Talk:Bicycle helmet laws

Reliable sources on science

I have removed the Insurance Institute figures - they are impressive and they are wrong, being based on FARS data which does not accurately capture bicycle helmet use. See for example http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1174.html or Faulty FARS bicycle helmet use data & implications for effectiveness. Riley R Geary, traffic safety analyst. Injury Prevention eletters, 29 July 2006. http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/12/3/148/reply#injuryprev_el_294?sid=0e653aa9-94bb-40e6-af15-fa86bb544b8f. I have also removed the 85% and 88% figures - they too are wrong, being based on the misunderstanding that an odds ratio of 0.12 means a protective value of 88%. I'm sorry to say that these two figures are shibboleths for an unreliable review of the sources. Not that we expect a full professional review here, that's what secondary sources are for, but we should not include known rubbish.

I have also inserted (from the Bicycle helmet article) a brief account of the two leading reviews of the effects of bicycle helmet laws. One says they work and one says they don't. There is no agreement and we really need to maintain a neutral point of view. However, I have left most of the article as it is for the time being. It needs a lot of work - we don't need a haphazard and unbalanced selection of primary sources and propaganda, and there are plenty of other misunderstandings here - but that can wait for further discussion. Richard Keatinge (talk) 10:35, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Some of the above seems problematic in light of Wiki guidelines Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources and Wikipedia:Verifiability. Who knows these figures to be wrong or "rubbish"? Is that for an editor to decide unilaterally or for the reader of the article to decide by being able to read first the one source, then another that contests it? Nelsonsnavy (talk) 20:01, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Structure / possible headings

Musing aloud, trying to correlate the standard "5Ws and H" with the course aims:

Helmet Laws

Understand what policy analysis is and how policy analysis can improve governance:

Why - Rebecca Oaten and local champion individuals in other jurisdictions. Organizations, medics and others. Support from Safekids. (Understand the role of people skills in policy analysis and be able to identify how your people skills can be improved.)

How - Propaganda, science, Elvik on progression of the science in this area over the last 20 years. (Be able to identify how policy is made.) Identify known blunders?

Where - list? We have a nice map of US laws, does anyone feel like adding to it? A world map?

When - dates, table / addition to map

Who - some children only, some adults also. Enforcement / observance?

What - are the results? Amount of cycling (especially utility cycling and success of bike sharing schemes). Cost-benefit ratio for health (de Jong) and financial (Scuffham). Series with control groups: Australian census data from Robinson, Canadian census data. Proportion of injuries that are to the head. Deaths. Risk per mile - the controversy, Robinson and the Cochrane reviews - maybe a very brief comment with main article reference? (Understand when forecasting and cost-benefit analysis are appropriate and apply the proper technique to analyze policy in the proper situation. Be more adept at using statistics to analyze policy. Understand and apply the steps to analyzing policy. Understand the strengths and weaknesses of surveys and experiments in policy analysis. Be a better consumer of policy analysis.

Perhaps for Suzanne10 rather than this article:

9) Understand the similarities and differences across different types of policies.

10) Understand how to communicate about policy with a variety of audiences.

Richard Keatinge (talk) 21:18, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Use of low-quality studies

We presently have (in the Laws section) extensive reference to and quotations from a number of primary (and non-academic) studies which don't, as far as I can make out, even pretend to do basic things like use control groups or count helmet use. I suggest that if we are to use these (and there is an argument that we should; there are a lot of them and they are influential) then we need to describe them explicitly as low-grade primary sources. I can feel a bold edit coming on. Comments? Richard Keatinge (talk) 16:21, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Do we need a section on the history of helmet standards in this article?

I suggest that we don't, though the Bicycle helmet article does need one and doesn't have a good one at present. Richard Keatinge (talk) 19:07, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

88% and 85% "protection"

These figures are widely reproduced in sources that should be reliable. They have only one source, and they are straightforwardly wrong, because they are odds ratios which are not estimates of protective effect. Indeed, the authors later made correct use of odds ratios in a paper that used the same sort of data. In short, they are a marker of unreliable sources, people who have not done a good professional job of reviewing the literature. I don't think this is the right article for the full discussion of why they're wrong, but I'm very sure that we shouldn't be using these figures uncritically. I have removed them. Richard Keatinge (talk)

