Price Taggers just can’t get enough of the compulsory-helmet law controversy. Stoker, meet fire.
arnoschort commented on Ohrn Words: “The Effect of Mandatory Helmet Laws”
There are very few jurisdictions in the world that have an adult helmet law which are enforced. The list is very short:
- Australia
- New Zealand
- BC, New Brunswick, PEI, Nova Scotia
- 19 states in the US
- Spain – only rural areas and there are other exceptions
- Chile – urban areas only.
Isn’t it a bit arrogant to think that we might be right in having a helmet law when most of the world does not have a law and two countries have repealed theirs in order to introduce bike sharing?
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UPDATE: Janda adds two fascinating articles:
MISGUIDED DOCTORS OR MARKETING AGENTS?
Abstract
In the 1980′s, Bell, a helmet manufacturer, was keen to expand the market for bicycle helmets, its most profitable product. It approached the Snell foundation and offered funding for research on bicycle helmets. The Snell foundation chose avid helmet lobbyists to conduct this “research”.
The helmet lobbyists initial “research” claimed that helmets reduce 85% of head injuries. This claim is impossible due to inherent limitations of helmets. The authors had to re-work their data, and withdrew their claim.
The Snell foundation has kept funding these researchers. Boosted by the “research”, the market for bicycle helmets expanded. At $100 for a piece of polystyrene, the profits are huge. Helmets manufacturers have reinvested their profits into lobbying for helmet legislation. They sent executives all the way to Australia to lobby for a helmet law.
In 2013, the US government dropped its claim that helmets reduce 85% of head injuries. It first made the claim based on the research mentioned above, but then admitted that there was no credible basis for the claim.
And:
The Helmet Alarmist Who Cried Wolf
June 17, 2014 by Drunk Engineer
In December 2012, Dr. Fred Rivara gave an alarming TED Talk about the spread of bikeshare programs across the nation. This was a big problem, he argued, because bikeshare riders generally do not wear helmets. He predicted mass carnage as a result, and published a paper that purported to show a 14% increased risk of head injuries as a result of bikeshare.
But when the data in the paper was examined, it was clear that bikeshare had the opposite effect. Cities with bikeshare programs saw a substantial reduction in head injuries.
It is not the first time Dr. Rivara has cried wolf.
I always wondered why we don’t have mandatory helmet laws for everyone, all the time, everywhere, no matter the activity. Every many, woman, and child, protected for everything by the use of a CSA-approved safety helmet.
Think of the problems this would solve.
*every man.
Agreed. You know, I once read somewhere about someone who died from a head injury from some sort of thing that happened. So YEAH, let’s make helmets mandatory for everyone all the time!
Yes, let’s take that wise safety precaution of requiring cyclists to protect their heads by wearing a helmet. It is shocking that anyone would be opposed to safety; there is no justification for purposeful negligence, except stupidity, when it comes to safety.
It’s worth noting that none of the countries, provinces and states with adult helmet laws have high levels of biking for transportation. Were they able to introduce a helmet law because relatively few people bike on a daily basis who might object to such a law? Did they introduce a helmet law because there is little safe infrastructure and therefore few people bike? What evidence did each of the jurisdictions use to introduce an adult helmet law? Or did they copy other countries/provinces/states with a helmet law?
Here’s how it happened –
Misguided doctors or marketing agents?
http://crag.asn.au/1121
Basically Bell Helmet Company needed a new market so they created a bogus research agency, the Snell Foundation to create a study to conclude that helmets were effective and were needed. They then sent out propaganda that claimed that cycling was unsafe (using the classic technique of scaring parents of children) and it went from there.
One guy is still going at it even now.
The Helmet Alarmist Who Cried Wolf
http://systemicfailure.wordpress.com/2014/06/17/the-helmet-alarmist-who-cried-wolf/
Reblogged this on GitanoAfricano and commented:
The amount of lives saved by helmets is probably far outweighed by the lives lost due to higher levels of asthma, cardiac disease, obesity, and car accidents as a result of millions of people not biking because they don’t want to wear a bike helmet, or because they’re brainwashed by the helmet lobby that biking is dangerous.
Bad hair day versus brain injury. Amazing the choices some people will make.
But those aren’t even the choices because the whole idea that brain injury is a possibility is false.
Janda,
What? “…brain injury as [corrected] a possibility is false”? Tell that to the neurosurgeons who vehemently disagree with you and strongly advocate for mandatory bike helmet laws.
