If only they'd worn a helmet...

To have lacrosse so high, these must be US stats.
(Used to have BT Sport. One day absent mindedly watched, about 3 minutes,
of College Lacrosse, possibly Clemson vs whoever.
Is it a substitute for ice hockey in the Summer?
Famously, Bunk, (Hunter Wendelcombe), in The Wire was a lacrosse player).

these must be US stats.

Yes you're right. It's hard to find head injury causes/UK hospital admission stats broken down by type of incident

I went through a panel of glass once. I was grateful for a lid.
Haven't worn one since, I'm much safer in how I ride now, the way I ride you know?
Helmets certainly have a use, enforced compulsive use might not be a bad thing for cyclists but would probably cause more close passes. That being said the close pass thing has got undercover coppers handing out fines atm so is clearly something that is being worked on and a lot of close passes arent a big deal.

Some random stats to point out.
https://www.injurylawyers4u.co.uk/2014/news/uks-most-dangerous-sporting-activities/

https://www.headway.org.uk/about-brain-injury/further-information/statistics/statistics-resources/

enforced compulsive use might not be a bad thing for cyclists

Except the fact that we’re a nation of fat bastards and the one guaranteed out come of helmet enforcement is less cyclists and less people doing any form of exercise and less cyclists means the roads get more dangerous for cyclists.

Headway can generally get fucked, if they were really bothered about stopping head injuries they would be focusing on occupants of cars.

All i took from headway is they dont focus on any specific tbh.

What is the common head injury for a car occupant?

Fattys wont get on bikes cos theyre fat vain and lazy not just vain and inconvenienced by the safety hat.

Reading my first post back, I dont think helmet enforcement is needed but I think its a pretty minor concern and shouldnt be instantly turned into yet another "ye, well, you do x so nuuurrrrh" argument.

So far on this thread we have had the most appalling mix of inappropriate stats I have seen for some while. The worst being the quite misleading stuff on the injurylawyers4u.co.uk . When I get a few dozen hours free I might unpick some of it in detail. As a taster the CPSC data probably includes head injuries (cuts and grazes) as well as internal injuries and has no severity scale. The CDC data only includes formal team sports so is not much help here. The injurylawyers4u.co.uk data irrationally mixes formal sports with everyday activity but doesn't measure cycling against walking or car use. Their selection of worst case data to draw conclusions is unforgivable and the conclusions they draw don't follow from the data they have. The Headway data, like the CDC data, is interesting but doesn't help with a discussion on cycle helmets.

None of that can in anyway lead to the claim that

enforced compulsive use might not be a bad thing for cyclists

The lack of clear statistical support for helmet effectiveness is the main reason for opposing any move to compulsion.

Stats arwnt as black and white as you think, hence the random syats all over this thread and especially injurylawyers4u.

The point being coloured in is the stats will alway show whatever the stats are meant to.
The misquoted us stats of a 100000 sample prove that.
The information wasnt there but the OP 'found' it anyways.

And, again, I shouldve reread my post and made it more clear.

Altho, really, being told I have to wear a helmet isnt gonna stop me riding my bike. Even sometimes without a helmet *gasp+
Just like lights, brakes, insurance, MOT, TV licence, underage drinking etc.

The only argument against wearing helmets (i dont) is drivers will think you are safer and put you in more unsafe situations.
But you can counter that by being aware of that fact and acting accordingly/rationally.

Cyclist having to wear helmets or outlawing them entirely will solve nothing, even less so overnight.

I agree with your sentiments except I believe there a dozens of arguments against making helmets compulsory and quite a few against wearing them in many circumstances. It is however a very complex subject and not easily reduced to statistical certainty. Some of the reasons for that are explored in this article from the BMJ in 2013 http://researchonline.lshtm.ac.uk/989799/1/bmj.f3817.full.pdf

all i can say is thanks to Charlie LCC for adding gravitas for readers,
those actually who need to read it arent anywhere near here trust me,
but to quote, "Headway can generally get fucked2, yes they can and Im a SMIDSY near death non helmet wearing survivor whos still pro-choice anti compulsion,
so much victim blaming shite in todays culture while this little island faces up to 5 decades of car-prioritisation

Well said mf,.