The figures are in the cited source, so if it's good enough for one set of numbers it's good enough for these. If those figures are part of the rationale, along with casualty numbers, then (whether you, or I, agree with then or not) it is fair to state them. -- de Facto (talk). 17:24, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

But not good enough for uncritical use. The figures are factually wrong and a marker of unreliability. Secondary reviews are "presumed" to know what they are talking about - this one demonstrably doesn't and I would suggest disqualifies itself. We don't need to make editorial judgements to include definite mistakes and we can't possibly include everything. An alternative is to include them and point out that they are in fact wrong. It's an interesting point though, what do you do when a source that should be reliable produces known nonsense? Richard Keatinge (talk) 17:55, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

The first sentence of WP:V answers your question I think. That the North Carolina Department of Transportation state those figures is verifiable, and that's all we are saying or need to say. If there are reliable sources casting doubt on those figures then perhaps you can add that discussion in a section about the quality of the available research. -- de Facto (talk). 18:03, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

If we had to include every fact in a RS this would be correct. We don't, we can't, and we shouldn't try. This "fact" is wrong. However, I'll leave it for further consideration - it's certainly widely repeated. Richard Keatinge (talk) 09:41, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Since the North Carolina Department of Transportation doesn't cite any references we'd have to assume they used the numbers from the discredited Thompson, Rivara, and Thompson study. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.30.79.194 (talk) 10:18, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

I have struck the line: Its figures of 85% and 88% protection from helmets are based on a simple misunderstanding of odds ratios, but are widely quoted. As far as I can tell, these are the actual risk reduction figures offered by that particular study, and in no sense a misunderstanding of anything. The "misunderstanding" meme appears based on a particularly cynical argument found on the Bicycle Helmet Research Foundation. The argument deliberately abuses the numbers in a mathematically incompetent way to imply the numbers are ripe for abuse! =8-o

Seems like a fair, objective approach would be to include the claim if relevant to the topic at hand and, if it has been directly questioned by other scholarly research, quote those objections and link those sources. It's one thing to find that a source has been, for example, misquoted and fix that, another to decide a citation/source is simply wrong and delete it. Is not the ultimate goal to provide a balanced survey of expert findings on the issue? A reader can easily examine the various linked sources but can't easily examine the editors' expertise or lines of thought :) Nelsonsnavy (talk) 19:40, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources#Scholarship: "Wikipedians should never interpret the content of primary sources for themselves. Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable. If the material has been published in reputable peer-reviewed sources or by well-regarded academic presses, generally it has been at least preliminarily vetted by one or more other scholars." Nelsonsnavy (talk) 20:02, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Carpenter and Stehr

Thanks Suzanne for putting in a reference to Grant and Rutner and some more details. Two papers have compared the deaths to cyclists between the US states that passed helmet laws and those that did not. Both found an association between helmet laws and reduced death rates. Both mentioned that reduced cycling might be relevant. To most of us, it is fairly obvious that reducing cycling will reduce cycling accidents (as well as all the benefits of cycling for health and transport); the important question is whether you are more likely to survive an accident if you are wearing a bicycle helmet.

Neither had access to robust figures on the degree to which helmet laws reduced cycling, but Grant and Rutner find that a "12 percent reduction in bicycling fatalities over the last decade is associated with a 21 percent decline in overall bicycle use, according to the National Sporting Goods Association". (I haven't been able to get a copy of the report of the drop in cycling; my inquiry to the National Sporting Goods Association has had no answer.) On this basis it would seem that helmet laws may increase the risk of death when cycling.

Carpenter and Stehr used good-quality data to show a 19% reduction in death rate associated with helmet laws. They had no access to any good measure of the amount of either cycling or of nonfatal accidents, nor any objective count of actual helmet use. To try to estimate the amount of riding, they used self or parental reports, which were only about frequency of riding not the distance and grouped the answers into wide categories. They ended with an estimate that riding was reduced by 4-5% by helmet laws. The face validity of these reports is very limited; there might well be a moderate correlation between them and the amount of bicycling done, but this is a long way from taking them as an exact measure. They may be described as semi-quantitative at best. They include no data on length of trip, which might plausibly be greatly reduced by a helmet law given the discomfort of a helmet if worn and the potential disbenefit of being caught breaking the law if a helmet is not worn. Carpenter and Stehr can merely suggest reduced cycling, without being able to quantify it; they commented to me that they agreed "that it would be useful to have data on cycling intensity, as well as on the presence of head injuries. Unfortunately, we are not aware of such data that would suit our research design.". Their suggestion of reduced bicycling may well be enough to account for all of the effect they found on death rate.