I don’t think you edited that correctly, Susan. I believe the quote should be “the whole idea that preventing brain injury is a possibility is false”. Lots of neuro surgeon quotes to back that up in Janda’s links, above.
http://crag.asn.au/2269
Jeff,
I edited it correctly, and the majority of neurosurgeons disagree with you.
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/black-or-white
Some argue helmets give a fake sense of safety and it would be better to go without the helmet, have proper bike infrastructure, and ride slower. The fact is a bit of foam on ones head is useless in a collision with a car.
Gitano,
How do you account for neurosurgeons who disagree with you?
And Susan, how do you account for the scientists who disagree with you? I’m not against what you are saying, but sometimes we have to compromise. Just like I thought the Pt. Grey Bike way could have been better if it went all the way along Cornwall, I accept the current outcome, as it’s better than nothing.
Gitano,
It is a fact that the majority of the individuals who attempt to argue against mandatory helmet laws are members of cyclist advocacy groups, trying to increase the number of cyclists, not the surgeons who see first hand the head injuries of cyclists who were not wearing helmets and have to try to save the lives of those cyclists. Granted, both groups of individuals have their own special interest: cyclist advocacy groups are pro-cycling at any risk, and surgeons are pro-safety by supporting the helmet law. I’ve already made it clear that I also support safety over risk. I do not see the need or the wisdom of compromising about safety.
That is why the car seat is the most serious safety defect of a car. In the absence of sufficient exercise it leads to chronic illness like heart disease, diabetes, alzheimers, some cancers and some mental illnesses. Way more dangerous than riding a bike, even without a helmet.
Gitano,
So, your argument is that because more people in total are harmed by heart disease or causes other than no bike helmet, we should just ignore those who suffer head injuries or death when cycling without a helmet. In short, we should just let them die rather than protect them? And, you would have us believe that heart disease, cancer, car accidents, etc. result from people not cycling? So, I guess habits of extreme smoking, extreme alcohol consumption, bad diets, lack of exercise by means other than cycling, drug addiction, etc., etc., are not causes of death, then. Is that really what you would have us believe?
Susan, In Israel the mandatory bike law was revoked for adults because scientific studies showed the helmet law was discouraging people from getting out of their cars and using active transport. The total sum of carbon and carcinogens emitted from the vehicles of these people, who would be biking if there was no helmet law, was translated using mathematical modelling to determine the amount of lives (people dying from lung cancer and asthma, copd) that could have been saved had these people been cycling. Based on the data it was determined that total mortality and morbidity was reduced by doing away with the helmets. That said, children are still required to wear a helmet – a good idea as they are more vulnerable to skull injuries.
Gitano,
You wrongly assume that revoking mandatory helmet laws would encourage all those who currently do not choose to cycle to suddenly choose to cycle. This is a fallacy of a false assumption. See my posting below that provides numerous study findings that reveal many other reasons why people choose not to cycle. Clearly, mandatory helmet laws is the scapegoat and not accountable for the majority of people who opt not to ride a bike.
Hi Susan, bike helmets, lousy infrastructure, insufficient and unsafe bike parking are just a few of the reasons why cycling is not getting as much uptake as it could. Bike sharing would bring many more people on board, but helmets make the sharing option impossible. We don’t require people to wear helmets on ski slopes, soccer pitches, or in their cars, so why force adults to wear them on their bikes in a city? Where does the nanny state end? http://www.ecf.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Israel_helmet_law.pdf
The way this is often stated is that the health benefits of riding a bike outweigh the health risks (including head injuries) by around 20:1. This a consistent finding from several researchers, including Prof. Teschke of UBC.
This finding is the main reason that I deplore any and all things that discourage people from riding a bike.
Yes, Ken, I understand that you are pro-cycling at all costs, but I think that sacrificing safety to encourage cycling is not a cost that we should afford, or promote.
So, you would turn down a 20:1 net health benefit for a population based on multiple studies, because of your personal belief in helmets laws. Gutsy.
Jeff,
I have not advocated “turn[ing] [anything] down”; mandatory helmet laws do not prevent people from cycling, obviously. Those who choose to cycle with or without a helmet (following or violating the helmet law) are reaping the health benefits of cycling. Those who choose other forms of exercise (not choosing to cycle for any of a myriad of reasons) receive their health benefits by those other means. Opting not to cycle is not a net loss of health benefit; that would be true only if there were no other forms of exercise except cycling. Guts aren’t the issue; just logical reasoning.
