Nationwide explains why it made cycle helmets compulsory under its travel insurance

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

I didn't realise you were so dumb you can't even understand basic English language never mind so dumb to crash into a pole on a mountain descent.
I don't need to be there for my statements to be true/accurate, statistics, facts such as risk homeostasis being an actual thing and a helmets being too flimsy to be physically capable of reducing a serious injury 75joules being about the max reduction) and the additional fact of an increased circumference when wearing mean that without a helmet you and others like you would be much less likely to have the incident in the first place as I said. This is an undeniable fact otherwise we'd have had pandemic levels of deaths/serious head injuries before helmets became a thing and why helmets have had precisely ZERO impact on cycle safety injury/death reduction.
Stop being an ignoramous of the facts!

75 joules is equivalent to a 5kg weight being dropped on to your head from a height of 1.5 metres.

That could easily case a fatal head injury.

There has been a steady and sustained drop in the relative risk of cycling over the last few decades. The risk has actually halved since 1980.

There are obviously multiple factors to consider but the statistics don't support your argument at all.

Rich_cb wrote:

There has been a steady and sustained drop in the relative risk of cycling over the last few decades. The risk has actually halved since 1980.

There are obviously multiple factors to consider but the statistics don't support your argument at all.

But surely that argument concludes that helmets don't really make any difference in making cyclists safer than pedestrians?

davel wrote:

But surely that argument concludes that helmets don't really make any difference in making cyclists safer than pedestrians?

The drop in pedestrian fatalities has been greater and has followed an almost linear pattern since the late 80s.

By contrast, the drop in cycling fatalities was fairly minimal between 1980 and 1995 then accelerated afterwards. Correlation is, of course, not causation but;

Rich_cb wrote:

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

I didn't realise you were so dumb you can't even understand basic English language never mind so dumb to crash into a pole on a mountain descent.
I don't need to be there for my statements to be true/accurate, statistics, facts such as risk homeostasis being an actual thing and a helmets being too flimsy to be physically capable of reducing a serious injury 75joules being about the max reduction) and the additional fact of an increased circumference when wearing mean that without a helmet you and others like you would be much less likely to have the incident in the first place as I said. This is an undeniable fact otherwise we'd have had pandemic levels of deaths/serious head injuries before helmets became a thing and why helmets have had precisely ZERO impact on cycle safety injury/death reduction.
Stop being an ignoramous of the facts!

75 joules is equivalent to a 5kg weight being dropped on to your head from a height of 1.5 metres.

That could easily case a fatal head injury.

There has been a steady and sustained drop in the relative risk of cycling over the last few decades. The risk has actually halved since 1980.

There are obviously multiple factors to consider but the statistics don't support your argument at all.

Got any data post-2008? My understanding is rates have been creeping upwards since then. Also, surely one needs to consider deaths and serious injuries, as the former could be converted into the latter by improving trauma care?

This graph seems to tell a slightly less encouraging story, for example

FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

Got post-2008? My understanding is rates have been creeping upwards since then. Also, surely one needs to consider deaths and serious injuries, as the former could be converted into the latter by improving trauma care?

This graph seems to tell a slightly less encouraging story, for example

KSI data is nowhere near as reliable as fatality data as it relies on accurate recording/reporting of each serious injury. You can be almost certain a fatality will be recorded, less so with a serious injury and with minor injuries the data is of such poor quality as to be almost worthless.

The KSI data FWIW shows a similar pattern to the fatality data. By comparing the cyclist rate to the pedestrian rate you can control for the effect of shared factors like medical care etc.

If the pedestrian data is changing at a different rate to the cyclist data it implies that factors specific to either cyclists or pedestrians are having an effect.

So between 1982 and 1995 there was virtually no change in the cyclist fatality rate whilst the pedestrian fatality rate dropped considerably. This implies that whatever was improving the pedestrian fatality rate was specific to pedestrians eg better road crossings.

Post 1995 the cyclist fatality rate began to drop rapidly whilst the pedestrian rate continued to decline on its previous trajectory, this strongly implies that there was a cyclist specific factor at work.

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

alansmurphy wrote:

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

alansmurphy wrote:

OldRidgeback wrote:

"Meanwhile, “BMX or [cycling] on downhill or extreme trails” is excluded."

How bizarre, the cycling acitivities where you're most likely to crash and suffer a head injury do not require a helmet? BC requires BMX racers to wear a full face MX style helmet, not even one of those silly plastic hat things.

