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Permanent hair reduction can be an important step in creating a more confident and more successful person.

truecraig,

You have your burden of proof on the wrong guy's shoulders here - the case control studies predicted 85-90% reduction in major head injuries and fatalities; but the population-wide data in every single country shows zero benefit. At this point, you need to stop asking "prove to me that helmets don't help" and start saying "prove to me that they DO help".

Likewise, if Bayer came up with a new antibiotic called Wondercillin that promised to cure ear infections in one day based on case-control studies, and then after ten years in actual use, somebody ran the data and noticed that ear infections were taking just as long to run their course as they ever did, even though 50% of the population now takes Wondercillin, you'd start to wonder whether Bayer's early studies were flawed, right?

Yep, anon. It all comes full circle around here.

What!?!? A bunch of people showing up that don't even bike voting for a helmet law. That's absurd. that would be like all kinds of people showing up to vote for the smioking ban that don't even go out and have yet to go out and support the economy downtown since it went into effect....oh wait.

To be clear, I am no fan of wearing a cockroach-shaped sweat-machine helmet. I am more a fan of making safer bike routes, promoting driver-awareness, and defensive biking.

But M1EK, I read the reports. And I honestly wanted to see their nay-saying results as proof that my hair can blow freely. But I believe there's simply too many variables for anyone to say anything substantive about the “results”. Lots of plausible conjecture, but these weren’t closed experiments. They weren’t exhaustive. The Australian one specifically, as they combined their helmet law with speed limit changes and a lowering of the blood-alcohol level. Also, are these recreational bikers or training professionals? Is using hospital statistics where the patients "described the cause of their injury" that dependable when people lie about everything?

"Another fist-bruise concussion? Now Mary, did you fall down the stairs again? Walk into another door?"

"Uh, no doc. Fell off my bike. Again."

Besides, just because there’s a law does not mean everyone follows it. The same no-helmet wearing dare-devils might be responsible for the pre and post-helmet law statistics. There’s no way to know.

Wikipedia is a useful resource, but not an accredited reference. Anyone should be wary of depending on it. Especially that entry, as it was obviously penned/edited/re-edited by individuals with bias.

The helmet issue will come down to notions and opinions, just as most other heated debates do in this town. All I can say in the defense of anyone who backs this initiative based on the notion of "public safety" is that if I were to be thrown headlong into a light pole at 15 mph, I think wearing a helmet would be preferable to not. Even if it wouldn't protect my neck or spine.

Perhaps an even better option is to soft-pad every hard surface in the city. Just to cover the rollerbladers and skaters too.

I would find it hilarious (I'm all out of other emotions at this point) if it came up for voter referendum and the hordes of non-bikers showed up to demand that we wear dubiously-necessary helmets. That would be the hat-trick of dick-swinging bullshit laws for me. I'll have to move my dream of being able to build a smoke-friendly, sans-helmet velodrome/McMansion-Bar... to somewhere more liberal. Like Pakistan.

I hope no one bothered reading this whole thing.

I find it telling that the person promoting this nonsense is none other than Bruce Todd, the sprawl-loving mayor who pushed through a similar ordinance in the mid-90s. It was repealed a year later because it was so unpopular.

Apparently, rich white suburbanites are big on telling other people how to live their lives. Bruce Todd should focus on learning how to ride without falling over the handlebars.

Yes, bike helmets don't do shit against major head injuries or fatalities. If they did, you'd be able to see a corresponding real-world drop in one or both as helmet usage has risen - but in no country in the world has that actually been observed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_helmet

"Helmet use has increased significantly in many, but not most, jurisdictions since the 1980s, primarily because of helmet promotion and compulsion laws. These laws were designed to improve bicycle safety but are controversial because none has resulted in a measurable reduction in cyclist head injury rates[2] - indeed some studies have shown that helmet compulsion laws have decreased the overall safety of bicycle use and discouraged ridership."

(footnote 2 leads you to a study in the British Medical Journal).

The original case-control studies had serious flaws (back then, the people who chose to wear helmets were the safest riders overall - a common self-selected sample-bias type problem - Statistics 101 stuff).

And truecraig, please follow the links - this stuff is backed up more than any claim any other person has ever made in the history of anything ever posted to austinist.

While helmets do save lives in most cases and most surely protect your melon more than not having one; forcing people to wear one isn't the answer. Look, if people don't want to wear one and they are over 18, then so be it; it is their choice. If you pass this law, then I suggest that you also pass a law that if you are driving within the city limits of Austin you either drive a hybrid or you use the bus. Better yet, when walking you should be mandated to wear running shoes and not flip flops (you could twist an ankle easily in those damn things). There is no difference between the options, both are geared to save lives or protect you.

Point being, if you start making people wear helmets, will there be a certain type of helmet that is required? Better yet, maybe the city could get a sponsorship from say Bell and make everyone wear a Bell helmet. Choice people, choice. We don't have a whole lot of it left, don't let them take anymore of it away.

Yeah, that "bike helmets don't do shit" argument is way off. Follow the link and read the article, it says bike helmets minimize brain damage - surely a worthy function. bicycleaustin.info spews out a lot of the same arguments - the mistaken conclusions of statistical morons.

Bike helmets don't do shit? Huh. Are you the same guy who backed up the claim that second-hand smoke CAUSES cancer?

The library story reminds me of a classic Stephen Colbert interview with an uber uptight religious right person protesting what they considered to be a dangerous "gay" commercial. The look on the guy's face was great when Stephen, sympathyzing with the interviewee, said, "It's not that we hate homosexuals, we're just afraid of the ones that turn us on."

I can see it now:

"Honey, you've been in the bathroom with that book for a long time. Is everything, ok?"

"Leave me alone. I'm protesting."

The helmet law is a joke - because helmets don't do shit; all that will happen is that you discourage cycling (as has happened everywhere else this has been tried).

More here: http://mdahmus.monkeysystems.com/blog/archives/000315.html