In message
judith wrote:

On Thu, 28 Aug 2008 11:03:46 +0100, Mike Clark
wrote:

In message
judith wrote:

On Thu, 28 Aug 2008 02:09:55 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

snip

you can either promote cycling or promote helmets,the two are
incompatible. (Guy Chapman)

Any way your reply is not the point I raised, you cannot advocate the
wearing of something by saying it is no more dangerous than not
wearing it... the converse is then also true, if it is no more
dangerous then it cannot be safer because the act of wearing or not
wearing makes no difference to the risk.

Your statement is an oxymoron.

Sniper8052

If you believe it is an oxymoron - just ignore it.

However, there is evidence that wearing a cycle helmet will reduce the
overall risk of injury to a cyclist.


and there is also contrary evidence. The problem in the above statement
is that you have used 'wearing a cycle helmet will reduce the overall
risk of injury to a cyclist' whereas what the studies actually showed
was that 'wearing a cycle helmet was associated with a lower overall
risk of injury to a cyclist'


Please point at the contrary evidence.


you snipped the citation (and it's open access so you can download and
read it for free!)

so here it is again.

British Medical Journal, (2006) 332: 722-725 "No clear evidence from
countries that have enforced the wearing of helmets" D.L. Robinson

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/332/7543/722-a


Mike
--
M.R. Clark PhD, Reader in Therapeutic and Molecular Immunology
Cambridge University, Department of Pathology
Tennis Court Road, Cambridge CB2 1QP
Tel +44 (0)1223 333705 Web http://www.path.cam.ac.uk/~mrc7/

On Thu, 28 Aug 2008 04:04:22 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

On 28 Aug, 11:35, judith wrote:


Leave "her", Sniper - she's not worth it.

On Thu, 28 Aug 2008 12:05:38 +0100, Mike Clark
wrote:

In message
judith wrote:

On Thu, 28 Aug 2008 11:03:46 +0100, Mike Clark
wrote:

In message
judith wrote:

On Thu, 28 Aug 2008 02:09:55 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

snip

you can either promote cycling or promote helmets,the two are
incompatible. (Guy Chapman)

Any way your reply is not the point I raised, you cannot advocate the
wearing of something by saying it is no more dangerous than not
wearing it... the converse is then also true, if it is no more
dangerous then it cannot be safer because the act of wearing or not
wearing makes no difference to the risk.

Your statement is an oxymoron.

Sniper8052

If you believe it is an oxymoron - just ignore it.

However, there is evidence that wearing a cycle helmet will reduce the
overall risk of injury to a cyclist.


and there is also contrary evidence. The problem in the above statement
is that you have used 'wearing a cycle helmet will reduce the overall
risk of injury to a cyclist' whereas what the studies actually showed
was that 'wearing a cycle helmet was associated with a lower overall
risk of injury to a cyclist'


Please point at the contrary evidence.


you snipped the citation (and it's open access so you can download and
read it for free!)

so here it is again.

British Medical Journal, (2006) 332: 722-725 "No clear evidence from
countries that have enforced the wearing of helmets" D.L. Robinson

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/332/7543/722-a


Mike


Yes thanks - I had looked at it - however I did not see that there is
contrary evidence that wearing a helmet increases the risk per se.

(I thought the thread had moved away from compulsory wearing and was
now more considering pros and cons of helmets in general)



--
you can either promote cycling or promote helmets,the two are
incompatible. (Guy Chapman)

On Thu, 28 Aug 2008 11:10:21 GMT, _
wrote:

On Thu, 28 Aug 2008 04:04:22 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

On 28 Aug, 11:35, judith wrote:


Leave "her", Sniper - she's not worth it.


"not worth it" = "asking questions I'd rather not answer" does it?

What's your view:

Does wearing a cycle helmet overall reduce the risk of a cyclist
receiving injury?


--
you can either promote cycling or promote helmets,the two are
incompatible. (Guy Chapman)

On 28 Aug, 13:31, judith wrote:
On Thu, 28 Aug 2008 11:10:21 GMT, _

wrote:
On Thu, 28 Aug 2008 04:04:22 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

On 28 Aug, 11:35, judith wrote:

Leave "her", Sniper - she's not worth it.

