On Tue, 2 Sep 2008 01:47:02 +0100, "OG"
said in :

Personally, I am not convinced by arguments that run along the lines of
"there is no convincing case where a helmet has ever prevented a significant
head injury" - and I accept that there are people who attempt to put the "no
helmet" argument in such simple B+W terms.

No, I think that is a fair statement. On the other hand, we don't
know how many of those crashes were caused in part by the additional
confidence felt by the helmeted rider.

What we do know, with a fair degree of certainty, is that increases
in helmet use do not lead to reductions in head injury rates. So
whatever the effect at the individual level, overall there is no
evidence to suggest that the widespread use of helmets would make
any difference to the perceived problem of cyclist head injuries.

Luckily, that problem is of a very low order and no evidence has
been produced to date to show that cycling is unusually dangerous or
unusually productive of head injuries.

So, leaving it to the individual to make their own informed choice
seems to me to be a perfectly reasonable approach.

As part of helping people make that informed choice, it is of course
necessary to challenge disinformation, as there is an active
campaign of disinformation run by those whose aim is to remove the
choice from those whose choice does not meet with their approval.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

85% of helmet statistics are made up, 69% of them at CHS, Puget Sound