Cycling in Brisbane Australia
Queensland Government Commissioned 'Study' on Bicycle Helmets
Many of you might be aware of this report, commissioned & paid for by the Queensland Government. It was released this week at the same time an FOI request was granted to the Brisbane CBD BUG. The release was timed carefully...
This information is now public domain and the documents can be accessed here, where the BUG has posted an initial critique which I think is fair & accurate.
Here is my take on it:
This also corresponds to the document 'Merged Contractor Documents Released.pdf', which has the proposal & payment, with 'desired outcomes', from the Queensland Government (TMR) to CARRS-Q.
The report was primarily commissioned to counter the assertion made by Rissel (2010) and to 'prove' that bicycle helmet legislation is a good thing (even though this is not really addressed). This is not a scientific approach to the topic.
It is interesting to note that Rissel's paper had since been shown to contain errors (the author's did reply officially to the critique) yet it is still given an entire section in this report (see section 6).
The study was to include an 'examination of evidence to support a segmented approach to mandatory helmet legislation' but oddly only the recent versions contain any mention of this and certainly no mention of bike share bikes or even a trial exemption. The initial report seems to omit this information entirely. Why? In the more recent versions it is clear that they have not looked at any data from the Northern Territory (which already has such an exemption and no safety penalty!) and the 'exemption scenarios' listed contained no useful information or any data. A missed opportunity.
Robyn Davies' email on 23 February 2011 is interesting too. She notes that chapters 6 & 7 should be included and that they need to be 'on the front foot' to release this on a general website. She also states that it 'hopefully brings everyone to a new level of understanding on the value of helmets'... which shows she has completely missed the point about helmet legislation. Nobody is arguing about the value of helmets!
It also appears that Ben Wilson (Bicycle Queensland) 'brought to their attention' that I was requesting a copy of the report (Emails: p46). Why the need for such behaviour from an 'independent advocacy group'...?
An email on 28 February (Emails: p54) from Vicky Meyer (TMR) to Narelle Howarth contains the following 'condition':
Then there is this very telling piece...
"p72, last paragraph - I assume that the cited quote from Pucher et al assumes the benefits of cycling outweigh the risk of injury, given the current requirements to wear a helmet and not if the requirement was repealed? If so, it might be a good idea to mention that or at lest (sic) clarify whether or not that was assumed by the authors?"
The tail is trying to wag the dog. In the final report (section 2.5), this nonsense turned up as this - a poor effort to dismiss it entirely but I can feel the author's concern in being directed by TMR:
"Pucher, Dill and Handy (2010) conclude that “the combined evidence presented in these studies [from countries without universal helmet legislation] indicates that the health benefits of bicycling far exceed the health risks from traffic injuries, contradicting the widespread misperception that bicycling is a dangerous activity” (p.S106). Our conclusion differs somewhat: cycling does have significant health benefits and therefore should be encouraged in ways that reduce the risk of the most serious of injuries."
So I guess particular data - which is very good data - can simply be ignored as their 'conclusions differs somewhat'! This is really inappropriate!
At least the authors were honest enough to point out that this fact is in countries without universal bicycle helmet legislation. They couldn't be so bold as to imply otherwise. Unfortunately it is precisely this cost-benefit analysis that they've failed to address, looking instead at simply the cost of a helmet vs the cost of a head injury - that's far too easy.
Any other thoughts?
(a post on this topic on HelmetFreedom and some discussion on SydneyCyclist)
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Paul Martin on -
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Permalink Reply by Aaron Ball on
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Hmmm, I note that the Courier Mail still hasn't approved my 'comment' on this article. I guess their one open eye didn't agree with what I had to say.
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Permalink Reply by Paul Martin on
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Why no comments at all? This sort of one-sided closed journalism is rather disappointing.
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Permalink Reply by Paul Stockwell on -
They probably didn't get a single comment that agreed with their position :)
I look at it this way. I ride a bike, I wear a helmet. I wear one because I believe it's a good idea. But that's my decision given the conditions under which I ride. I wouldn't wear (and haven't) under other conditions.
Never wore one in my teens (going back a while now), had some accidents, still here to tell the tale. Having the MHL is THE single biggest roadblock to the success of the CityCycle scheme. Everybody knows it, but I think the government is too far entrenched in their position to back out of it now.
