No, it rightfully illicits that response. Wearing a safety device shouldn't make an activity less safe.
Your "simple equation" relies on your variables being solid. And they aren't.
It's important to stress that the behavioural studies from Bath (that show helmeted riders take more risks in simulations, that cars give them less space) are not data about whether helmeted users are at greater risk. Or that comparisons between US and NZ riders and outcomes are comparable because of vastly different road and rider profiles.
It's also hard to show how much helmets are helping because zero-harm accidents are rarely reported, so if we assume that they function correctly, and do reduce harm in impacts, we simply don't know how many near-misses there are.
You can look at hospital admission data two studies show 75 and 78% of cyclists admitted with serious-enough head/neck injuries hadn't worn a helmet. That still needs adjusting for total accidents, and proportion of helmeted riders on the road in the first place. Again, poor reporting makes this tough.
You also have to be aware that some studies and stats are polished up by people fervently for and against mandatory helmet laws. Biased reporting doesn't help anyone. There's a good selection here: https://www.helmets.org/stats.htm (domain suggests a strong bias, but I'm not sure).
Pedal Me doesn't provide a good argument here. It seems more like they're worried what their customers will think (do they need helmets too?) and nothing to do with actual safety outcomes.
> No, it rightfully illicits that response. Wearing a safety device shouldn't make an activity less safe.
American Football vs Rugby and the difference in CTE is often cited as the prime example of where this is true. Helmets and shoulder pads encourage riskier hits.
Often cited, sure, but I don't see cyclists (myself included) put a helmet on and start taking on 18-wheelers. What I'm trying to say is it matters how true these studies are. Say we accept there's an increased risk of having an accident, the data also shows that if you have an accident you're much more likely to die without a helmet.
I think a lot of people —including experienced cyclists— would be surprised how easily a silly little fall, a knock against a car, can just kill you.
So even if a helmet makes you marginally more likely to be involved in an accident, being a professional vulnerable road user, all day is no joke. I'd like to have safety equipment when my number comes up.
American Football is all about set plays. You line up and then charge at each other, meaning you have two lines effectively charging at each other and can focus all your effort on this one effort.
Rugby is much more fluid, so the amount of direct head-on-head collisions is much lower, and the distance someone typically runs before tackling someone is much lower as the 'engagements' are more frequent.
American Football is like going from 0-60mph every 10 minutes, whereas rugby is about sitting at 30mph constantly.
I don’t want to be rude, but wide receivers and running backs get CTE as much as other positions and their movement patterns are nearly identical to rugby.
I agree linemen are a novel concept, but they’re not the only victims.
I was not suggesting it's only linemen. I think my point still stands about NFL being all about 'set plays'. NFL is all "set up, set up, set up, RUN, TACKLE, STOP", whereas rugby is more "run run tackle run tackle run tackle stop".
Combine that with the fact when a Rugby player makes an extended run, they aren't often tackled directly head or side-on, it's more perhaps an "anchor" tackle from the back to pull them down. In american football, the safeties and deep players have more opportunity to get head-on with a receiver while the ball is in flight, while a rugby full-back having to watch and run horizontally while the player is running means they are less likely to be directly head-on.
Further combine that with the fact that Rugby governing bodies have penalised 'high tackles', and the rate of CTE drops significalty.
>I think my point still stands about NFL being all about 'set plays'. NFL is all "set up, set up, set up, RUN, TACKLE, STOP", whereas rugby is more "run run tackle run tackle run tackle stop".
Is your core argument that rugby is safer because the players are more tired at any given point so they don't hit as hard? Other than that, I am struggling to figure out the mechanism between stopping more frequently and football being more dangerous.
>Combine that with the fact when a Rugby player makes an extended run, they aren't often tackled directly head or side-on, it's more perhaps an "anchor" tackle from the back to pull them down. In american football, the safeties and deep players have more opportunity to get head-on with a receiver while the ball is in flight, while a rugby full-back having to watch and run horizontally while the player is running means they are less likely to be directly head-on.
I'd suggest you watch videos like [0] to diligence your claim that head-on tackles aren't common in rugby.
The nuance that you are missing is the power equation - American football's best tacklers focus on short-duration, high-work contact (i.e. maximizing power) to knock an offensive player off their feet [1]. Think of it like placing a nail. You can swing a metal hammer and a rubber mallet (of the same mass) against the same nail and the metal hammer will always drive it better because the dt portion of the power equation (i.e. the denominator) is smaller.
The metaphor extends: rugby players may put in the same amount of work (or more!) on a given tackle, but the dt part of their power equation is much higher than in the NFL because humans are squishy (in practice this is also why you see so much more form tackling in rugby - it's hard to generate enough power to just knock someone over without wearing pads).
Ultimately, high power hits are what cause the rapid, high energy head movements that cause CTE and those are just easier to do in pads.
Your "simple equation" relies on your variables being solid. And they aren't.
It's important to stress that the behavioural studies from Bath (that show helmeted riders take more risks in simulations, that cars give them less space) are not data about whether helmeted users are at greater risk. Or that comparisons between US and NZ riders and outcomes are comparable because of vastly different road and rider profiles.
It's also hard to show how much helmets are helping because zero-harm accidents are rarely reported, so if we assume that they function correctly, and do reduce harm in impacts, we simply don't know how many near-misses there are.
You can look at hospital admission data two studies show 75 and 78% of cyclists admitted with serious-enough head/neck injuries hadn't worn a helmet. That still needs adjusting for total accidents, and proportion of helmeted riders on the road in the first place. Again, poor reporting makes this tough.
You also have to be aware that some studies and stats are polished up by people fervently for and against mandatory helmet laws. Biased reporting doesn't help anyone. There's a good selection here: https://www.helmets.org/stats.htm (domain suggests a strong bias, but I'm not sure).
Pedal Me doesn't provide a good argument here. It seems more like they're worried what their customers will think (do they need helmets too?) and nothing to do with actual safety outcomes.