For Wikipedia this is rather by the way; we look for reliable sources, preferably reviews or other secondary sources. These save us from having to review highly contestable primary sources as I've just done - doing this is not the mission of Wikipedia and I wouldn't normally think it appropriate for an article, indeed I'm only putting it here to point out why the papers concerned are not reliable for us. As far as I know there are no reliable sources that describe any association between bicycle helmets and lives saved (though there are for hangings by helmet straps), and despite the figures from Grant and Rutner I also wouldn't think it appropriate for a Wikipedia article to state on that basis that helmet laws increase the death rate per mile. If we put such claims in we are heading for an enormous incoherent article full of wrangling, not encyclopedic at all.

In this particular field there are lots and lots of sources that look reliable but in fact are inferior to the two leading reviews which we do, appropriately, quote at some length. Even those are highly contested! But they are at the top of the tree of reliability for our purposes. I'd suggest removing anything not appropriately supported by reliable sources, including reference to these two primary papers. Comments welcome, of course, in fact I'd be really interested in the views of other editors on these points. I hope this helps. Richard Keatinge (talk) 21:57, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Focus on laws

I think the article is moving too far away from specifically addressing the laws -- their history, support and opposition and repeal, and a listing of current state of laws around the world -- and talking too much about the case for and against helmets. The "process of introduction" section only spends about half of its content talking about laws. The section on arguments for and against the laws is really now about the case for and against helmets: only the section "Total numbers of injured cyclists" actually talks about the laws. The third section, "Arguments about whether helmet laws have been beneficial or harmful", looks fine, though.

I don't want to be negative, because the material is all good, but as a result of the changes it looks like this article is not going to make it as a DYK. See here for the reviewer's comments. I think it's probably too late to save the DYK, but I think it would be good to refocus the article more specifically on the laws -- some of the material here could be beneficially moved to the bicycle helmet article. I don't think the two articles should be merged, because there's a good deal to say about the laws themselves. Mike Christie (talk – library) 14:45, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

You're the second editor who's suggested that, and you may be right. So, a mention that there are arguments which preceded the actual laws, and a Main notice?

This was always going to be difficult as a DYK because of the feelings involved - the fervour is almost of religious intensity at times, and any balanced presentation upsets some people. Sorry to rain on Suzanne10's parade, though. The DYK hook is still there - is it worth one last push? Richard Keatinge (talk) 17:55, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, if you can change the article sufficiently to nullify the objections raised at DYK, sure, but I doubt there's time. Mike Christie (talk – library) 16:38, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

I am just wondering about fines/penalties for failure to obey helmet laws? If they exist, what are they and do they vary by state? Also wondering about fines/penalties for parents who fail to require their children to wear helmets? The article also discusses a decrease in bicyclists when helmet laws are passed. Is that also true for United States cities?Dvpolicy11 (talk) 17:55, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

I aree with this and other criticisms here of this article: confused focus, under-developed sections, etc. With respect, it could perhaps use a re-write from scratch, with a clear focus on specific laws, their history of being passed/repealed, specific political/economic debates that have sprung up around them, etc.

The article tries, unsuccessfully, to replicate the whole bicycle helmet debate in miniature to where it looses clarity and focus. For instance, "Arguments for and against helmet laws" fails to contextualize the issue with a clear introduction and proceeds to throw some data at the reader. Further, there is no mention of one of the chief arguments against such laws, namely the political argument of seeking to avoid government intrusion in what some perceive to be a personal matter. It's certainly important to provide a brief summary of some of the chief arguments for and against helmet laws to let the reader understand they are contentious and why they are contentious, but the main bicycle helmet article already deals with much of the info/arguments here. Nelsonsnavy (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:20, 2 February 2012 (UTC).

