Reply to Why are there no safety rules regarding children on bikes?

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Reply to "Why are there no safety rules regarding children on bikes?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]These people from some outfit called the CDC seem to think helmets are pretty important.

"An average of 247 traumatic brain injury deaths and 140,000 head injuries among children and adolescents younger than 20 years were related to bicycle crashes each year in the United States. As many as 184 deaths and 116,000 head injuries might have been prevented annually if these riders had worn helmets. An additional 19,000 mouth and chin injuries were treated each year."

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8909479/[/quote]

Key words: "among children and adolescents." Yes, helmets have been shown to be effective in mitigating low-speed falls from bicycles, as is typical of beginning cyclists.

I'll throw this back at you: 
[quote]
Feds will stop hyping effectiveness of bike helmets

Two federal government agencies will withdraw their longstanding claims that bicycle helmets prevent head injuries. The decision comes in response to a petition the Washington Area Bicyclists Association (WABA) filed under the federal Data Quality Act.[/quote]

https://www.thecre.com/oira/?p=1843

If you read the story, you'll see, "Last February, I sent emails to both CDC and NHTSA, pointing out that the 85% estimate is incorrect and providing citations to newer research. A few weeks later, Laurie Beck, an epidemiologist from CDC promised to remove the error."

[/quote]
Nothing in that story contradicts and in actual fact that story supports the conclusion of all studies that have been conducted on this subject that have concluded that helmets reduce the head injuries and death. Your continued insistence to knowingly claim otherwise is sick, wrong and amoral. You should be ashamed of yourself.[/quote]

I would say that "all" is overly broad. There's also a question of benefit vs. cost. What is clear is that the benefit of wearing a helmet is limited -- and there has been a long history of people in the public health and traffic safety business grossly over-stating that benefit.

Google "bullet stopped by bible." There are thousands of stories of people believing that their lives were saved when a bullet became embedded in a bible they were carrying. Should we encourage people to carry bibles as a public health measure? Strapping a bible to your head is probably marginally less effective than wearing a bike helmet.

If bike helmets were designed like motorcycle helmets they would probably provide measurable benefit. The government is already in the business of mandating standards for bike helmets, why don't they use the same standards as motorcycle helmets? Because no one would wear them, because they would be too uncomfortable. [/quote]
You are the equivalent of an anti-vaccine nut job. [/quote]

Except the difference is that vaccines are effective and bike helmets aren't. [/quote]
It would be okay to be this stupid if you were not making knowingly false statements that have the outcome of hurting people. That makes you a sociopath and yeah, you are no better than the anti-vax nut jobs.

[/quote]

If you can't debate the message, attack the messenger. [/quote]

You have proven to be intransigent when confronted with evidence of helmets working

https://www.consumerreports.org/head-injuries/most-cyclists-who-suffer-head-injuries-arent-wearing-helmets-a9629801958/[/quote]

Consumer Reports? Really?  [/quote]

Are you suggesting they are in the pocket of big helmet? They don't use big words, so I figured you would be able to follow it.[/quote]
LOL. This person is so stupid that I believe they have already suffered multiple head injuries from bicycle crashes. He’s like an advertisement for the importance of helmet wearing.[/quote]

When you run out of arguments, attack the messenger. [/quote]
When the message is the lie that helmets are not effective at reducing head injuries then I will both attack the message and the stupid messenger spreading anti-vax type misinformation. [/quote]

You're just not able to view things in a non-binary way. There's no simple binary that helmets are either effective or not effective. And I've never said that they were not effective. I've been saying they're not very effective.  Certainly they're not effective enough for it to be worthwhile to make any effort to require their use -- which is the topic of this thread.

There is a real-world impact. Why did the CDC and NHTSA get busted for violating the Data Quality Act? Because the state of Maryland was advocating for mandatory helmet use, and they were pointing to bogus claims on the agencies' websites about the effectiveness of helmets. Clearly the public harm from a helmet law would have exceeded the benefit. [/quote]

Your argument is that there is greater harm to the public good by the discouragement that cycling helmet laws would create? I understand it would impact some of the bike sharing programs that are ridiculously unpopular. However, your argument could be applied to modern safety features in automobiles. How much has modern safety equipment and design contributed to the cost of new cars? Increased cost forces people to drive older, less safe vehicles. For instance, the Fairfax County property tax encourages people to keep driving older cars. How much has this tax cost the public good? While public policy should attempt to serve the public good in general, absolute consideration of only the greater good is short-sighted when many of the things being valued are human lives which are difficult to reconcile on a balance sheet. Is there a certain number of tourists you are willing to sacrifice so that DC doesn't get a helmet law?[/quote]
What they have is an argument, and a stupid one at that, but not facts.

It is self-evidently obviously and also backed by evidence that wearing helmets reduces head injuries and death.[/quote]

There is ample evidence that helmet laws reduce cycling participation. There is also ample evidence that the health benefit of the exercise afforded by cycling outweighs the risk of injury. [/quote]

There's still no particularly good reason not to wear a helmet when you're on a bike, though. Even if they reduce likelihood or severity of a head injury only slightly, I always feel like I'd rather have whatever protection they provide than not. That's a separate question from whether there ought to be helmet laws.[/quote]

That's the difference between individual choice to wear a helmet (99.9% of the time for me) vs. a legal mandate that can have adverse impacts.

It's kind of like - alcohol is bad, right?  Sure, we like it, but by all health measures it ought to be banned.  However, the significant downsides of banning it (bootlegging, criminal underground) outweigh the health benefits of reduced drinking.[/quote]

Anyway, there is a legal mandate in D.C. that kids wear bike helmets, so the whole premise of this thread is sort of off-base.[/quote]

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