Do helmets really save lives

Interesting read I found on the www.:devil:

The Following is a copy of the article, "The Wild One" published in Forbes FYI, which effectively articulates many of our best arguments in favor of Freedom of Choice on helmet use...and best yet, it's printed in a respected, credible and well-recognized magazine. Copies were distributed recently at the NCOM Convention in Phoenix, Arizona, and many attendees felt this article would make an impressive and convincing addition to any state's lobbying package. Therefore, NCOM will be sending copies to all state motorcycle rights organizations that are members of the National Coalition of Motorcyclists, and to others by request (e-mail your name and address to aimncom@aimncom.com).


By Dick Teresi
ABATE, or American Bikers Aiming Toward Education, is a nationwide organization of helmet-hating Harley riders. Mensa is an international organization of geniuses and near-geniuses. Its members must score in the top two percent of the population in an intelligence test.
The Gator Alley chapter of ABATE challenged its neighbors in the Southwest Florida chapter of Mensa to a whiz-kid test of knowledge. No bikes, no chains, no colors. Just tough questions, such as “What was established by the Lateran Treaty of 1929?”
The showdown took place in Bonita Springs, Florida. It was a seesaw battle, but in the end, the bikers won. To be truthful, Mensa played without the services of its president, Jeff Avery. On the other hand, the ABATE team played without Avery also. He disqualified himself, being president of both clubs. After their loss, the Mensans sat down with their opponents and listened to arguments for the bikers’ favorite cause: the repeal of motorcycle helmet laws for bikers over the age of 21. Several Mensans, swayed by the logical arguments, joined ABATE, even some who were not bikers.
I cite the Mensa-ABATE showdown to demonstrate that not all anti-helmet-law activists are intellectually challenged, which is the prevailing media consensus. The TV reporter interviews a helmet-law advocate, a scientist (smart) in a white lab coat pointing to a hard, spiffy helmet. Then she interviews a drunken, tattooed biker (dumb) who screams “Helmet laws suck!” as he falls off his barstool.
It seems intuitive that wearing something hard on your head would help you survive a motorcycle accident. Many state legislators agree. Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia now have laws mandating helmet use by adult motorcyclists. The laws appear to work. A study by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) indicates, quite conclusively, that motorcycle deaths per 1 million residents are lower in states with helmet laws.
That sounds good, but we could make the same argument for surfing helmets. Let’s say Kansas, Nebraska and Wyoming pass laws requiring helmet use by surfers. California does not. The CDC then does a study, finding that states with surfer-helmet laws have fewer surfing deaths per 1 million residents than California does. This would be a ridiculous argument. People don’t surf in Kansas, and if they did, it would be relatively safe, helmet or no helmet, there being no ocean.
Similarly, you find a lower density of bikers in helmet-law states. For many bikers, motorcycling with a helmet is like surfing without an ocean. Compare Florida, a helmet state, with Iowa, a no-helmet state. Florida has a beautiful, year-round riding season. Iowa has a long, brutal winter. Yet Iowa has more than three times the numbers of registered motorcycles per hundred population as Florida. In California, a onetime biker paradise, registrations dropped by 22% (138,000 fewer bikes) in the first four years after its legislature passed a helmet law. Overall, states with no helmet law had 2.6 motorcycle registrations per 100 population compared to 1.3 in helmet-law states. In other words, non-helmet states have twice as many bikers.
Let’s go back to those CDC statistics that show helmets prevent deaths. If we use the same statistics, but count fatality rates per 10,000 registered motorcycles rather than per all residents, one finds that helmet-law states actually suffered a HIGHER average fatality rate (3.38 deaths per 10,000) than non-helmet-law states (3.05 deaths). this is not sufficient evident to prove that not wearing a helmet is safer, but it demonstrates that helmet laws do not reduce deaths.
Another way to measure the difference is to look at deaths per 100 accidents. Not even helmet law advocates suggest that helmets will reduce the number of motorcycle accidents. The purpose of a helmet is to help the rider survive an accident. The numbers indicate otherwise. During the seven-year period from 1987 through 1993, states with no helmet laws or partial laws (for riders under 21) suffered fewer deaths (2.89) per 100 accidents that those states with full helmet laws (2.93 deaths).
How can this be true? Is it possible that helmets don’t work? Go to a motorcycle shop and examine a Department of Transportation-approved helmet. Look deep into its comforting plush lining, and hidden amidst the soft fuzz you’ll find a warning label: “Some reasonably foreseeable impacts may exceed the helmet’s capability to protect against severe injury or death.”
