I wear my helmet while mountain biking too, however I'm also aware that from 1991 to 2001, just as bicycle helmet use became widespread, the rate of head injuries per active cyclist increased by 51%.
Correlation is not causation.
Might as well argue that the stock market caused the uptick. Stocks did great in that timeframe.
It's a worthless point, anyways. People should wear helmets and be careful. The end. What's the point in arguing?
Joined: 15 Dec 2004 Posts: 1204 Location: North Vancouver & Whistler
Posted: Tue May 15, 2012 5:36 pm Post subject:
I was riding off road before there were decent helmets way back in '83. I did have a crappy hot heavy hardshell with minimal padding inside that I did wear off road on occasion. Oddly enough the only times I crashed back then I seemed to be wearing that helmet. However that was probably because I was heading to a trail that I perceived as being more challenging and therefore the helmet seemed a wise thing. Statistics of one person means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. To me though it's not so much that a person wearing protection feels more invincible and takes risks, but more of a decision to take risks and therefore wear protection.
It is extremely rare to see riders in North Vancouver ride trails without helmets. It is simply a fact that the trails are challenging and therefore a helmet is smart. I do not think that many of those riders take the risks because they wear a helmet as much as they wear a helmet because of the risks they are taking.
Conversely, there are numerous bike messengers in downtown Vancouver that ride in traffic all day without helmets ( and the law dictates helmet use on roads in BC) . I suppose this means one can find outliers in any statistical study. _________________ see ya
Joined: 20 Oct 2005 Posts: 17873 Location: following Diogenes, but the ba$tard threw away the lamp so I'm just stumbling along in the dark!
Posted: Tue May 15, 2012 5:40 pm Post subject:
freeheelwilly wrote:
I'm sure there are some people who take more risks because they are wearing a helmet. But RR seems to suggest that EVERYBODY does. That's just nonsense. And sure, my road bike examples are anecdotal but I think anybody who logs at least a couple of thousand road miles a year for at least a few years or so won't find them even slightly out of the ordinary. Sometimes you come off the bike, slap your head and break your helmet. It's rare but it does happen and it's just ridiculous to assume that you only came off the bike because you were wearing a helmet.
I don't think there was ever a time I got on a MTB without a helmet. I've pretty much always rode single track and I wouldn't ride without one. So in that case, RR is technically correct: I wouldn't even take the risk of getting on the bike but for the helmet. But I wouldn't go skiing without a good jacket. Therefore can one assume that good jackets increase my risk tolerance? I just think this logic quickly devolves into sophistry at least as applied to most people.
Clear as a bell!
I am with freeheelwilly on this one.
Yeah, I know there are some folks who will always be prone to "Hey guys, watch this!" But who can tell if it's use of or lack of safety gear playing a role in their antics?
There's old farts such as me who buckle up because it's a good idea. It's no more involved than looking both ways before crossing the street.
Way-back factoid:
Dad had to have seatbelts installed in the microbus and a couple of subsequent cars....we'd catch it bad if we didn't buckle up. _________________ "Moderate is not the new Low" - Chris Joosen, USFS Lead Snow Ranger (Tuckerman Ravine, White Mountains National Forest)
Joined: 28 Feb 2007 Posts: 1293 Location: Colorado
Posted: Tue May 15, 2012 7:14 pm Post subject:
I can't believe I'm about to say this, but...I agree with FHW. You can't make a blanket statement that riders will all engage in riskier behavior just because they're strapping on a brain bucket.
When I was in high school, racing road bikes and working at a bike shop, we all thought helmets were lame. Google images of the Tour de France 20 years ago, and I doubt you'll see many riders wearing helmets.
However, around that same time frame, a friend's mom was riding her bike down our small town main street when she was mowed down and dragged by a driver having an epileptic seizure. The helmet was the only thing that saved her life, and we all started wearing them religiously after that event.
BF's helmet from a ride last week...pretty sure he'd be drooling in a corner somewhere if he hadn't been wearing one:
Joined: 06 Dec 2004 Posts: 1616 Location: Tell you if we ride together
Posted: Tue May 15, 2012 8:00 pm Post subject:
My true assessment of me...
When I put on a helmet, 90% of my "feeling" is "ahhhhh, I feel safer" and about 10% of what I'm feeling is "hmmmm, now I can push it harder" _________________ If you are doing less than loving whatever you are giving your attention to, you are not who you were really born to be.