I think they are excluding those activities from the insurance as opposed to excluding the necessity for a helmet. One for the helmet debates, the metal pole I hit on an off on Ventoux has broken my shoulder quite badly and left my helmet a mess. Very glad I was wearing it!,

so a non wearer firstly would have ridden more cautiously and probably not hit the pole/had the off, second if the event was unavoidable the liklihood is they would have not hit their head due to not increasing the circumference of their head.

These are precisely the reasons why helmets fail to help and yet people like yourself can only correlate your situation/outcome of a broken helmet as being the function of it helping you when all the evidence says actually from a statistical POV it was detrimental to you.

A few times I was glad I'm not a helmet wearer because i would definitely have being injured/had a head strike, one occasion it definitely saved my life by not wearing one. 

I didn't realise you were there, thanks for your assistance on the mountain and calling the ambulance.

As a counter argument, I climbed Ventoux, slowly wearing a helmet. I came down Ventoux evidently a little too quickly wearing a helmet. Given the massive fucking drops off the side, never once did I think ahhh this will be fine, I am wearing a helmet. I went at what I considered to be a controllable speed until something went horribly wrong coming out of a corner and the back wheel got all slippy and then the reverse breaks clocked me up.

As for the increased head circumference, my whole body hit one of those weird big metal poles as a smashed shoulder will testify. The smashed helmet merely suggests that my skull would in all likelihood suffer the same fate had I not been wearing it.

I have said many a time before that those suggesting a helmet will save your body being squished by a 4 tonne truck are fucking idiots. I can only conclude that someone thinking that a piece of protective equipment could never once have been protected by that piece of equipment is heading the same way...

I didn't realise you were so dumb you can't even understand basic English language never mind so dumb to crash into a pole on a mountain descent.
I don't need to be there for my statements to be true/accurate, statistics, facts such as risk homeostasis being an actual thing and a helmets being too flimsy to be physically capable of reducing a serious injury 75joules being about the max reduction) and the additional fact of an increased circumference when wearing mean that without a helmet you and others like you would be much less likely to have the incident in the first place as I said. This is an undeniable fact otherwise we'd have had pandemic levels of deaths/serious head injuries before helmets became a thing and why helmets have had precisely ZERO impact on cycle safety injury/death reduction.
Stop being an ignoramous of the facts!

And you actually believe that what you say are undeniable facts?

Wow, are you a flat earthed too?

Is there no part of your greater intelligence that could think that in one single situation a helmet may have done some good?

Go on, think hard about it...

alansmurphy wrote:

Is there no part of your greater intelligence that could think that in one single situation a helmet may have done some good?

Go on, think hard about it...

I have to say that I do find BehindTheBikesheds is being a bit intransigent here. I would like to add my own anecdote: habitually I bike with about a dozen eggs sellotaped to my head (in a modified carton). One day as I was descending at high speed (the fairing on my electric mountain bike allows me to get up to about 65 Km/h as long as there are no pedestrians to slow me down on this stretch of pavement) I fell and could immediately perceive (from the yolk dripping down my neck) that I had been saved from serious brain damage. Ridiculously, there are people that will claim that under no circumstances at all will a dozen eggs prevent brain damage. I suspect that BehindTheBikesheds may be one of these.

Ush wrote:

alansmurphy wrote:

Is there no part of your greater intelligence that could think that in one single situation a helmet may have done some good?

Go on, think hard about it...

I have to say that I do find BehindTheBikesheds is being a bit intransigent here. I would like to add my own anecdote: habitually I bike with about a dozen eggs sellotaped to my head (in a modified carton). One day as I was descending at high speed (the fairing on my electric mountain bike allows me to get up to about 65 Km/h as long as there are no pedestrians to slow me down on this stretch of pavement) I fell and could immediately perceive (from the yolk dripping down my neck) that I had been saved from serious brain damage. Ridiculously, there are people that will claim that under no circumstances at all will a dozen eggs prevent brain damage. I suspect that BehindTheBikesheds may be one of these.

You make some eggcellent points in this cracking story, hope you didn't have to shell out too much for a replacement...

drosco wrote:

I read Nationwide's response and thought 'fair enough'. I genuinely don't understand the fuss.

On one of their original tweets they said it applied in the Netherlands

don simon wrote:

Because I imagine that they'll quite happily pay out for grazed hands (gloves aren't a legal requirement either) damaged knees, elbows, wrist and shoulders (nor full body armour).

Indeed. And if they think cycling is such a dangerous activity why not refuse to insure anyone who rides a bike in any circumstances?

Take care kiddies.

[/quote]

I believe that photo to be faked.

Mungecrundle wrote:

Take care kiddies.

I believe that photo to be faked.

Rumbled.

Have you worked it out yet dinosaurJR?

Keep up with the Audi insults too, it makes you look so cool.