I tend to agree per the conclusion in the next section. We need some clarity on where things go and we also need to make editorial selections in a very contentious area. The main potential overlap arises from the fact that the best evidence on the results of mass helmet use, quite understandably, comes from jurisdictions that have made helmets compulsory. I suggest that Bicycle helmet needs a nice scientific account of the main arguments, and it seems to have quite a good one at present. (Does anyone have any reliable sources for the libertarian argument, or for it being important? I haven't found one.) This page needs a history of the passing, results, repeal etc of various laws and while it could do with development it doesn't seem too bad. The big problems are when we start quoting primary research and even reviews on effects, because they often flatly contradict each other and there is no scholarly consensus. We can document the various opinions and facts of course. I suggest that we need, in particular, to avoid, in particular, making our own editorial comments about sources, and that if we can do that then we can end up with good-quality encyclopedic articles. Richard Keatinge (talk) 11:09, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

US article needed

The US specific studies and the map at the head of the article should go in a Bicycle helmets in the United States article. Having the map in the article gives a little bit of systemic bias. Haven't checked the article revisions yet but was there some US-specific stuff that can be retrieved for such an article? -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 06:34, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

I think it would be better to keep the article titles and extend the coverage, otherwise we risk having multiple articles about bicycle helmets in different parts of the globe, when in fact much of the information is going to be the same in each article. If we can make this article more global then the U.S. specific stuff will be fine; it will just be in a specific section of this article. Mike Christie (talk – library) 16:40, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Mike and suggest that we should ultimately aim to merge Bicycle helmets in New Zealand in here. Richard Keatinge (talk) 17:56, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

There is general info and country specific info about bike helmet laws. If bike helmet laws are notable for a particular country, as they are for New Zealand and Australia, they are deserving of a country specific article. If all the info is lumped into this article it may become too long and would need splitting. In my experience of splitting articles it is better to start a specific topic from scratch rather than having to extricate it from a longer overview article. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 03:26, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I am not sure what you mean by the "risk having multiple articles about bicycle helmets in different parts of the globe". WP is not paper. There is no reason that we cannot have articles about bike helmet laws about every country. In reality there would only be a small number of countries that would be deserving of helmet law articles. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 03:30, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

There's no rush and there are several reasonable ways of doing this. A well-coordinated series of articles might include one on the helmets to include most of the scientific debate, one on the laws in general, and, optionally, one for each country that has laws. Alan, do you think we should we include one for each Australian state, each US state or municipality, as well? Does the repealed law in Mexico City deserve an article of its own? Where and how should we draw the line? Richard Keatinge (talk) 09:38, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, we need the Bicycle helmet article for the scientific debate, Bicycle helmet laws for a generic coverage of the laws (as well as mention of the debate) and Bicycle helmets by country to summarise all aspects of helmets for any country that has anything worth mentioning. As an educated guess I don't think that an article on helmets for individual states etc is worth creating. The line is draw using the notability guidelines. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 07:06, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I think that seems reasonable; I would suggest that Bicycle helmets by country is likely to eventually be merged with the other two, but no need to rush -- if it turns out to need a separate existence we'll find that out as we fill these articles out. Mike Christie (talk – library) 09:36, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, so we're aiming eventually for two or three articles. Seems good to me. Richard Keatinge (talk) 22:09, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Article Critique for Public Policy Analysis

I have read over this article and have some suggesstions and questions. My first concern is the extensive list of sources. There 68 references listed, yet the article itself is only a few pages long. Where is all this information and how is it incorportated in the article? I also found this article very hard to follow and the sentences are very choppy. Is the article about Bicycle Helmet Laws across the nation? Is it just focused in the United States (there is a map of the United States on the first page), or is it focused in New Zealand and Australia? The main focus seems to be New Zealand and Australia. I also found several areas where the article contradicted itself: "...most U.S. states and municipalities have no laws or regulations regarding helmet use. In the U.S. 21 states and the District of Columbia have statewide mandatory helmet laws, either for children or for all ages..." There are also several sections where there is a title, such as "Support for laws" but the content is only one sentence. Isnt this information that could be incorporated in the body of the article? Another area of concern is a section titled, " The wider debate on bicycle helmets," and to me this would include information and opinions on the biycycle helmet laws across the nation, or the world if that is the focus of the article. However, that particular section only focuses on Dutch opinion and research. There is some great information in this article, I just feel that it has been edited too many times and pulled apart to the point that it is hard to make sense of the information. I did think there were several sections that were easier to understand than others, especially the section titled, "Total numbers of injured cyclists." This section presented data from research studies clearly and presented facts and figures from major institutes involved in the policy making of Bicycle helmet laws. Trovb5152.18.149.82 (talk) 18:26, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Readability and content

