address!) Thanks. PMcM 14:50, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I have put in some neutral POV stuff on cycle helmet legislation. If anyone wants background I am happy to provide it --BozMo|talk 11:21, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Wow this is kind of exciting I put up a request for this page!! (ricjl 18:24, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC))

Hey! I Wikified the very interesting controversy section, and took out the references, as they didn't refer to anything! If someone who knows about this (User:BozMo?) has the sources, then they could maybe put the full info in a References section, and re-instate the references in the article. As it was they didn't seem to be much use.

Also NPOV'd the final paragraph; 'would be most unwise' to 'may be unwise'; the rest of it was very well NPOV'd already given that it is (by definition) controversial! Thanks! PMcM 12:43, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

surely it is npov to say that it /is/ unwise to /assume/ since the assumption /may/ not be correct?

Fair point. Probably using both may and assume is unnecessary, but at the time I thought that it would be most unwise was unnecessarily strong. It was more the most unwise part I didn't like, and the is/may just got sucked into the editing while I was there. Feel free to change it about if you like. I explained it so I could get opinion on it, rather than meaning to sound like: "Don't do this again!" :) PMcM 12:22, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Anyone else think that the Safe cycling vs Helmet use and Controversy sections could be glued together? They seem to sort of cover the same ground. PMcM 12:30, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

History

Skid lid bicycle helmet

Some comment about the skidlid helmet might be good. This helmet was put out of business with the introduction of the Snell standard. Gam3 05:05, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Add it to the History section by all means, if you can verify the dates and so on. - Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] 15:42, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

References

I have full citations for the references, but no links as they are not on the web.

Thompson, R., Rivara, F. and Thompson, D. (1989), 'A Case-Control Study of the Effectiveness of Bicycle Safety Helmets', New England Journal of Medicine, 25 May, 320:21, 1361-67 (the grand-daddy of all helmet studies)

The abstract from the NEJM is online. Alas, the full text is not, at least not for layfolk. RossPatterson 03:58, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Trends in cycle injury in New Zealand under voluntary helmet use, Scuffham, Langley. Accident Analysis and Prevention, Vol 29:1, 1997 - showed no benefit from lareg-scale increaes in helmet use.

Risk, John Adams, Routledge, 1995, ISBN 1857280687 - authoritative reference on risk compensation theory.

Excellent! That was exactly what I was looking for. I think I managed to put it all in in the right places, but if I messed up anything obviously feel free to move it around. Thanks again! PMcM 13:42, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Cycle helmets are not designed ...

I do not understand the first sentence of the first section:

"Cycle helmets are not designed to provide adequate protection for a collision involving another moving vehicle (e.g. a car)."

Is the point that helmets are only designed for the impact of the cyclist's head against the ground and not for the impact against the car? Does it have something to do with linear versus rotational forces? What are helmets designed for? Thanks for any clarification. -- Jitse Niesen 13:20, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Helmets are essentially designed to withstand the force generated by an object equivalent to the weight of the rider’s head falling several feet to the ground.

Here’s a description of the tests from helmets.org:

…All of the standards discussed here require the helmet to pass a lab test where it is placed on an instrumented headform, turned upside down and dropped for a measured distance onto an anvil. The anvil can be flat, round (hemispheric) or another shape like a curbstone, a skate blade or a horse's hoof. Drop distances vary but are generally between one and two meters (3.3 to 6.6 feet). For the helmet to pass, the instruments inside the headform must register less than 300 g's during the impact, or in some cases less than 250 or even 200 g's. (We have a separate discussion on that.) The standard specifies the coverage required by calling out a test line above which the impacts can be aimed. There is always a strap and buckle strength requirement, and sometimes a "rolloff" test to see if the helmet will stay on the headform when yanked fore or aft. For more, see our quick chart or our detailed comparison.

And here’s a simplified version of the CPSC standard:

simplified version of the CPSC standard

Now, the force generated by a bicycle moving at a fairly typical velocity of say 20 to 30 kph. plus a car moving in the opposite direction at say 50 to 60 kph. is much, much greater than that. In fact, it’s greater than any practical helmet can resist

Why not set a higher standard? There’s no technology known to modern science that could do much better. Until we develop Star Trek type force fields, we just have to do the best we can.

Incidentally, I do wear a helmet Why?…Well aside from disguising the onset of male pattern baldness, I figure it’ll at least protect me in a minor impact

If someone who wasn’t a liberal arts major wants to weigh in, please be my guest.Dhodges 02:55, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks; I changed the article to reflect your answer. Personally, I usually wear a helmet when cycling in the United Kingdom, but not in the Netherlands. Pretty inconsistent, isn't it? And that for a mathematician ... By the way, I think it would be nice if something were added about the use of helmets in cycle races. -- Jitse Niesen 12:57, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

RobAnybody 20:13, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC) Link changed:

This: How to Wear A Bicycle Helmet for this: How to Fit a Bicycle Helmet The first page provides only basic advice plus LOTS of unpleasant advertisements. The helmets.org page has much more detailed instructions, an easy to remember "fitting mantra" ("Eye-Ear-Mouth" -- useful when you teach kids how to maintain and check the fit of their helmets.) and additional resources on helmets.