Though this thread as about head injuries in general where a hard hat may have minimised the impact ( or not), not about cycling or cycle helmets. There is cycle helmet thread.

So back to talking about falling down stairs, or driving a car...

The main Australian Cycling lobby group has recently put its support for compulsory helmets under review
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/sep/12/cyclist-group-reviews-support-for-australias-helmet-laws-it-will-get-messy

Queensland has waived the law for bike paths in Brisbane, and there has been recent calls by mayors of Brisbane and Gold Coast to get rid of the law altogether.

In backwards old NZ we're further away from repealing it, but it should be noted that police no longer actively fine people who don't wear helmets in Auckland. My unscientific sampling thinks helmetless riding is on the rise, likely to do with the rise of dockless bike sharing.

This is one of those statistics where the method of recording greatly impacts the variance in data provided. Compulsory helmet use in sports cycling often results in a flimsy helmet becoming a damaged helmet during a crash and then being recorded as a head injury where no head injury was sustained as a possible impact is derived from the helmets condition, where in other sports no helmet is worn to act as an indicator and so the threshold for registering head injury is much higher. It's like if you walked around in a tissue paper suit and then went into hospital showing the tissue paper suit was ripped, any smart medical person would record "possible x" anywhere the suit was ripped even if just to cover themselves, exactly the same with helmets.

Great.

Another helmet wank-off thread drenched in anecdotal neck beard stat-science.

Jesus wept, you can't even tell the blindingly obvious difference between one side of the fucking Atlantic and the other, you're so weakly desperate to demonstrate your pony-tailed intellect.

How about the next time you're at a loose end and feeling all Nouvelle Vague, you try and reconcile the achingly Free Trade coffee you slobber with the distinctly "unfair trade" joint that dangles from your accusing fingers? (HINT: you directly fund organised crime, prostitution, people smuggling and terrorism you smug, jumped-up cunt).

For what you say about these statistics to be true, i.e that many of the recorded incidents involved no injury, it would make this statement above the stats a lie:

"the number of sports related head injuries seen in hospital emergency rooms:" Ambulance staff rarely take un-injured people to ER.

I think a bigger problem with the stats is they are not recorded against time spent engaged in the sport, or against number of individuals involved in the sport, without which they mean little.

I've fallen off my bike twice this week on the ice and I have a sore wrist and shoulder.

Jesus Christ, you sound like you've had a bad day. Have a drink mate, or go ride your bike. Maybe not both at once :)

For cycling injury I'd suspect a great number went to emergency room for a broken wrist/arm/leg/collar bone/whatever and had head injury recorded as a secondary injury. Without a helmet they would examine and find nothing so record nothing, with a helmet they examine and find "well something happened as the helmet is damaged so I'm going to put broken wrist and minor/possible head injury". It's not a lie it's just how the results can be distorted by the way we record/examine/perceive things.

If you study statistics you soon learn it's very hard to isolate statistics well especially when taking them from another persons study where the means of data collection wasn't specifically designed to isolate the statistic you are interested in preserving.

Top rant, A++++++

Though this thread as about head injuries in general where a hard hat may have minimised the impact ( or not), not about cycling or cycle helmets.

It's not though, is it?

Did you mean Fair Trade coffee or Free Trade coffee? It is an interesting thread derail.
Joint trade economics probably demonstrates the ultimate Free Trade equilibrium - discuss. How does this impact on the Free Trade theorists who deride Fair Trade but couldn't recognize a free market if it slapped them in the face?

Can we talk about late term abortion in this thread?

Why not?

I'm sure it won't take long to come to some form of consensus.

Oh, whilst we're here, does anyone have any views on Israel and Palestine?

What about sugar?