Cycle helmet wearers are reckless

[flecc]

Nick (2nd reply)

With regards to the incidence of helmet wearers making the death/serious injury claims, the subject of my thread, that both I and Frank feel is very much higher than you say, your own figures show that to be true.

You've compared the 2 claimants to the whole 1500 membership, a rate of 1 in 750, but they should be compared to 29% of the membership, assuming the usual rate of helmet wearing. That's 435 members or about 1 in 218, a very much higher incidence. However the 2 remains a large underestimate and 5 to 10 times that would not be unrealistic.

The non-helmet wearers are irrelevant since they would not be making those claims.

This doesn't alter your contested overall figures of course.
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[Fecn]

I finally found this page again which was the one I read every report from back in September - There's plenty of studies but no definitive conclusions.

Cycle helmets: A summary of research

 

[Tiberius]

Nick (2nd reply)

With regards to the incidence of helmet wearers making the death/serious injury claims, the subject of my thread, that both I and Frank feel is very much higher than you say, your own figures show that to be true.

You've compared the 2 claimants to the whole 1500 membership, a rate of 1 in 750, but they should be compared to 29% of the membership, assuming the usual rate of helmet wearing. That's 435 members or about 1 in 218, a very much higher incidence. However the 2 remains a large underestimate and 5 to 10 times that would not be unrealistic.

The non-helmet wearers are irrelevant since they would not be making those claims.

This doesn't alter your contested overall figures of course.
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Flecc,

That's a good point, and it affects the conclusion I came to (provided we assume the rate of helmet wearing to be reasonably constant over the last few decades). As I said, when I started the calcs I was expecting it to show the "helmet saved my life" claims to be orders of magnitude larger than could be believed and to then move on to examining why this might be. I also said I suspected there were more than 2.

We can't just raise this figure of 2 because we don't like it. But if we can find a better figure that we can justify, then its possible that redoing the calcs would show an unbelievably large number of claims. If that's the case then I'd love to discuss why. People believing A when the facts show B is always interesting, but we do need to be sure of B.

Nick

 

[flecc]

We can't just raise this figure of 2 because we don't like it.

Nick

On the same basis Nick, you surely cannot reject my higher estimates because you don't like them. The foundation of your 2 is far to weak, just a single thread sample.

However, to put my objection another way, if the incidence was 1 in 218 or roughly half percent of helmet wearers making these claims I would not find that irksome and might not even notice them, being only 0.15% of the cycling population and the same proportion of the cyclists I meet outside.

The incidence from all sources that leads to my irritation and which was sufficient to motivate my thread is definitely much, much higher, as it seems it is for Frank as well, judging from his comment.

I'll content myself with concluding that I do not accept there is the slightest correlation between the claims and the actuality and don't believe you have shown one.
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[dazzie]

I've had about ten crashes on motorbikes over the years whilst wearing a helmet and none whilst not. That means I'm infinitely more reckless on a motorbike whilst wearing a helmet. Fact.

 

[Phil the drill]

I've had about ten crashes on motorbikes over the years whilst wearing a helmet and none whilst not. That means I'm infinitely more reckless on a motorbike whilst wearing a helmet. Fact.

Ditto.

I gave up dirt bike racing last year as the crashes were getting too painful! (when you're nearly fifty you don't bounce as well as when you are a teenager!). In a nutshell though, when wearing a full face helmet, googles, body armour, knee and elbow protection, and full length enduro boots, you do tend to get a feeling of invulnerability. I used to have a pretty decent 'off' in almost every enduro I ever raced in, but have never had a significant one when 'pottering about' or trail riding off road.
Likewise I've not crashed a motorbike in over 30 years on the road (touching wood as I say that!).
There is a lot of truth in the saying that the more dangerous you perceive your situation to be, the more careful you are to avoid the consequences. Years ago I used to rock climb a lot. I never fell when climbing solo, or bouldering. I came off a few times when 'going for it' roped up to a good climbing partner. I was definitely more careful when the consequences of carelessness could be more dire...

Phil

 

[flecc]

Ditto.

Likewise I've not crashed a motorbike in over 30 years on the road (touching wood as I say that!).
There is a lot of truth in the saying that the more dangerous you perceive your situation to be, the more careful you are to avoid the consequences.

Phil

Similar history Phil, I used to come off all the time in earlier years competition, probably because I wasn't much good at it, but have never been off a motorbike on the road in over fifty years of riding them.

My conclusion of the reason is also the same.
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[rog_london]

Similar history Phil, I used to come off all the time in earlier years competition, probably because I wasn't much good at it, but have never been off a motorbike on the road in over fifty years of riding them.