Stupid.
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Permalink Reply by Paul Martin on
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What is astounding is that the possibility for a trial exemption for CityCycle (like pedicab passengers enjoy...) hasn't even been raised - not even in the CARRS-Q report!
It would be easy to do and it is not as if people will be forced to not wear helmets - just make it optional. It would work for a number of reasons:
- geography of the scheme is limited
- covers areas that can be accessed with little on road riding
- bikes are easily identifiable (for policing)
- operating hours are limited
- only for adults (>17yo)
The trial could measure trips, distances covered, injury rates, etc. and can always be terminated early. If 'drivers are nervous near unhelmeted CityCycle riders', this should not be one of the criterion for termination of the trial (it would in fact prove a point)! :)
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This from the Courier Mail site yesterday:
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/bicycle-stack-hats-ar...
I'm still working my way through the detail of the report. I'm not a scientist or a researcher, and I'm finding the report hard to digest, but this is what I can make of it so far:
It relies for most of its findings on the assumption that getting rid of the mandatory helmet laws (MHLs) would not increase the numbers of people who choose to cycle. The authors come to this conclusion after admitting that there has been no clear or reliable research into what the effect on cycling numbers would be if MHLs were repealed, and admitting that the introduction of MHLs 20 years ago did in fact severely reduce the numbers of cyclists.
It only looked at very little new data specifically for this report, and admitted that much of the data (e.g. police records for crashes involving cyclists) probably only represented 11-13% of actual crashes, and even that data was probably biased towards more serious crashes involving cars (i.e. not offroad crashes).
It appears to lump sporting activities like racing, mountain biking, bmx racing etc. in with other forms of 'offroad crashes' i.e. lumped in with tootling through the park on a bike path or riding on the footpath.
It ignores a number of peer-reviewed research reports that disagree with its findings, and favours very specific data of other reports, then adds some untested "plucked out of the air" assumptions to the carefully selected data (like cyclists involved in crashes without a helmet are less likely to report the incident, or that cycling without a helmet is comparable to riding a motorcycle without a motorcycle helmet, or that riding offroad all the time would be impossible because construction work might force cyclists onto the road, or that MHLs only for kids would significantly reduce the number of kids wearing helmets) and then comes to conclusions often different from the original reports from which the authors have taken the data.
The report even has the audacity to argue that the high number of 'offroad' fatalities in the Netherlands is evidence that helmets should be mandatory there also, because "[i]t is likely that most of these fatalities could have been prevented by helmet wearing".
????. I say again ?????
Basically it seems to be saying that repealing MHLs would have no effect on the number of cyclists, but it also seems to be comparing quantitative statistics (sheer numbers) from countries with much higher rates of cycling to qualitative Australian statitstics (percentages) to get to some ludicrous conclusions. Conclusions like me riding through the park at Chermised with the kids without a helmet is 60% more dangerous than riding down Turbot St with a helmet.
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Permalink Reply by Paul Martin on
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Excellent observations, Aaron, and I agree with them all.
It is extremely disappointing to see taxpayers money wasted on such drivel - which you can bet your bottom dollar will be added to the 'print-merge replies' to members of the public!
I think more people are starting to realise that we're being played.
What have they got to lose with a trial exemption for CityCycle (completely ignored in the report!)? Imagine the data that could be gathered. The bikes are limited to geography, operating hours, age of users, etc.
But perhaps the data gathered would be why they don't want a trial... perhaps the data will in fact show the helmet law to be failed public policy and that repealing it won't result in the sky falling in.
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Permalink Reply by Luke Turner on -
One of the many things I couldn't reconcile about this report was how they came up with the idea that 50% of head injuries occur in off-road situations (I guess this means bike paths, footpaths etc).
Everything I have read suggests that the majority of accidents (especially serious accidents or fatalities) occur as a result of a collision with a motor vehicle. Even the data they present in table 32 suggests exactly this.....but yet they have compiled their bogus speculation on the effects of segmented helmet law, assuming that half of all head injuries happen off-road.
Am I missing something here?
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What they've done is a little smoke'n'mirrors trick (see 7.3.2.2 of the report).
