Helmet safety claims overstated
Posted on August 1st, 2013 Thanks to WABA : “The federal
government is withdrawing its long-standing claim that bicycle helmets prevent
85% of head injuries, in response to a petition filed by WABA under the federal
Data Quality Act.” Congratulations to WABA (a Washington, DC, Area Bike advocacy group) for
holding the government to account. While this, of course, is not going
to end the “helmet wars”, it will hopefully move us back towards evidence-based
investigation of bicycling transportation safety. The particular US government agencies involved are the CDC and NHTSA who confirmed
by letter they will stop disseminating the oft-quoted 85% figure. The NHSTA
will, however, continue to claim helmets are “the single most important
way to prevent head injury resulting from a bicycle crash”. The WABA article is, by the way, a good explanation of what can go wrong
with case-control type statistics that often are the output of public health
community researchers. These types of claims are often(always?) behind the most
stunning soundbytes, see e.g. cycle-tracks-are-NINE-TIMES-safer-than-roads. Speaking of helmets, there was a recent long article in bicycling magazine;
which is really interesting stuff about the current CPSC-mandated safety
standards might be limiting advances that would allow different (different than
the omnipresent EPS) materials, and better protection, especially from
concussion. http://azbikelaw.org/blog/helmet-safety-claims-overstated/ |