In my role as a "general reader" I got bogged down in the excessive analysis of the pros and cons of helmet research and feel it negatively impacts readability of the article. Perhaps you can create a separate page. A similar situation happened with the pages about US Health Reform, Patient Affordable Care Act, that contained lots of content and edits about opposing viewpoints and perspectives about sources, etc. This lead to information about law and policy getting lost in the debate over the law and policy. In that case a separate page was created Health care reform debate in the United States. That page was linked to from aforementioned pages and others such as health care quality and patient safety. Since there is already a page about international Bicycle helmets by country I wonder if this page could focus on US helmet law and policy with a different page about the helmet debate (US and International). When I checked the category list on bicycle helmets, cycling gear, cycling safety it seems that quite a few of those pages have extensive content that also covers this debate. Rather than that redundancy it might be preferable to consolidate that extensive debate into a single place and encourage links from related sites.Anne CAC19 (talk) 20:01, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Great Article

I thought your article was really good. There was a ton of info and if I were to be looking for something on helmet laws I would certainly check out your article. The only thing that I saw that you could possibly change would be some of the separating headers. I think you could combine a lot of information under just a few headers instead, but overall I think you did really well.Tdtallent1 (talk) 17:38, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Good Article Nomination

I notice that this has a WP:GAN. I am not reviewing it, but if I was, my first comment would be the lead. WP:Lead says "The lead serves both as an introduction to the article and as a summary of its most important aspects." I would expect about two paragraphs in the lead for an article of this length, in order to achieve this. I think it would be good to address this, or the GAN could be failed at the first hurdle, which would be a shame. Bob1960evens (talk) 11:05, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I was also about to write the same comment, but have no intention of doing the GA review. Also, make sure that you don't have any 1 sentence paragraphs, that looks very bad, and doesn't conform with good stylistic practices for writing. I noticed that you have a map of the United States bicycle laws. Have you thought about doing a section discussing where exactly bicycle laws have been enacted. If link using {{main}} you can simply write a summary of Bicycle helmets by country, Sadads (talk) 18:56, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Bicycle helmet laws/GA. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Jezhotwells (talk) 22:56, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I shall be reviewing this article against the Good Article criteria, following its nomination for Good Article status.

Disambiguations: none found.

Linkrot: four dead links found and tagged.[1] Jezhotwells (talk) 23:02, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Checking against GA criteria

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

   The lead is too short, should probably be at least two paragraphs and should fully summarize the article, please check out WP:LEAD

   Single sentences and short one sentence paragraphs should be consolidated

   Prose is mostly reasonably good, but organization is poor, jumping from topic to topic without any coherence.

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

   Four dead links tagged as noted above.

   Citations should be consistent, would be best to use the appropriate the citation templates as listed at Template:Citation. If subscription is needed for journals that should be noted.

   Accessible sources appear to be WP:RS

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   Appears to contain mainly information from the English speaking world, and mostly the US. This is not comprehensive enough for a world wide encyclopaedia.

   The map in the lead refers only to the United States.

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

   Little coverage of opposition to control laws.

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

   One image used with tags and a caption, but see above under broad coverage.

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

   This is potentially an interesting article, but it lacks thorough and comprehensive coverage. The subject area is difficult to cover, it may be better to concentrate on one geographical area. Four dead links need to be fixed. The US-centric approach needs to be addressed if this is meant to be comprehensive. The structure of the article is poor, with too many short sections. On hold for seven days for these issues to be addressed. Jezhotwells (talk) 23:31, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

   There has been no attempt to address these issues, so as eight days have passed, I shall not be listing at this time. If you do nominate for good article status, you need to respond to a review, address the issues raised and communicate with the reviewer. This is an important part of Wikipedia processes - communicating with other editors. Jezhotwells (talk) 22:31, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

The wider debate on bicycle helmets

This section needs some help. Seems to have an exclusively Dutch focus. That doesn't sound "wider," exactly. Nelsonsnavy (talk) 19:51, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Porting Info from Bicycle Helmet Article?

