In article , Ed Huntress says...

They're actually not readily available. There was a big helmet
thread recently on the m/c ng, and I found it is very difficult
to find *real* data on accident statistics, as a function of
helmet use.

Go to Google. Click on "more." Click on "scholar." Enter MOTORCYCLE HELMET,
without quotes. As of 10 minutes ago there were 994 references, and some of
the first ones I saw were PubMed/Medline references, pointing to
peer-reviewed articles in major medical publications, supported by
statistics, not anecdotes.

Almost all of them deal with survivors of motorcycle crashes. It's
tough to get numbers on the ratio of survivors vs. non-survivors
of crashes because the non-survivors tend to not get into the
studies.

Also at the time I got tired of following links to 'studies' that
all eventually went back to one or two actual data sources.

Then show this to the ABATE guys. We have a big ABATE guy in my town. You
could drag him kicking and screaming to this data, and it wouldn't change
his mind. He "knows" the facts, and he isn't going to let the facts get in
his way.

You're not getting my point. The ABATE guys would be the first to
say I'm full of it - because my premise is that helmets really, really
improve survival rates. They even deny that obvious fact.

But the flip side of that fact (that helmets really *do* improve
survival rates) is that folks who don't wear them tend, on average,
tend not to survive.

Dead guys don't stay in hospital rooms very long. They tend to
shuffle them out so they can bring in some new, live, paying
members of society... the dead guys don't spend nearly as much
insurance money.

Jim


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