Yes, Ken,
I don’t think anyone, including me, would argue that riding a bike is not healthy, generally; that is not the issue, and it may or may not be true that the health benefits of cycling outweigh the risks, as this question is still being debated (not proven), but again that is not the issue. For any person who wants to exercise, commute efficiently or enjoy fresh air, there is a wide variety of activities, not only cycling, for that person to pursue. Thus, if any person should prefer not to cycle for any reason, mandatory helmet laws being only one possible reason, there are plenty of other activities that provide the same benefits of cycling, and they may be safer than cycling, so people should be allowed to make their choice of activity for themselves. Mandatory helmet laws promote safety when cycling; and, promoting safety should always be a priority; indeed, the City of Vancouver claims that safety (zero fatalities) is a priority in its Transportation 2040 Plan. It is morally and logically incorrect and unsubstantiated to make mandatory bike helmet laws the scapegoat in the discussion of encouraging more individuals to cycle for health.
Here are just some of the numerous studied reasons why people choose not to cycle, none of which involve an opposition to mandatory helmet laws or fear caused by mandatory helmet laws. The fear of cycling that does account for some people opting not to cycle has other likely causations as described below:
(1) Davidson suggests that some people opt not to ride bikes because they fear appearing inept in their ability to cycle, falling off the bike in public, and/or ugly or not socially acceptable in their appearance, such as overweight; for this reason, these individuals prefer to get their exercise on stationary bikes at home or in a gym (Davidson, J. (2003) Phobic Geographies: The Phenomenology and Spatiality of Identity, (Aldershot: Ashgate).
(2) Harrison, 2001; McClintock 1992; and Ravenscroft 2002, 2004 assert that the open exposure of the body on a bike may cause people to choose not to bike at all or stop cycling because they fear the actions of motorists as well as the harassment or violence from strangers (including other cyclists on designated, separated bike paths). (Harrison, J. (2001) ‘Planning for More Cycling: the York Experience Bucks the Trend’, World Transport Policy and Practice, 7: 3, 21-7; McClintock, H. (1992) ‘Post-War Traffic Planning and Special Provision for the Bicycle’, in H. McClintock (ed.), The Bicycle and City Traffic: Principles and Practice, 19-39 (London: Belhaven); and Ravenscroft, N. (2004) ‘Tales from the Tracks: Discourses of Constraint in the Use of Mixed Cycle and Walking Routes’, in International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 39(1) 27-44;Ravenscroft, N., D. Uzzell and R. Leach (2002) ‘Danger Ahead? The Impact of Fear of Crime on People’s Recreational Use of Nonmotorised Shared-use Routes’, in Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 20(5) 741-56.
(3) Maxwell argues that a landscape of fear in society, associated with socially accepted practices, such as parental responsibility in safely taking children to school in cars, discourages the desire or reason to cycle (Maxwell, S. (2001) ‘Negotiating Car Use in Everyday Life’, in D. Miller (ed.), Car Cultures, 203 – 22 (Oxford: Berg).)
(4) The Department for Transport in the UK has found that roads are dangerous for cyclists, recommending that they wear preventative devices such as lights and high visibility clothing, and that cyclists ride on routes and paths designated for cyclists to increase their safety (Department for Transport (2000b) Road Safety Activity Book 2 (London: HMSO).
(5) A study in Lancashire County notes that cyclist casualties reported to the police in 2001 totalled 421, and of these, 33% were children less than 16 years of age. Hospital casualty departments suggest more casualties from cycling were not reported (Lancashire County Council (2004) Passport to Safer Cycling.)
Your reasons 1 and 2 don’t relate. It strains incredulity that those reasons, which may be perfectly real, were not in play until helmet laws were passed, and then they suddenly materialized. Look at the control groups.
Reason 3 supports the premise that helmet laws discourage cycling, as they feed that culture of fear.
Reason 4 doesn’t appear to relate to helmet laws. It may relate to wearing helmets, but I haven’t seen anyone suggest that helmets should be banned, so no worries.
Reason 5 relates to the Alberta stats I gave you. Yes, children can end up in hospital. Importantly, when a helmet law is implemented and total ER and hospital visits by children, related to cycling, climb, we have a problem. You are disproving your point.
Firstly, Jeff,
The study results that I have presented above are not “my reasons”; so, please do not put words in my mouth. These are the findings of various researchers (not including me) who have chosed to study why people fear cycling and/or choose not to cycle. None of these studies found mandatory helmet laws to be a variable affecting cycling choices; that was my point — choosing to cycle or not is based on an endless supply of reasons. The studies that you have presented that appear to suggest mandatory helmet laws may influence cycling choices have not controlled for the numerous other contributing reasons. That is precisely why research studies only “suggest” “possible” causes and effects. It is impossible to control for all conditions and influencing factors when conducting a study. That is also precisely why the issue of mandatory helmet laws continues to be debated; it is impossible to study only the effects of mandatory helmet laws on cycling rates because many other influences will always be involved.