I can't believe I'm about to say this, but...I agree with FHW. You can't make a blanket statement that riders will all engage in riskier behavior just because they're strapping on a brain bucket.
That's because you are using your critical thinking skills.
Studies of risk homeostasis theory have consistently failed to produce significant results.
re: The 2001 New York Times article A Bicycling Mystery: Head Injuries Piling Up
-Can some other change in cycling during that time period have had an influence on results? I can sure think of one. _________________ Card carrying member of the Scientific-Technological Elite and bent on world domination!
Pointless debate is nothing out of the ordinary for this forum (stictly an anectdotal observation, I don't have the data to back it up)
To be clear, I was not arguing that there's no fun in pointless arguing. I was just trying to figure out whether anyone saying that helmets cause/enable more risk-taking actually had a point. Certainly doesn't seem to change the concept of helmets as a good thing.
Joined: 20 Oct 2005 Posts: 17873 Location: following Diogenes, but the ba$tard threw away the lamp so I'm just stumbling along in the dark!
Posted: Tue May 15, 2012 8:40 pm Post subject:
stevesliva wrote:
heyyou wrote:
Pointless debate is nothing out of the ordinary for this forum (stictly an anectdotal observation, I don't have the data to back it up)
To be clear, I was not arguing that there's no fun in pointless arguing. I was just trying to figure out whether anyone saying that helmets cause/enable more risk-taking actually had a point. Certainly doesn't seem to change the concept of helmets as a good thing.
Yeah, why should it be one and not the other? Life is a messy business, full of ambiguity. _________________ "Moderate is not the new Low" - Chris Joosen, USFS Lead Snow Ranger (Tuckerman Ravine, White Mountains National Forest)
When I was in highschool I took a spill on a local park road at about 20mph. Road rash up and down the side of my leg and a nice deep scar I still have on my shoulder.
The biggest thing was that I wore one of those old school helmets that had the lycra cover. The asphalt gripped the helmet and tore it in two when my head slapped the ground. Granted it was the lack of a microshell that probably tore it in half but I'm sure things would've been pretty bad even if I did have one. I was sold ever since. _________________ Drive the cuff
Joined: 07 Feb 2005 Posts: 1690 Location: back to the group "W" bench
Posted: Tue May 15, 2012 11:39 pm Post subject:
Since I bought that helmet I've tried, and made, one natural feature I probably wouldn't have if I"d been wearing and XC helmet. It was a conscious decision to accept the risk. _________________ .....clueless....
I never really understood this argument. When someone springs for a DH bike and puts on a full face helmet (or kneepads, or spine protector) that person intends to take some risk. Certainly no-one is surprised that risk taking followed risk mitigating behavior. What good is it to speculate if the risk would or would not be taken without the mitigation? Are we going to put the helmet geenie back in the bottle?
Joined: 23 Dec 2010 Posts: 425 Location: in a subaru down by the dry wash
Posted: Wed May 16, 2012 2:44 am Post subject:
risk.reduction wrote:
Try this: on your next mountain bike outing, go about your standard operating proceedures.
Then, right before you commence your ride, leave your helmet off.
Then, report back to me on your thoughts, decision making, and risk perception. What changed?
Good luck.
This is the classic risk compensation thought experiment, however I think there is something wrong with it. If you have a helmet and leave it off, you ride gingerly because the added risk is not worth the fun of riding more quickly, when you could always go back, get your helmet, and ride at your preferred pace. If helmets didn't exist, the added risk might be more worth it because you have no alternative if you want to have fun MTBing. If you were standing at the top of Repack in 1975 without a helmet, you rode it. But now that we have helmets, you would wear a helmet (if Repack were legal to ride ...)
That is, the proper hypothetical comparison is not between you with helmet and you without helmet, but you with helmet and you in a hypothetical world without helmets. (But then what would people on cycling forums argue about?)
If I can go back to skiing for a moment, suppose you are making a decision about whether to ski some line or do some particular outing, and you have a fat modern ski and a skinny ski from 1990. If you only had the skinny ski, in today's world, you might dial back your ambitions for the day and go meadow-skipping. But it doesn't literally mean that in 1990, all people did was meadow-skipping, and that having the fat ski is causing risk compensation by enabling you to ski bigger mountains.
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