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news
Helmet Row (picture copyright Simon MacMichael)Study claims cyclists wearing helmets less likely to die from injuries
A new study has found that most people who are injured while riding bikes in the United States were not wearing a cycle helmet at the time of the incident, and that people who were wearing one were less likely to die from their injuries.
Published in the journal Brain Injury, the study analysed data relating to 76,032 cycling injuries between 2002 and 2012 from the National Trauma Data Bank.
They found that only one in five adults (22 per cent) and one in eight children (12 per cent) were recorded as wearing a helmet when they were injured.
Women (28 per cent) were more likely then men (21 per cent) to have been wearing a helmet, and white cyclists (27 per cent) than black or Hispanic riders (6 and 8 per cent respectively).
Helmet wearers were 44 per cent less likely to die from their injuries than people who did not wear one, and the study also found that their injuries were less severe and that they spent less time in intensive care and were released from hospital sooner.
Co-author Shahrzad Bazargan-Hejazi of the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science and David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA told Reuters: “Non-users of the bike helmet are more likely to be less educated or aware of the protective nature of the helmet; to be risk-takers and have a perception that they can handle risky road situations; and consider wearing helmet not a practical thing to do, or not a cool thing to do. Affordability is also a factor for people from lower socioeconomic status.”
The study called for greater efforts to be made to encourage people to wear helmets while cycling, and Bazargan-Hejazi added: “Once on the road we do not have much control over the road condition or the environment, which can be the cause of all sort of accidents.
“However, we have relative control over our behaviour and action. We can use safety gears to protect ourselves against uncontrollable road conditions and environment, and bike helmet is one of those useful protective gears.”
In the US, 21 states have statewide helmet laws, in all cases applying only to younger cyclists (typically, under-16s).
The helmet debate invokes passions on both sides, and while there are regular calls to make cycle helmets mandatory for all riders, cycling campaigners point out that introducing such legislation discourages people from cycling and thereby has a more negative effect on public health overall.
Other studies have also shown that motorists tend to give more space when overtaking to cyclists who are not wearing helmets, meaning that those who do wear one may be at greater risk of being involved in a collision in the first place.
Cycling advocate Chris Boardman has also said that helmets “are not even in the top 10 of things you need to do to keep cycling safe” and that the focus on the issue not only distracts from areas such as putting safe infrastructure in place, but also actively discourages people from cycling since it reinforces the misconception that cycling is inherently dangerous.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
Latest Comments
- David9694 6 hours 20 min ago
I hope you're all checking your insurance policies, helmets, test certificates and road tax, it's the 2024 round-up...
- check12 8 hours 1 min ago
200 people out of a close by population of how many? Just build it and stop being a wuss
- Spangly Shiny 9 hours 34 min ago
To paraphrase Field of Dreams, "Build it right and they will come: and use it!"
- Rendel Harris 11 hours 55 min ago
And a Happy Christmas to you, road.cc staff!
- Rendel Harris 12 hours 43 min ago
The odds of not being able to find a single pedestrian - just one, note, "any pedestrian" - in an area containing more than about ten of them who...
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I love how wannabe racer reviewers talk about fork flex under braking like their tyres are made of glue. I find traction gives long before fork flex.
- hawkinspeter 15 hours 29 min ago
They don't make them like they used to
- LongitudeLatitude 16 hours 19 min ago
Thanks for using my picture of chocolate in your opening picture. The original can be found here, chocolate! | LongitudeLatitude | Flickr.
- lesterama 16 hours 46 min ago
Fair comments. I'll put my hands up and say I got the wrong end of the stick with this one. ¡Feliz navidad! Here's a pic for the season of goodwill.
- Mike Holmes 16 hours 51 min ago
A trip down memory lane (or street) for me - Harry Quinn's bike shop was at the top of our Street and I used to spend time staring at the bikes and...
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72 comments
If we haven’t had enough squirrels...now you bring in Hippos.
And he's critical of them, but they've never given me any problems. In fact, I think I can say without fear of contradicion, they are some of the best drivers on the road.
"Logical" arguments aside, personal experience makes me agree with the "reduction in injury/death" view, both as a witness to someone else's accident, and being involved in one.
I suspect James Cracknell, among others, would also agree.
Perhaps not if the helmet company isn't paying him anymore.
The sooner this place is rebranded "helmet-debate.cc" ft. "Near Miss Magazine" the better.
A pull-out squirrel poster wouldn't go amiss mind...
I fell off a skateboard. Speed wobbles was my last memory of event. I had been holding onto a cars rear bumper.
No helmet, a growth greater than the size of a tennis ball. Unconscious 4 hours. Body cuts minimal. Just +1 towards pros of using a helmet; the artificial skull would've taken the impact.
I broke both my lower left leg bones skating another time but my head was okay and I wasn't wearing a helmet.
Helmets are comfortable nowadays. No real point in not wearing 1 if 1 is laying around IMHO.
Or you could, you know, not hold on to a car bumper!!
What speed was it anyhow ?
Oh great; a helmet thread!!!
You're late!
Looks like there were some off-topic remarks, but I think we've steered it back on track.
Apologies. I tend to stay away as if I wanted to listen to an echo chamber I'd just shout whilst going through a tunnel.
This shouldn't be controversial. Nobody argues that sometimes cyclists bang their heads... and who would argue that a helmet is likely to reduce the severity of some head injuries if you bang your head? So surprise surprise - studying cyclists who bang their heads with and without helmets shows that helmets reduce the severity of injuries overall. Basically the authors of the studies have critiqued the effectivenss of current helmet designs.