What is a “reasonably foreseeable” impact? Any impact around 14 miles per hour or greater. Motorcycle helmets are tested by being dropped on an anvil from a height of six feet, the equivalent of a 13.66-mph impact. If you ride at speeds less than 14 mph and are involved only in accidents involving stationary objects, you’re golden. A typical motorcycle accident, however, would be a biker traveling at, say, 30 mph, and being struck by a car making a left turn at, maybe, 15 mph. That’s an effective cumulative impact of 45 mph. Assume the biker is helmet-clad, and that he is struck directly on the head. The helmet reduces the blow to an impact of 31.34 mph. Still enough to kill him. The collisions that helmets cushion effectively - say, seven-mph motorcycles with seven-mph cars - are not only rare but eminently avoidable.
Another reason helmets don’t work: An object breaks at its weakest point. Some helmet advocates argue that while helmets may not reduce the overall death rate, they prevent death due to head trauma. Jonathan Goldstein, a professor of economics at Bowdoin College, in Brunswick, Maine, wondered how this could be. If fatal head traumas were decreasing, then some other kind of fatal injury must be rising to make up the difference.
Applying his expertise in econometrics to those aforementioned CDC statistics, Goldstein discovered what was happening. In helmet-law states, there exists a reciprocal relationship between death due to head trauma and death due to neck injury. That is, a four-pound helmet might save the head, but the force is then transferred to the neck. Goldstein found that helmets begin to increase one’s chances of a fatal neck injury at speeds exceeding 13-mph, about the same impact at which helmets can no longer soak up kinetic energy. For this reason, Dr. Charles Campbell, a Chicago heart surgeon who performs more than 300 operations per year and rides his dark-violet, chopped Harley Softail to work at Michael Reese Hospital, refuses to wear a helmet. “Your head may be saved,” says Dr. Campbell, “but your neck will be broken.”
John G. U. Adams, of University College, London, cites another reason not to wear a helmet. He found that helmet-wearing can lead to excessive risk-taking due to the unrealistic sense of invulnerability that a motorcyclist feels when he dons a helmet. False confidence and cheap horsepower are a lethal combination. I called a local (Massachusetts) Suzuki dealer, and told the salesman I was a first-time buyer looking for something cheaper than the standard $15,000 Harley. He said I could buy the GSXR 1300 for only $10,500, a bike that could hit speeds in excess of 160 miles per hour. He recommended that I wear a helmet, even in non-helmet-law states. Imagine: a novice on a 160-mph bike wearing a plastic hat that will reduce any impact by 14 mph. It’s like having sex with King Kong, but bringing a condom for safety’s sake.
Why the enthusiasm for helmets? Mike Osborn, chairman of the political action committee of California ABATE, says insurance companies are big supporters of helmet laws, citing the “public burden” argument. That is, reckless bikers sans helmets are raising everyone’s car insurance rates by running headlong into plate-glass windows and the like, sustaining expensive head injuries.
Actually, it’s true that bikers indirectly jack up the rates of car drivers, but not for the reason you might think. Car drivers plow over bikers at an alarming rate. According to the Second International Congress on Automobile Safety, the car driver is at fault in more than 70% of all car/motorcycle collisions. A typical accident occurs when a motorist illegally makes a left turn into the path of an oncoming motorcycle, turning the biker into an unwitting hood ornament. In such cases, juries tend to award substantial damages to the injured biker. Car insurance premiums go up.
Osborn sees a hidden agenda. “They (the insurance companies) want to get us off the road.” Fewer bikes means fewer claims against car drivers. Helmet laws do accomplish that goal, as evidenced by falling motorcycle registrations in helmet-law states. It is interesting to note that carriers of motorcycle insurance do not complain about their clients. Motorcycle liability insurance remains cheap. Osborn pays only $125 per year for property damage and personal injury liability because motorcycles cause little damage to others.
Keith R. Ball was one of the pioneers of ABATE, its first manager in 1971 and later its national director. What annoys him most is the anecdotal approach taken by journalists who have a penchant for reporting whenever the victim of a fatal motorcycle accident was NOT wearing a helmet. When was the last time you saw a news item mentioning that a dead biker was wearing a helmet? Which is not to say that Ball opposes helmets. He thinks anyone who rides in a car should wear one. After all, he points out, head injuries make up only 20% of serious injuries to motorcyclists, but they account for 90% of all car injuries. If Ball’s idea catches hold, one day I suspect you’ll see angry men stepping out of Volvos with odd T-shirts beneath their tweed jackets. The T-shirts will read: HELMET LAWS SUCK.