On Talk:Bicycle helmet there has been agreement on moving and merging a lot of information from the Bicycle helmet article relating specifically to bicycle helmet laws (supporters, opponents, arguments, etc.) over to this article, leaving just a brief synopsis and pointer about the issue in the general Bicycle helmet article. The purpose would be to streamline the Bicycle helmet article a bit while elaborating on some underdeveloped sections here. Such a movement of material would necessarily entail some substantial alterations and expansions to this article.

Any support for, objections to, or suggestions about this idea? I'd like to get some input and consensus here before beginning what could be a fairly large undertaking. Thanks. Nelsonsnavy (talk) 18:59, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Maybe it would be better the other way round, delete this page and move the content to either the Bicycle helmet laws by country article or the bicycle helmet article. I feel we're making good progress on cleaning up the bicycle helmet article. Erik Sandblom (talk) 14:49, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

That would be workable too, but so I thnk will the present arrangements. So long as we leave pointers to the other pages with overlapping subjects. Richard Keatinge (talk) 16:45, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

For the reader I think it's just confusing with six articles on basically the same subject: bicycle helmet‚ Bicycle helmet laws, Bicycle helmet laws by country, Bicycle helmets in Australia, Bicycle helmets in New Zealand, Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute. With a little work I think we could whittle it down to two or three. Erik Sandblom (talk) 17:34, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Seems good to me. What structure would you suggest - what goes on which page? Richard Keatinge (talk) 18:06, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

We could start by moving relevant information from to Bicycle helmet laws to the other pages and deleting it, and also deleting Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute. For the NZ & Australia articles, we could merge them into one article for both countries, or even delete both and move the info to bicycle helmet but that might be too much work for now. Erik Sandblom (talk) 18:19, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I think the NZ and Australia articles should stay in place since they're model cases, each with a fair amount of country-specific research and debate.Nelsonsnavy (talk) 13:12, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

The article that strikes me as redundant is Bicycle helmet laws by country, which could be merged into Bicycle helmet laws as a brief section on jurisdictions with notable experiences relating to laws. Richard Keatinge (talk) 17:55, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

May 2013 article in BMJ on Effectiveness of Canadian law

I saw a new article that may be a helpful source:

Dennis, Jessica; Ramsay, Tim; Turgeon, Alexis F; Zarychanski, Ryan (2013). "Helmet legislation and admissions to hospital for cycling related head injuries in Canadian provinces and territories: Interrupted time series analysis". BMJ. 346: f2674. doi:10.1136/bmj.f2674. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |laydate= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |laysource= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |laysummary= ignored (help)

What is already known on this topic

Cyclists are vulnerable road users; head injuries among cyclists account for 75% of cycling related fatalities
Debate exists about whether or not helmet legislation is an effective strategy to reduce serious head injuries among child and adult cyclists

What this study adds

When baseline trends in cycling related injury rates were considered, the overall rates of head injuries were not appreciably altered by helmet legislation
In the context of provincial and municipal safety campaigns, improvements to the cycling infrastructure, and the passive uptake of helmets, the incremental benefit of provincial helmet legislation to reduce admissions to hospital for head injuries is substantially uncertain

  —Chris Capoccia ^T⁄_C 21:38, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

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Changes to the lead

The editor Jacona is edit-warring changes into the lead that misrepresent the state of research on the topic of bicycle helmet laws. There are several peer-reviewed meta-analyses and reviews in the body of the article, all of which conclude that bicycle helmet laws are effective at reducing harm. The lead should summarize those review studies, not just whatever random newspaper coverage (and random links to bicycle-enthusiast websites) of individual studies that Jacona can find. The editor needs to seek consensus if they want to change long-standing text. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 00:25, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

First, please address the issue, rather than making accusations toward other editors. Wikipedia is not a WP:BATTLEGROUND. There are many, many peer-reviewed studies and meta-analyses that show that perversely, while helmets may improve safety (though not nearly as much as touted by some governments and manufacturers) or may not (as this study found), the overall effect on cycling health and safety is often negative. One could start by taking a look at helmet use v fatality rate by country to get an introduction to the non-neutral point of view that has been placed in this article. Then continue to examine studies such as this canadian study. There are many more studies that have found that while helmets may provide protection, helmet laws wind up having counterproductive effects. Given that, the lede should not make the controversial position that helmet laws reduce fatalities and injuries when many sources show the opposite effect.Jacona (talk) 03:07, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

