Citation

Wall D, Atkinson R. J. Australas. Coll. Road Saf. 2010; 21(4): 7.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, Australasian College of Road Safety)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The article on bicycle helmet legislation (Journal of the ACRS, August 2010) raises some interesting questions about the value of bicycle helmets. It is intuitive that if the head is protected there should be less injury, so it is strange there should be argument against the use of helmets. We need to be very careful when analyzing data, as the anecdotal experience of numerous colleagues who have fallen while cycling, shattering the helmet, is that they felt they had avoided major injury. These experiences go unreported and therein lies the problem - an immeasurable but highly significant gap in the data.

Similarly, the paper is reliant on the reporting of arm injuries -- if treated outside the hospital system these will not appear. We are therefore starting to argue something which we have not truly measured. We need to look at this more carefully and a large survey of cyclists with impact injuries would seem to be the way forward.