too bad people couldn't argue about other things like they do about helmets, along with everything I think it should be personal choice, as with seatbelts, just another way to show big corporation influencing laws. I mean really who care's if joe smoe dies in a wreck. I guess they should make a law for wearing leathers too. just like you can die for your country or go to the big house, and vote at 18, but your not responsible enough yet to drink, and don't forget those taxes, what a load of crap-o-la.

That line kinda jumped out at me too.:rant:

We all know it's really Yamahaha riders!!!

I've always believed in choice. I was in Colorado recently and took my lady friend's Softtail Custom out for a 100 mile spin in the Rockies and didn't have a helmet. I'd have worn one, but didn't bring mine on the plane and hers was too damn small to fit my head..fortunately Colorado's a helmet choice state. Felt good, and only rode on back roads cruising along at the speed limit (I'm much more conservative riding when sans helmet). I normally wear one though for many reasons..mainly it just feels more comfortable. Guess wearing one most of the time has built my neck muscles up as I don't ever feel any problems with the weight. Long days the wind beats me and I feel much more fatigued than w/o a helmet even though I'm wearing earplugs, plus I listen to music when I'm traveling (not around town though). If I hadn't had a helmet on last summer, I'd have had some good road-rash on my noggin and I never knew my head hit the ground til I took the helmet off and looked at it.

I like freedom. I also like a civilized society, and sometimes the two don't seem to fit. In those cases, we have to weigh the pros and cons. Seat belts save lives, that has been readily demonstrated, and they are but a minor inconvenience. Then again, they only save the user, and if that person wishes to take the risk, oh well. Helmets do not save lives, cost money, statistically actually result in more deaths, and are a major inconvenience. There are some things laws should regulate, but something that cannot be shown to help, and may actually hurt, is not one of those.

A few years back WI passed a law that children under a certain height and weight, though too old for a baby seat, have to use a booster seat. It sounds good, a bit of feel good legislation, saving the children and all that. This is based on the theory that seat belts are designed for larger persons, and may not fit the smaller child properly. Sounds good, right? The problem is that statistically, it makes no difference, the only thing that makes a difference is where the child is seated in the vehicle. Front seat, bad, back seat, good. So now parents with small children, often times the very people that do not have lot of excess spending money, have to go and buy these seats.

Actually after reading the article, I am considering not using the helmet anymore, head or neck, either way your dead! If the states and insurance companies really want to save lives and reduce payouts, fund some more awareness campaigns, start increasing the requirements for getting a driver's license, and make it so anyone who kills another on the highways goes away for a long time.

This kind of reminds me of the gun argument.....Cities like Chicago cling to their gun bans because they think they are doing (us) a favor. As a Firefighter people that see me without a helmet nearly lose thier minds because I'm somehow violating the commandments sent down by the safety gods. Because I don't wear a helmet doesn't make me unsafe....Im a very cautious rider & in 20 something years of riding I haven't gotten into a crash yet (not that I havent come close) Its kind of like if you send your kid out without a bike helmet these days.....People want to call child protective services on you or something....

Yes, and we know that those gun bans keep cities like Chicago, NYC, Detroit, Washington DC, and LA crime free. Murders with firearms are so rare in those places.

I find it hard to believe that you can think while seat belts save lives..that helmets don't. Just the fact of being in a cage will increase your chances of living. While I'll always advocate choice and admit to riding sans helmet on occasion, it just doesn't make sense that helmets don't save lives. Sure..in many accidents you're gonna die no matter what, but I don't see where this article proves anything. Any time you protect your head with a quality helmet, especially a full face helmet, your odds increase on living. You may be screwed up physically in other ways and may not want to be alive, but it just doesn't make sense that helmets don't save lives. The only thing I can think of is maybe not wearing a helmet makes you drive more defensive..that sure will increase your odds of surviving. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to blast anyone here, I'm just trying to logically think this through.

i have been riding 35+ years. when i was young and foolish i had a bike, a kawasaki h1 500. it was way to fast . not as properly maintained as it should have been. it threw me twice at over 125 mph. the first time i had enough clothes on to not lose much skin. the second time i had a few to many, and didn't wear the right clothes. lost alot of skin to road rash. i did have a helmet on both times, i believe it saved my life both times, the scuff marks where quite evident, and where they where and how deep they where, showed how much my noggin would have been damaged. i also had a car turn left in front of me , it was a low speed crash and without a helmet, my head was ok. broke a collar bone though. if the state didn't say i had to wear a helmet i wouldn't. i belive that the choise should be an individual one.