I believe “better safe than sorry”; logically, some protection of one’s head is better than none, so protect one’s head with a helmet and educate others to be safe with the mandatory helmet law. You advocate less safety/less regard for safety by removing the mandatory helmet law, which will suggest to people that protecting one’s head is unnecessary when cycling. We will have to agree to disagree on this issue.
“Better safe than sorry” is a good rule for personal choices and decision, but it’s not the basis of sound public policy and laws.
If you look at injury, illness and death data, governments wouldn’t allow private car ownership and driving, the use of motorcycles and many other activities and behaviours that are risky, if they use “better safe than sorry” as a guideline. The state has laws to protect weaker members of society or society as a whole. Laws are not there to protect people from themselves or to replace common sense and education.
Antje,
You have contradicted yourself, and in so doing, you have agreed with my point: You have said, “The state has laws to protect weaker members of society or society as a whole. Laws are not there to protect people from themselves”. If laws protect “society as a whole” (your words), laws are protecting people from themselves by the very fact that people, themselves, are society as a whole. You cannot separate out people, themselves, from society as whole. That is a contradiction in terms and fact.
Note the number of cyclists present and the number of helmets on their heads in The Independent’s promo video:
http://independentatmain.com
Susan, it is unfair and untrue to say that cycling groups are pro cycling at the expense of safety. You may choose to personally believe that, but if you want to make such a claim we need to see the evidence. Your first obstacle to overcome will be the demonstrated “safety in numbers” principle that occurs with more cycling, and which directly refutes your claim.
When you dismiss an argument simply by attacking your opponent, instead of the idea, there is a logical fallacy involved, as you well know.
When you state that “a surgeon said” in an attempt to close discussion, you are simply appealing to authority, without any support for your claim that helmet laws have an impact on head injuries. Recall that we are discussing helmet laws, not helmets.
And if you want to study helmets, you should look at helmet designers and testers, not at surgeons, unless they are also qualified as helmet designers.
You also made a claim that since people comprise society, that the two can’t be separated. But they can be separated when it comes to health statistics, which is what we were discussing above. The health of a society is more than the health of the individuals, it includes concepts like health outcome inequality. Also, the anonymous surgeons you keep referencing are likely seeing only those who were injured. If you did your study of any particular activity in a morgue, you could conclude that everyone who did that activity died, so death was a likely outcome. But you would need to consider whole populations. If you did so, your surgeon references would have to evaluate the number of people participating in an activity, and thus the associated risk. They would quickly stop talking about bicycle helmet laws, and move on to more serious pursuits.
Jeff,
You are arguing yourself in circles: “associated risk” is still “risk” regardless of “health outcome inequality,” which you still have yet to prove. And, any attempts to reduce that risk, such as wearing a helmet and having a mandatory helmet law, are safety measures. Helmets are required in many sports, not just cycling, for those reasons. As you well know, and as you have argued yourself, pro-cycling groups are the primary advocates for eliminating helmet laws because they fear that the laws reduce the number of cyclists. Helmets and mandatory helmet laws have been created for the purpose of protecting the head and life of the cyclist; they are safety measures. So, the advocates who are against the helmet laws ARE opposing safety. Those advocates may support lights, cycling in groups, wearing visible clothing, staying on separated bike paths, etc., all of which are other safety measures, but opposing just one safety measure, such as mandatory helmets, is still opposing safety whether you want to admit it or not. It is a fact.
It is not opposing safety when the effects of the helmet law have been shown to have negative health impacts. Misguided efforts to promote safety, such as helmet laws, are not themselves safety.
You see it as a circular argument only because you equate helmet laws with helmets.
Jeff,
A law draws attention to people that they must make wise decisions instead of foolish ones; society requires these good decisions as being socially responsible to oneself and others. Laws serve this instructive process for society, and in the case of safety laws, such as a mandatory helmet law, safety education promotes taking safety precautions. There is nothing “misguided” in encouraging safety. Further, as we have already discussed, there is no evidence that “helmet law ha[s] been shown to have negative health impacts.” There are study results that suggest this possibility, but many other factors that are uncontrolled are affecting those results, so no conclusions of fact can be made. You are simply wrong to state otherwise.