Whether the risks of head injury justify wearing a helmet is another issue becase how often cyclists bang their heads is beyond the scope of the study.
The controversy is in what the studies are inevitably used for, or the interpretation of the data, not the data itself. We have had this kind of statistical study used to justify the mandatory helmet laws in Australia. We’ve had those laws for 27 years, it matters not one iota if there’s one study or a hundred that says that helmets help or not. It’s not going to be repealed any time soon. What the data should be used for is to determine how much they help, what they won’t help, and if any of it can be improved.
But this is where we have problems - once we acknowledge the limitations of helmets, then we have to move on to safer environment and behavioural changes. And that means changes for drivers instead of all the onus on riders. So the helmet debate never progresses. And as a result, neither do the other things that contribute to safety.
The study mentioned in this article is not a meta analysis.
It is original retrospective research.
The citiation is just acknowledging previous research. It is standard practice when writing research papers to cite existing evidence in the field.
It doesn't affect the validity of the citing paper in the slightest.
Fair point, not a meta analysis in the strict sense, but still open to manipulation by selecting previous research which shows what you want, and anyone who cites previous research must be saying that it is relevant, scientific and reliable. As I've pointed out the Cochrane review by Thompson, Rivara and Thompson was a travesty, ignoring every criterion for such reports, and if you cite it, you are at best demonstrating your ignorance, and at worst demonstrating your bias. I'm afraid if you cite blatantly biased research it really does affect the validity of your own research.
Not a meta-analysis in any sense. They are not selecting previous research. They are analysing pre-existing data.
"Data from the 2002–2012 National Trauma Data Bank were used, including all trauma bicycle riders involved in bicycle-related accidents whose primary reason for the hospital or Intensive Care Unit stay was head or neck injury."
They looked at all cyclists suffering a traumatic head or neck injury over a decade. That seems pretty thorough and not at all selective.
A citation is not an endorsement, it is simply a presentation of the existing evidence. You can't dismiss an entire paper because the researchers cited something you don't like in their introduction. That has absolutely no bearing on the validity of the research.
I'm sorry, but anyone citing Thompson, Rivara and Thompson must be biased, unless they are tearing it to shreds of course. Citing biased, unscientific, discredited research which broke every rule of Cochrane Reviews seriously damages your credibility.
The citation has no impact on the findings whatsoever.
It seems to be that you're desperately trying to find a reason to ignore those findings.
What I'm saying is that if you use discredited, biased, unscientific research to bolster your case, how good is your case?
The citation was in the Introduction Burt. It wasn't used to bolster anything, merely to give some background to the subject matter. It has zero impact on the actual research.
Do you have any criticism of the actual research?
Yes. That it uses discredited, unscientific, biased research to bolster its case; sorry, I thought I'd made that clear. Anyone who references discredited, unscientific, biased research in support of their case, doesn't have a case. That's why the Thompson, Rivara and Thompson test is so definitive. Quote them and you lose all credibility.
It would be like publishing a paper about truth and honesty and referencing Donald Trump and Boris Johnson.
So that's a no then.
You have no criticism of the actual research but you don't like a reference in the introduction so you're refusing to accept the findings.
I believe this is a simple case of cognitive dissonance on your part.
You are perfectly free to believe what you like, and the same goes for me. If you want your research to be taken seriously, you don't reference the worst Cochrane Review ever, which broke a number of the Cochrane Review's own rules, making it totally invalid. If you do, you are either blissfully ignorant of the subject or biased, and your own research highly suspect.
You've made it perfectly clear on this thread and multiple others that you don't have the faintest clue about research.
Claiming that research is invalidated by a reference in the introduction just makes your ignorance even more apparent.
Research , that’s a real thing is it? I always think that in most cases of “research” whoever does the “research “usually puts the stats in the favour of the agenda they are pushing.
In all my years riding all over the world “ my research “ I’ve never worn a helmet , thats been my choice . I asses my skill as a bike rider and the fact i have a lot of hair and it gets fucking hot and uncomfortable. Not had one crash . Never fell off, alp d huez ,col d madone etc etc san remo , Barcelona, Lucca ,all over the fucking place going up and down mountains with ax lightness brakes I should add ( they are light but don’t work so well) So if you think you are going to die if you don’t wear a helmet then you shouldn’t be riding a bike .if I do die one day in a bike crash at least my hair will look nice
its time people stopped telling other people what to do . I’ve never crashed why the fuck should I wear a helmet ,I know how to ride a bike , I know how to weigh up the risks . Simple as that . It’s not fucking rocket science it’s common sense . I was in Nice going down a col ,this Pro BMC rider went flying past,,,,,,no way with my brakes I could keep up with him descending , if I wanted to die I would have tried but I don’t . Common sense
i tell you a lot of accidents occur because people take a chance ,do something stupid like go up the inside of a big fucking lorry . I’ve stopped countless fellow bike riders “idiots” from doing that. I’m a fucking hero , cheers . If I get killed on my next bike road blame this post and feel free to cheers . Booooom I’m outta the roooom .
"Up the inside of a big fucking lorry" does tend to be where they put the cycle lanes, unfortunately...
hmm.
Do you think that excessive and irrelevant swearing somehow strengthens your argument?
Its time people stopped making hippocritical statements.
You have said it repeatedly on this thread.
Repetition does not bolster the quality of your argument.
Repetition of a logical position doesn't devalue it, but it reflects rather more on the people who need to have it repeated multiple times before they understand it.
Anyone who uncritically references TRT to support their case, especially the diabolical Cochrane Review, is either extraordinarily ignorant of the subject or biased, and that must make their conclusions suspect. References are added to enhance credibility, not destroy it.
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