My conclusion of the reason is also the same.
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Well, I can't make the same claim, I'm afraid, and my time frame is similar. However, as with most things, there's more to it than might meet the eye - for a great many of those years I was doing around 20,000 miles per annum, which is a HUGE mileage on a bike. I worked for the Rank Organization for a good few years as a travelling engineer, and that's exactly what it meant - I was all over mainland Britain from one end to the other, in all weathers, all the year round. I even biked it from London to Blackpool every Christmas to visit my parents, and I only ever had to admit defeat once and put the bike on the train to get back - a serious fall of snow over most of the country made me decide that 230 miles down the motorway was probably not a good idea - so into the guard's van it went....

Even after that, I had another job where I worked six days a week and had Sunday off - and every summer weekend I would leave home (in West Hampstead) at around 7am, and ride up to Blackpool, have a day with the family, and leave around 6pm to be back around 10. The motorways were not so busy in those days so one could make good time.

I must have been bonkers - I still have a motorbike, but my mileage is now quite modest - and a damn site safer as a result.

Rog.

 

[flecc]

That huge mileage wouldn't have given you much of a chance Rog, the inherent risk factor with motorbikes being so much greater.

The snow blocked winter I well remember since I also had to do a Christmas day trip from South London, though only to the the Downs south-west of Luton. I met a road closed by police signs, but being nearly there I drove around the signs and headed uphill to the destination village.

Near the top of the slope there was a police officer standing in the middle of the road signalling me to stop, but knowing if I did I wouldn't have got going again, I made the instant decision to carry on straight at him with a blast on my horn and waving him to the side with an arm out of the side window.

With discretion the better part of valour he quickly got out of the way and I drove on past him with as innocent a friendly smile to him as I could manage.

I never heard any more about it, so either my smile did the trick or the Christmas spirit prevailed.
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[flecc]

Flecc,

We can't just raise this figure of 2 because we don't like it. But if we can find a better figure that we can justify, then its possible that redoing the calcs would show an unbelievably large number of claims. If that's the case then I'd love to discuss why.

Nick

And that is exactly what I have done Nick, my turn for demolishing.

The delay in this response was due to 4 days being necessary to gather the necessary information as you'll see.

Your original calculations were based on 2 claims in this thread of life saved/very serious head injury prevented, but within this thread's active period on the 25th, another member posted here in a parallel thread that he had been similarly saved "several times". Not knowing what several is I've taken it as the minimum of two, so that changes your calculation to 4 in 1500 instances.

Now we come to the thing that makes a huge difference, the number of active members. In fact the number of active members logging in and able to post over the period in which this thread was active was only a fraction of the site total. I've constantly sampled and collated the members entering the site over a four day period through all the active hours and these are the results.

The number of individual identified members entering each day over the 25th to the 28th January inclusive has varied between 59 and 88, and the total number of those individual members over the four day period has been 159. A tiny number of members have opted for anonymity, but they are shown numerically as entering and one I've identified since he posted so he has to be added. With the average number of the anonymous entries seen at each sampling being between 0 and 2, I've applied the same rate of daily change that applies to the named members and assumed a maximum of 4 anonymous members have entered in addition, bringing the total to 164.

You have already accepted my premise that only the 29% of helmet wearers count for the purpose of our calculation, so that will be 48 helmet wearing members who saw this thread during the four days that it was being posted to on the general and associated subjects. It remained active for two further days for our discussion on the stats plus some associated posts, but at the seventh day it went off the first page of the forum,

So we are left with changing the original 2 in 1500 to 4 in 48, or if you insist on including those two extra days it becomes 4 in 72.

This changes your original conclusion that the claims were commensurate with the facts by a factor of either 42 or 62 times, and this supports my premise, that the claimants were more reckless or the claims of life and serious head injury saving are nonsensically inflated by one of those factors. The reasonable 1400 serious injuries conclusion that you presented now becomes an unreasonable 59,000 to 87,000, even higher than I claimed in a previous reply.

For members who entered this site during the 25th to the 28th January inclusive to check if their entry to the forum was noted, here is the list of members that I recorded:

aeromys, Alan, Aldby, Atmosphere, 50cycles, Alex728, allotmenteer, alsmith, andrewelectricbike1, AndyB, andyh2, antoniusvanhelfteren, Barnowl, Beanie101, Bigbee, bigskelf, bikerlen, billsy, BillyAbbot, bode, burncycle, Brian-Lopes, Burnsey, carigada, carpetbagger, CDinFrance, CheKmx, chess, clivebillson@ntlworld.com, cyclo, Danny-K, davidw, dazzie, derrick7, des56daw, Diesel City Tracker, Django, eddieo, Engineer, Erik, errol, essexman, evagy, Falstaff, Fecn, felix, fishingpaul, Footie, frank9755, gayer, goeco ireland, Gazelle Cycle Imports, gwing, Gyro108, gwing, homemoz, Hooligooner, Howard, iansparkes, Intex, IOM, jac, JamesC, Janne, JB, joab, john c, Johnemptypocket, John Fleet, JohnofCambridge, johnp, Jordad, keithhazel, kraeuterbutter, lectureral, littlejohn, maca44, mahaca1, Manchego, Markb, Mark/Cytronex, Mattyduk, MazB, mkc1, MR E, murphy61, Mussels, Neil, nigel, nin26, Ninelives, Norman, oriteroom, painter, PED-AL, Phil the drill, poppy, prState, pvb123, Rad, Renaud, rgbnew, robert44, Rod Tibbs, rog_london, rooel, Rose, rsscott, rustyrocker, rvarley, Schwinnfan, scobo, secour, Sector, Shroppielass, siggah5, sopht, StarClusters, Steveb63, stevew, stokepa31_mk2, strikeforce24, styx, swainbyboy, swinnerton, tenderbehind, the_killjoy, The Maestro, Tiberius, tillson, Tintaglia, Tolstoy62, torrent99, Vikki, WALKERMAN, WilmaJ, Wisper Bikes, wohi, wotwozere
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[HarryB]