Neutral Point of View - needs work

194.105.253.6 14:09, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

I think this article is great and I agree with the POV that shines through, but we need some balancing here.

Editors of the article should have a look at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, which is a bit longish, but it is possible to skim to relevant sections. There I found a reference to an example of a hotly debated issue, namely abortion that is provided as an example of how a NPOV style and structure can be obtained.

Specifically, it is important to say who it is that presents a point of view instead of presenting it as fact, ( I guess ), and I think that the list of references and Further reading should contain sections specifically marked Pro and Contra. The BHRF site is quite clearly contra, but not as blatantly biased as most pro compulsion sites or atricles. Perhaps place BHRF/bicyclehelmets.org both in a category for Science and in a category for anti-compulsion.

194.105.253.6 19:14, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Could it be helpful to link to debate and controversy and even Benford's law of controversy ? An article about science based controversies, past and present would be nice. Might put in a request. The Global Warming article looks impressive. Anti-helmet arguments sometimes point to the Hormone replacement therapy as an example of Case control studies gone wrong. The wikipedia article on this does not do a good enough job of representing the controversy, unless I'm terribly mistaken.

One possible problem regarding Bicycle Helmets vis-a-vis Wikipedia policy is that very conceivably the apparent scientific majority - that helmets are exceptionally effective in saving lives - is wrong.

I agree that the article needs some organizational and NPOV work. It is fairly slanted against helmet use as it stands now. Feel free to add whatever links you feel are relevant... Peregrine981 07:36, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

If it's slanted against helmet use, it's because so is the scientific evidence. If there are any credible studies in favour of helmet use (that e.g. don't have fatally flawed sample biases) then of course they could be used as support for helmet use, but as far as I know, they don't exist. NPOV isn't a synonym for 'he-said she-said' reporting. Varitek 17:47, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

maybe so. However, I get the distinct impression that no one who is in favour of helmet compulsion has contributed to this article, and I just get that feeling through reading it. Personally I'm against helmet compulsion, and have no problem with most of this article, except for slightly lax crediting and sources citing, but I suspect that a safety campaigner might well object to some of the wording. Peregrine981 05:19, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

If they can come up with any credible source to back up their desire for helmet compulsion, then they're free to add it. If they can't (and I don't believe they can, yet at least) then their POV has no place in the article. Being a "safety campaigner" carries no weight. If they object to the wording, then they'll have to justify their objection, and to the best of my knowledge, they can't do it with anything beyond POV folk wisdom. Varitek 09:34, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

I think editors should strive to balance the presentation here although it is hard. One thing being mentioned in the Wikipedia:NPOV articles is that it matters whether a view is a majority view or not, especially among experts. OK define expert  :-) Many of the people and even scientists campaiging for helmets do not know a lot about cycling and health, and they seem to think that cycling is exceptionally dangerous. Still I think links explicitly to pro-helmet sites are lacking. Many WHO documents talk positively about helmet promotion, and that should be mentioned. ( They do it on the same old mistaken ground of articles in vein with the Thompson, Rivara and Thompson (1989) study, but do not always cite sources ). Perhaps a list of pro et contra arguments being used could be helpful. A report commisioned by the Bristish Department for Transport, Bicycle helmets: review of effectiveness (No.30), counted scientific articles pro et contra helmet compulsion/efficacy and found that: "Overall, 31 papers were in favour of helmet wearing of which 20 advocate legislation. 32 papers were against helmet wearing/legislation. The remaining papers took no position." You will also see, however, that 35 articles are grouped in "A proven case for head injury reduction from scientific studies", while 15 articles say "The scientific methods of many studies are defective" Having read a dozen such critiques, those pro arguments are virtually impossible to mention without informing abot the grave and convincing critique they have received in peer reviewed journals and elsewhere. But in mentioning the pro et con arguments we would at least be presenting both sides of the debate. Editors should also mention who holds those views, which is what NPOV guidelines encourages, I think. Mokgand 22:25, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

When you say WHO, do you mean WHO or the "WHO Helmet Initiative" which has no official backing from the WHO and is the work of Philip Graitcer, a helmet zealot who actively refuses to cite any research or organisation which is not 100% pro helmet? - Just zis Guy, you know? 21:05, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

