BMJ 1994;309:1441 (26 November)

Letters

Protection afforded by cycle helmets

EDITOR,--Frank McDermott and John Lane defy engineering evidence in stating that cycle helmets reduce the risk of serious head injury in accidents involving motor vehicles.1 Their study, however, looked only at people who had contacted health services after being injured and included no facts on the relative risk of injury with and without a helmet. Their data do not form a valid basis for their assertion.2 They fail to mention the work of Spaite et al, who studied cyclists attending a university trauma centre after being hit by cars. Both head and non-head injuries of people who had voluntarily been wearing helmets were less severe than those of people who had not been wearing helmets. Presumably people who voluntarily wore helmets behaved more cautiously in general, perhaps riding more carefully or being more likely to attend hospital after an accident.3 This sort of confounding means that studies of voluntary helmet . . . [Full text of this article]


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