My name name is not included even though I posted on the 26th Jan, so the website does not log all the users entering the forum, not that one or two names omitted will make much of difference to your calculations. However I am obviously just a spectator to the great helmet debate!

 

[flecc]

My name name is not included even though I posted on the 26th Jan, so the website does not log all the users entering the forum, not that one or two names omitted will make much of difference to your calculations. However I am obviously just a spectator to the great helmet debate!

Hi Hal. You were logged in ok, shown on my original daily listing document on the 26th but in collating the days I've somehow contrived to miss out your name. This is why I posted the full list so that any errors could be detected.

It's not part of a helmet pros/cons debate of course and I wouldn't want that to restart, this thread is more about a commonplace gross exaggeration in connection with that.
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[frank9755]

I'm similarly nervous of re-starting the debate, however I just came across something this morning which might be an alternative explanation for the very high rate of serious accidents which people wearing helmets have - wind noise preventing them from hearing hazards clearly.

This is from a post made this morning on the CTC forum by a very experienced and knowledgeable cyclist

"I think the wind noise experienced by helmet wearers is a problem which goes unrecognised. It's caused by the design of the helmet and has little to do with speed, although I do understand that police motorcyclists get ear protection"

Is there something in that, I wonder?

 

[flecc]

Wind noise is certainly a big issue in motorcycling, ear plugs are essential in full face designs which can be painful at speed with ears exposed to the din.
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[john]

risk compensation

One aspect of the discussion only touched upon is that of risk compensation. This often seems to be implied as a bad thing. However, if the risk assessment is reasonably accurate then it seem a quite rational behaviour.

At the risk of labouring the point, an example might be handling rough sawn timber. Without gloves I would do so more carefully and slowly than with gloves. Being able to compensate for the reduced risk of splinters (by working more quickly) would probably be the main reason for wearing them.

A reasonably accurate risk assessment is of course critical, and the degree of risk reduction or increase resulting from helmet wearing is clearly open to question here.

 

[flecc]

One aspect of the discussion only touched upon is that of risk compensation.

This was what lay behind my original provocative thread posting John. The claimants of this subject often say they ride carefully, but I believe that it's not necessarily as carefully as non-helmeted riders in all cases.

I've managed my 63 year cycling life without my bare head ever banging against anything, so it appears I've been more careful than those wearers who so often claim they were saved from death/brain damage etc in various accidents.

Accurate risk assessment is probably impossible, but all the available data shows that riding without helmets as either as safe or safer than riding with.
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[frank9755]

In this specific context I think risk compensation has a particularly adverse impact, rather like a reverse placebo. The evidence from this thread and elsewhere is that people do seem to take more risks wearing a helmet, but actually the helmet does not make them safer.

 

[frank9755]

Wind noise is certainly a big issue in motorcycling, ear plugs are essential in full face designs which can be painful at speed with ears exposed to the din.
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Agree with motorbike helmets, but I'd not heard of this being a problem with helmets at lower, cycling speeds

 

[flecc]

Agree with motorbike helmets, but I'd not heard of this being a problem with helmets at lower, cycling speeds

Nor me Frank, the only ill effect from wind I've suffered is eye watering, either direct or from buffeting around the edges of ill fitting goggles.

I think when cycling and heading into a strong headwind the noise level could have an effect in hiding the approach of traffic from the rear though, a potential danger to those who don't use a mirror.
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[torrent99]

Nor me Frank, the only ill effect from wind I've suffered is eye watering, either direct or from buffeting around the edges of ill fitting goggles.

I think when cycling and heading into a strong headwind the noise level could have an effect in hiding the approach of traffic from the rear though, a potential danger to those who don't use a mirror.
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Actually this is a problem I sort of started experiencing when I first started riding in London (previously I rode for 11 years in Manchester).... other bikes! Bikes are effectively silent compared to cars etc and in London of late there are SO many of them compared to Manchester.
My 1st line of hazard detection (other than looking) that something is behind me is hearing, I've been surprised a few times when checking behind me to find an unexpected bike! (Unexpected as in, coz I didn't hear anything I didn't expect to see anything.)

What REALLY shocks me is cyclists wearing headphones