SK, I know the idea of helmets not actually savings lives may seem counter-intuitive, but the article above is not the first I have heard of this. Years back when WI was contemplating lifting the helmet law, they commissioned a study done by a UW Madison professor to determine if the helmets worked, and after his study, he determined that they do not save lives. There will be some cases where they have saved lives, but as mentioned in the article, there is an increased chance of breaking your neck with a helmet. Perhaps if helmets had better neck support, like the cycle racers wear, that could be remedied.

Looking at the rate of death in the above article, you can see the rate of fatalities per 100 accidents is actually slightly lower without the helmet, though it is a statistically small amount that could be attributed to other factors, such as non-helmeted drivers driving more defensively, as you mentioned. If that is the case, it indicates that at worst, helmets provide a false sense of security. I think awareness programs, better driver education, banning of cell phones while driving, and better enforcement of traffic laws would do a better job of reducing all fatalities, not just motorcycles.

Take cares and ride safe!

Wow. Personally I don't care what the helmet law is in whatever state I'm in, I always wear a helmet. I went down last fall at 60mph, all my gear took the abuse. I did break my foot, but i wasn't wearing motorcycle boots, just cheap construction boots.

Please do not get me wrong, I am not saying that helmets never save lives, but that they may at times save, they may at times take. I am just opposed to governments telling people they must, when the evidence does not support the laws. I usually wear a helmet myself, as I feel they do protect me against some things. I once had a bird hit my helmet. I was doing about 30 at the time, and it was a small bird, but none the less I think it would have hurt to have the thing hit me smack in the forehead at that speed ( the bird was dead either way though, sorry PETA). I have had rocks, large bugs, debris, you name it bounce off my head. Maybe I just like my scalp a little too much.

But I would not advocate making it mandatory unless it can be shown to significantly raise the survival rate, and not surviving as a quadriplegic. Anyone who rides, or drives, or leaves the house ever, faces some risks. Riding is far more dangerous than driving, but we do it because we like it, we like the freedom, the feel of a bike responding to you, the openness and all that.

I am currently working in Thailand. There are more two wheeled vehicles here (mostly scooters) than you will ever see in the US. They drive crazy, but in many ways are safer, as all drivers are used to them and watch out for them (you do not what to hit a scooter, whatever way they are driving, as the laws do not care). I have seen some things that would make you swear in disbelief, but drivers actually watch for two-wheelers, while in the states, many do not even see us. If we want to save lives, we need to get the message out to watch out. Hitting a car doing a left turn in front of a biker at road speed will most likely kill you, helmet or not. If we spend the effort making all driving safer, we will save more in the long run.

Keep riding, keep safe,
Panthera

I've been ridin near 25 yrs now and and used all types of helmets and feel the safest one I own is my illegal novelty helmet(beany). It is light - no fatigue,it will handle those low mph head scrapes and not break my head off at higher speed impact. But here in Canada it isn't legal but a 5 lb sponge bucket is? I have also read other reports that say the wait of a full size helmet may also restrict your heads natural movement in a crash thus causing injuries you might not have received without it!

Most don't understand that the government and all the safety laws are there to protect us from ourselves, because left to our own devices we will ultimately destroy ourselves. Government is good...I wish the government would have more control over our lives. Orwellian philosophy at its finest...

the government only protects from common sense, there are all sorts of smart or even brilliant minds out there that can't even change a light bulb, and these are the ones needing protected, although the other end of the spectrum can't keep a dime in their pocket because they can't add or some times even read, but they can build an engine to scream with the demons or build the house you might live in, if i had to listen to the government, or my gut in a live or die situation i will go with my gut it rarely lets me down, but the govenment ....well ....its been a while since i've heard much common sense coming out of there