"not worth it" = "asking questions I'd rather not answer" does it?

What's your view:

Does wearing a cycle helmet overall reduce the risk of a cyclist
receiving injury?

--
you can either promote cycling or promote helmets,the two are
incompatible. (Guy Chapman)

Whats your view.

Sniper8052

On Thu, 28 Aug 2008 05:46:00 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

On 28 Aug, 13:31, judith wrote:
On Thu, 28 Aug 2008 11:10:21 GMT, _

wrote:
On Thu, 28 Aug 2008 04:04:22 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

On 28 Aug, 11:35, judith wrote:

Leave "her", Sniper - she's not worth it.

"not worth it" = "asking questions I'd rather not answer" does it?

What's your view:

Does wearing a cycle helmet overall reduce the risk of a cyclist
receiving injury?

--
you can either promote cycling or promote helmets,the two are
incompatible. (Guy Chapman)

Whats your view.

Sniper8052


Yes - and yours? - or is that another you'd rather skip?


--
you can either promote cycling or promote helmets,the two are
incompatible. (Guy Chapman)

In message
judith wrote:

On Thu, 28 Aug 2008 12:05:38 +0100, Mike Clark
wrote:

[snip]

you snipped the citation (and it's open access so you can download and
read it for free!)

so here it is again.

British Medical Journal, (2006) 332: 722-725 "No clear evidence from
countries that have enforced the wearing of helmets" D.L. Robinson

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/332/7543/722-a


Mike


Yes thanks - I had looked at it - however I did not see that there is
contrary evidence that wearing a helmet increases the risk per se.

Obviously if you looked but did not see you must have failed to
understand.


(I thought the thread had moved away from compulsory wearing and was
now more considering pros and cons of helmets in general)


The particular article is an attempt to address the general pros and
cons by comparing the results from those countries in which there had
been a step change in the frequency of wearing helmets with those
results obtained from case controlled studies. In particular the article
raises many of the confounding issues that make interpretation of the
case controlled studies difficult and often resulting in misleading
conclusions being drawn.

Let me point you to a follow-up submission by the same author

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/332/7543/722-a#15405

In particular I would invite you to take a look at Figure 2 which
clearly indicates that from 96/97 to 01/02 the percentage of head
injuries decreased at the same time as the percentage of cyclists
wearing helmets also showed a marked decrease. This data shows that an
improvement (decrease) in the frequency of head injuries is associated
with a reduction in the proportion of cyclists wearing a helmet.

The above data and more is considered in a more detailed article

Accident Analysis and Prevention (2007) 39: 86-93 'Bicycle helmet
legislation: Can we reach a consensus?' D.L. Robinson

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2006.06.007

(Unfortunately it's not an open access article.)

Mike
--
M.R. Clark PhD, Reader in Therapeutic and Molecular Immunology
Cambridge University, Department of Pathology
Tennis Court Road, Cambridge CB2 1QP
Tel +44 (0)1223 333705 Web http://www.path.cam.ac.uk/~mrc7/

On Thu, 28 Aug 2008 15:05:11 +0100, Mike Clark
wrote:

In message
judith wrote:

On Thu, 28 Aug 2008 12:05:38 +0100, Mike Clark
wrote:

[snip]

you snipped the citation (and it's open access so you can download and
read it for free!)

so here it is again.

British Medical Journal, (2006) 332: 722-725 "No clear evidence from
countries that have enforced the wearing of helmets" D.L. Robinson

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/332/7543/722-a


Mike


Yes thanks - I had looked at it - however I did not see that there is
contrary evidence that wearing a helmet increases the risk per se.

Obviously if you looked but did not see you must have failed to
understand.

You may be right - perhaps I didn't understand.
In which case you can perhaps provide the sentence/paragraphs which
does provide evidence that wearing a helmet increases the risk per se.


snip

Let me point you to a follow-up submission by the same author

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/332/7543/722-a#15405

In particular I would invite you to take a look at Figure 2 which
clearly indicates that from 96/97 to 01/02 the percentage of head
injuries decreased at the same time as the percentage of cyclists
wearing helmets also showed a marked decrease. This data shows that an
improvement (decrease) in the frequency of head injuries is associated
with a reduction in the proportion of cyclists wearing a helmet.