The Washington Area Bicyclist Association is not a RS, so I'm not going to bother with that one. You linked to a 2011 meta-analysis, which conflicts with meta-analyses published before it, and which conflicts with three subsequent meta-analyses (one from 2018, another from 2017 and a Cochrane review from 2011). Per NPOV, we should not give undue focus to minority views in the literature. As for the other stuff in your comment, one is an unsourced photo of correlations, and no one disputing that individual studies have contrary findings. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 04:15, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

It's ludicrous to defend the concept that helmet laws make for safety, as presented above, the safest countries for cyclists in the world, for example the Netherlands, do not have helmet laws and have the lowest helmet usage in the world, while the most dangerous countries, such as the US and the UK, have a much higher incidence of both helmet laws and helmet usage. The research that purports to show helmet laws as effective are rooted in the debunked research that claimed 85% decrease in fatalities due to helmet usage. Even the US Federal government has admitted that this was simply not true. The almost religious belief among helmet advocates that cycling is dangerous causes behavioral changes that are negative to the health and safety of riders, (more). There are links to several studies of referenced here and here.Jacona (talk) 12:57, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

I've returned to the stable version. Jacona, a 2018 systematic review and meta-analysis is a higher-quality source than biking advocacy websites or one-off studies (especially those that predate the review). See WP:MEDASSESS, which gives a general pyramid of evidence quality. (The policy is generally geared at biomedical content, but it also reflects a general principle that holds true for public health and injury prevention-type content like the text at issue here). If you know of other reviews or meta-analyses, we can add them, but we should not use one-off studies to try to "debunk" a recent reviews or meta-analysis. We also should generally avoid using blogs, the popular press, etc., as a counterweight to peer-reviewed sources. Neutrality^talk 23:24, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, Neutrality, for discussing. There's a lot more there, each cite leads to more info, I did not put it all here because it's very time-consuming. But it appears it is necessary. It will take a while, I'm not sure I have the energy for it right now, but the idea that helmet laws improves health and safety is based entirely on flawed assumptions. The subject is deeply religious to some, as you can see by the visceral response it evoked in what I otherwise believe to be a good editor: casting aspersions, poisoning the well, refusing to wait for any discussion/consensus, etc. Very interesting. Just this one chart should be enough to cause the helmet enthusiasts to question their flawed analysis, but helmet laws seem to be more religion than science. Anyone who dives deep into the subject will most likely find, as I have, that helmet laws are ultimately damaging to the health and welfare. Hopefully more editors will bother to take a look at the sources. Jacona (talk) 12:56, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

I do not have any stake in this debate and was completely agnostic on the subject before I did a literature review and added the relevant literature to this page. This claim: "Anyone who dives deep into the subject will most likely find, as I have, that helmet laws are ultimately damaging to the health and welfare." is just false. Multiple reviews and meta-analyses conclude that the evidence goes in a different direction Snooganssnoogans (talk) 13:09, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

At least that's close to discussion than the previous tactics, such as poisoning the well by name-calling, that you have employed in this exchange.Jacona (talk) 13:21, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

It is a very complicated subject, and a detailed analysis will be very time-consuming. It was my hope that by posting some links to the research, and to the overwhelming facts (that injuries and fatalities are highest in the countries with more restrictive laws, and lowest in countries with less restrictive laws) and that even modest reductions in the amount of cycling, for which there is a huge health benefit, far outweigh the far smaller benefits of helmet laws. If one researches the subject thoroughly, (particularly the health benefits of cycling, and the reduction in cycling found even by promoting helmet use, such as was done in Denmark), that's what they will find. Snooganssnoogans, I'm sorry you haven't reached that conclusion. I have no doubt that if you continue to research it, you will.Jacona (talk) 13:49, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Could you please provide citations for some of the “many, many peer-reviewed studies and meta-analyses” which show that "the overall effect on cycling health and safety is often negative" and that helmet laws increase fatalities and injuries. Linda.m.ward (talk) 07:18, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Program course assignment

This article is the subject of an educational assignment at Winona State University supported by WikiProject United States Public Policy and the Wikipedia Ambassador Program during the 2011 Spring term. Further details are available on the course page.

The above message was substituted from {{WAP assignment}} by PrimeBOT (talk) on 16:35, 2 January 2023 (UTC)