I have tried to give an overview of the limited, but still wide-ranging, controversy on whether helmet laws work. I hope it has NPOV and good-quality references with additional Web links where available. (Some items are available only in one form or the other.) I agree with others; NPOV is very difficult in this subject, where "common-sense" seems to point in the opposite direction to most of the science. Does anyone have a good form of words for a point of view that probably is a majority and is certainly widely asserted, but doesn't have the evidence? I find it difficult to come up with anything remotely neutral that doesn't came across as derogatory to some people. Even most of the doctors I've discussed this with have no idea that there is any doubt that helmet laws work. Some have taken even a mention of the evidence to be insulting, unprofessional, and "dangerous". Richard Keatinge 22nd June 2006

Changes

I've begun re-arranging the sections to put general information about helmets in the first part of the article, followed by a treatment of the controversies. A lot of pro or anti helmet material was placed in the early paragraphs back when this article was comparatively short. (I knew it back when it was a stub...). I think it's important in terms of NPOV to keep all the arguments together. --Dhodges 06:11, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

I'd also like to get rid of some redundant entries in external links. cyclehelmets.org seems to be listed three times. I'll check that I'm not missing some actual differences between entries first though. --Dhodges 06:34, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to agree with above commenters regarding the lack of pro-helmet citations. IMHO, this is not a balanced article. Ronnotel 17:40, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Removed passage Nov 1 2005

There is a point in there, but also strong POV and tone. Not sure how to refactor it into something that can be included. --Christopherlin 05:13, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

One must wonder if there isn't better use for the energy and enthusiasm consumed by this debate. It certainly diverts energy and unity in the cycling community when it could be placed towards better law enforcement of cyclists' rights, safe cycling education, community outreach encouraging youth to take up cycling, etc.

Perhaps something along the lines of:

Groups working for cycling often consider helmet law campaigns a major problem, diverting attention and resources away from primary safety measures whose results are less equivocal. Few, if any, cyclists' groups campaign for helmet laws.

- Just zis Guy, you know? 09:57, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Other Ideas

I agree it's POV and not to make it swing too far that way, but from somone against helmet compultion, I would like to ask a question to the editors: I would like to see (only if sources mention):

1) Why the sudden attention to helmets when bike riding has been around for far longer? For example, as far as I remember, measures have been taken to reduce child drownings since heavy pool use, because children have been dying from pools. 2) Comparing this to motorcycle helmet data. 3) The probability of reducing head injuries of wearing a helmet while driving a car. 4) Statistical studies of wearing elbow pads and knee pads in reducing 'minor accidents.'

Safety in numbers hasty generalisation

First it is claimed in POV fashion that

Arguably, even helmet promotion or high levels of helmet use by utility cyclists will deter non-cyclists by reinforcing the misconception that road riding is a lot more dangerous than walking or driving, which it is not.

But then this is countermanded:

This reduction of cycle use directly imposes increased risk on cyclists that continue to ride, due to the now well established "safety in numbers" effect.

Sure, it is safe to ride in traffic if almost everyone is a bicyclist. But do you really claim it is safe to ride among holy sheetmetal cows when there's one bicycle for every hundred cars or so? Seems like one is generalising from a populous bicycle-rich area to everywhere. A lone bicyclist is quite vulnerable in a population where almost everyone drives a car.

The former is supported by at least one report from Transport Research Laboratory, number to follow, plus data from Failure Analysis Associates and from Road Casualties Great Britain and other sources. The latter is well documented, the BHRF website has a couple of reports in full text. The two are not inconsistent: one is about risk relative to toher activities, the other about changes in risk as participation changes. In London when the Congestion Charge was introduced levels of cycling were reported to have doubled and casualty numbers remained constant, so the causalty rate halved. And yes it is safe to ride among sheetmetal cows, I do it every day. Just zis Guy you know? 13:48, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

But you ride in the safety of numbers, right? Also, I don't particularly buy the conclusions of all these reports, as they seem to assume some mythical average bicyclist and so on, and do not take into account how different actions alter the people who use bicycles, and where.

Take the sidewalk issue, for example. (I ride on them, no matter what the authoritarian-human-law-fighting-laws-of-physics says, but not much faster than walking.) The research says that most accidents are when crossing sidewalks with a bicycle, not driving among cars. But that's because only experts ride among cars, not your casual bicyclists who most do not even know of the existence of laws equating 100kg bicyclists with 1000kg lumps of metal. If the less careful people that do not _stop_ to check for crossing traffic rode among cars, they'd be just as dead. (Assuming there weren't a considerable number of bicyclist so as to create safety in numbers.) The difference between bicycling on a sidewalk and on the road is that on the sidewalk you can be in control of the situation, on the road you can't. Some people just choose not to be in control. On the sidewalk you can cross the road in the safety of the numbers of the pedestriants if you choose to do so, on the road you can't.