After admitting that police data is limited to on-road incidents, and skewed towards more serious injuries, and probably only representative of somewhere between 11% to 13% of actual crashes (see 4.2.1), the report then goes on to combine the ratio of off-road incidents (as identified from hospital data) with the seriousness of incidents (as identified from the unrepresentative, skewed-towards-serious injuries police data). The report justifies this on the assumption that "the pattern and severity of injuries from off-road crashes [from hospital data] is similar to that in police-reported on-road crashes."
This assumption, is based on the dubious grounds that a previous report (Berry & Harrison, 2008) found that 24.6% of cyclists hospitalised for traffic related crashes (i.e. on-road) suffered head injuries, and the authors reckon this is 'similar' to the figure of 29% of cyclists reported as suffering head injuries in the (here we go again) admitted-as-unreliable police data.
Then the report appears to rely on two more broad assumptions, the first on being that "[c]rashes of these types [police reported on-road crashes involving single bicycle, multiple bicycle and bicycle-pedestrian crashes] are quite plausible on bicycle paths, footpaths, and other off-road locations."
The second assumption is that the helmet wearing rates for off-road cyclists is the same as the (already admitted to be too small to be reliable) on-road police data.
Interestingly though, as set out at 2.3 of the report (bottom of page 6) Victorian research about helmet use in cycling fatalities identified that 48% were wearing helmets, 15% were not wearing helmets and 36% was unknown (Sikic et al, 2009). So why go to great lengths extrapolating averages from unreliable police data by the use of a number of untested assumptions, instead of just using this data that clearly shows helmet wearing probably does diddly-squat to save lives? Probably because it doesn’t come out with the answer everyone involved in this report wanted.
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Permalink Reply by Luke Turner on
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Ah ok I see that. Wow that is quite flimsy.
So if someone is killed while riding on a bike path it won't go into the police database because it wasn't on a public road....hmmm just as a side comment here, that seems a bit strange.
Anyway, as you mentioned they have applied the data which is skewed towards serious crashes to all crashes, that doesn't add up.
Also, for their claim to be true it implies that there are many times more people riding off-road than on-road. Looking at table 32, only around 15% (ie 1 out of 6.5) of police recorded on-road fatalities, hospitalisations or medical treatments did not involve a motor vehicle.
Therefore to get the same amount of these types of injuries off-road implies that there are 6.5 times as many people riding off-road as on-road. I wouldn't have thought we have enough off-road areas for this to be the case. It certainly doesn't fit with my experience. Even if this is the case, doesn't it just add to the weight to the argument that riding off-road is less risky and hence is a prime candidate for an exemption?
But this theory seems to contradict what everyone knows and what they have even admitted in a previous section, namely that the vast majority of serious injuries and fatalities are the result of a crash with a motor vehicle on a road. The said in section 4.6.2:
"Bicycle fatality data are only available for on-road fatalities but the research evidence
suggests that almost all bicycle fatalities occur on roads."....which directly contradicts their subsequent "assumption" that the pattern and severity of off-road accidents are the same as for on-road accidents (given that there are roughly the same number of hospital admissions for each).
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Permalink Reply by Paul Martin on
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Great discussion, guys and some excellent points raised.
So if someone is killed while riding on a bike path it won't go into the police database because it wasn't on a public road....hmmm just as a side comment here, that seems a bit strange.
The same goes for those horrid deaths of children being reversed over on private property... that's not included in 'road trauma' figures as far as I can ascertain.
Even if this is the case, doesn't it just add to the weight to the argument that riding off-road is less risky and hence is a prime candidate for an exemption?
Precisely. I fail to see how there would be carnage on the bikepaths & footpaths if there were an exemption. Far too many assumptions here. Not to mention the fact that bicycle helmets are not designed for protection in impacts with motor vehicles and that when you raise this as an issue, people use it as an excuse for maintaining the law... instead of controlling the cause of the trauma!
There is also an enormous difference between a roadie cruising along at 35km/h at 5am on the roads and someone tootling along on a CityCycle. Anyone who fails to see that really has their head in the sand! I'd wear a helmet for the former but not the latter if it were non-compulsory and I'm sure most would agree.
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