I do not believe that it shows that at all (perhaps I am naive)

I do not profess to be an expert - but it does show that there was a
steady linear decline from 94 to 02 in injuries - irrespective of
cycle helmet wearing or not (hence the effect of helmets is not
significant in this study - perhaps a reflection on how the data was
collected)

What is the explanation for the number of injuries being different in
02 from 94 - I would suggest some other reason which makes the
comparison with HW invalid.

(It also shows that you cannot expect the man in the street (or on a
bike) to read such studies and come to their own informed conclusion


--
you can either promote cycling or promote helmets,the two are
incompatible. (Guy Chapman)

In message
judith wrote:

On Thu, 28 Aug 2008 15:05:11 +0100, Mike Clark
wrote:

In message
judith wrote:

On Thu, 28 Aug 2008 12:05:38 +0100, Mike Clark
wrote:

[snip]

you snipped the citation (and it's open access so you can download and
read it for free!)

so here it is again.

British Medical Journal, (2006) 332: 722-725 "No clear evidence from
countries that have enforced the wearing of helmets" D.L. Robinson

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/332/7543/722-a


Mike


Yes thanks - I had looked at it - however I did not see that there is
contrary evidence that wearing a helmet increases the risk per se.

Obviously if you looked but did not see you must have failed to
understand.

You may be right - perhaps I didn't understand.
In which case you can perhaps provide the sentence/paragraphs which
does provide evidence that wearing a helmet increases the risk per se.


snip

Let me point you to a follow-up submission by the same author

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/332/7543/722-a#15405

In particular I would invite you to take a look at Figure 2 which
clearly indicates that from 96/97 to 01/02 the percentage of head
injuries decreased at the same time as the percentage of cyclists
wearing helmets also showed a marked decrease. This data shows that
an improvement (decrease) in the frequency of head injuries is
associated with a reduction in the proportion of cyclists wearing a
helmet.

I do not believe that it shows that at all (perhaps I am naive)

So you can't see both lines coming down over that time period?


I do not profess to be an expert - but it does show that there was a
steady linear decline from 94 to 02 in injuries - irrespective of
cycle helmet wearing or not (hence the effect of helmets is not
significant in this study - perhaps a reflection on how the data was
collected)

So in this case the data does not support your views as to how effective
a helmet must be, so you are going to reject the data as not having
been collected properly?

So you will only accept data that shows increasing helmet usage
correlating with decreased head injuries and will reject any data that
shows the opposite?



What is the explanation for the number of injuries being different in
02 from 94 - I would suggest some other reason which makes the
comparison with HW invalid.

Well it doesn't seem to be related to helmet wearing by cyclists so I
think we must assume that something else has lead to a change in the
percentage of injured cyclists.


Mike
--
M.R. Clark PhD, Reader in Therapeutic and Molecular Immunology
Cambridge University, Department of Pathology
Tennis Court Road, Cambridge CB2 1QP
Tel +44 (0)1223 333705 Web http://www.path.cam.ac.uk/~mrc7/

"judith" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:43:17 +0100, "Michael C"

I don't think there are any but I don't see how this is relevant. They
might say that they leave the choice up to the rider, but they wouldn't
say
you shouldn't actually wear one.


Of course it is relevant.

If the club believed that the wearing of cycle helmets was more likely
overall to increase your chances of head injury - then they would
recommend not wearing them.

Your lack of logic here is astounding. The clubs can leave the choice up to
the rider.

As it is many (most?) clubs recommend wearing helmets because they
know very well that they are more likely to result in an overall
decrease in the chance of injury to the head.

Here you go again making statements without anything to back them up. They
don't know very well that they are more likely to result in an overall
decrease in the chance of injury to the head, BECAUSE THERE HAS BEEN NO
EVIDENCE THAT SUGGESTS THAT.

Which part of that do you not understand? And many clubs do not recommend
whether you wear one or not - they leave it up to the riders to decide.