Where I live, there are many _wide_ sidewalks with very little pedestrian traffic, and where bicycling is banned. And to make the situation even more inequitable between bicyclists and motorists, the streets are to uphill.

There is, to my knowledge, no significant informed dissent from the view that cycling gets safer per cyclist, the more people cycle. This has been shown by studies at the local level and by comparison of safety levels in different countries. Lots of people have said the same thing about living in towns where there are wide sidewalks and so on, but that is a misleading idea because not only do these towns also have wide roads (which are easy to share safely), the major point of danger is at junctions, and is increased by a factor of about five if you are riding on the sidewalk, because you are out of the area where motorists are actively scanning, because they are looking for other cars. And although it's been said that riding on the road is banned in many places, I have seen a number of such assertions successfully challenged by reference to the local vehicle code. Very often the police are also in ignorance of the actual law! Where I live riding on the sidewalk is actually illegal. Overall the USA (where I guess you are) has a pretty low level of cycling, so the safety in numbers effect is generally at a low level. English cities like London, Oxford, Cambridge and Edinburgh show the safety in numbers effect pretty clearly despite narrow streets and very limited availablility of space for segregated facilities. Just zis Guy you know? 15:25, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Crossing roads from sidewalks is only unsafe if you do not exploit the safety of numbers of pedestrians. Or do you claim it is extremely unsafe for pedestrians to cross roads as well? Where I live, Finland (and in a small city where there can not be said to be safety in numbers of bicyclists), bicyclists are infact required by law to cross roads on the right side of the road, between the safe zebra crossing for pedestrians (and bicyclists if laws were sane!), and the car lane, and then return to the car lane after the crossing. What's even more insane, you're assumed to turn left by doing that two times (like pedestrians, but without entering the safety of sidewalks and zebra crossings), not by simply turning left like cars would.

Wide car lanes are not that much safer to share than slightly narrower ones as long as there's still space for the car to overtake the bicycle. They still rather leave 5cm between you and the car than 5cm between the car and the white line. Only separate lanes for bicycles that the cars have hard time entering will make them pass from farther away. Perhaps a narrow road, where there's no space to overtake a bicycle or to even drive more than about 10km/h, would be safe, but a wide road without segregated bike lane isn't. When it's wide enough, there'll just be two car lanes if the other half of it isn't such a bicycle lane, and the bicyclists are no better off.

You are confisuing the general with the specifi here, I think: you can make a specific crossing of a specific road by a specific person at a specific time pretty much totally safe, but in aggregate when pedestrians get injured it's most likely to be when crossing at or near a junction, because that is where you maximise the number of potential conflicts and also you maximise the chance that drivers are looking somewhere else. The same applies for sidewalk cycling: if you stop, look carefuly and wait until there are absolutely no cars before crossing you'll probably be safe enough, but that's not how it works in practice. According to the statistics riding on the sidewalk against the flow of traffic is one of the most dangerous things you can do on a bicycle. The evidence on segregated facilities is far fomr conclusive - although you'd imagine they make things safer, in the end the journey still has to get form A to B and the jurney will involve multiple interactions with roads (unless you're very lucky). So building huge numbers of bike paths in a city will not necessarily make any actual difference to the injury rate. There's some discussion of this at cycle lane. In the end what matters is having a full awareness of what the risks are in the particular cycling activity you are doing, and how to manage them. A graduate of an Effective Cycling program riding mainly on the road will likely be safer than an inexperienced cyclist riding mainly on the sidewalk, and the more experienced cyclists do tend to use the roads more because they involve much less stopping and starting, which is very inefficient. Chris Juden worked out that stopping and starting once requires the same effort as between 100 and 200 yards of riding. Just zis Guy you know? 17:31, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

No, that (stopping and watching) very closely approximates what I do, riding in the city centre, where there's no hurry anywhere, and one might just want to stop in the middle of the block to enter a shop and so on. It is relatively safe, because I'm in control. On the road, I'm not in control, I'm just a bowling pin constantly being bombarded with the bowling balls, trying to not get hit. One could perhaps say the same of pedestrians vs. bicyclists, but the difference is in the numbers again. Most users of roads are motorists, and thus they're the king. Everyone else beware. Likewise, pedestrians are the kings of the sidewalks; other sidewalk users should try to behave almost like one. On the road this is not possible; a bicycle can't even remotely approximate a car. And, you know, we have ice and snow here much of the year. That makes things quite dangerous on the road. (Outside the city centre, where there's any traffic to speak of, there are multi-use paths where bicycles are supposed to be ridden on. They're not ideal because the pedestrians tend to occupy them like they were sidewalks as there are n

Self referencing

Richard Keatinge has added some links. Among these, I removed a site (cyclehelmets.org) that is owned (according to whois) by Keatinge himself. Self-referencing to one's own webpage is evil.