Adams, with patient reasonableness, reiterated, demolishes Gifford’s claim that the seat belt law saved a large number of lives in 1983 and invites Gifford either to give up his claim or justify it. Gifford replies by inviting us, amazingly,to concentrate on the evidence that his claim is demolished–the blue and green lines–but as if it were evidence to the contrary. Can the man not read? Can’t he see what the lines mean?

Hillman–who along with others does his level best to help him–cannot decide whether he is confused or disingenuous. Well, he is certainly very stupid. And it must be, I think, because he cannot now afford to be anything else. He has sworn black was white so publicly, for so long and made such a pretty career out of it that (short of being threatened with burning at the stake) recantation has become for him a moral impossibility.

Instead, he generously invites Adams and his other tormentors/interrogators to ‘agree to differ’ with him. What is it the Red Queen said? “Off with his head!”

In 1983 there is a huge jump up from the blue line to the green line. The difference, he argues, represents the number of lives saved by seat belts. But if there had been 2500 lives saved by seat belts in 1983, as he and Richards et al argue, there should have been an enormous step down in the blue line, actual fatalities. But it’s not there! I cannot decide whether Mr. Gifford is confused by the evident contradiction in his attempt to justify the position that, remarkably, he continues to maintain – or whether he is being disingenuous.

On cycle helmets he (together presumably with PACTS and those who concur with its recommendations) favours promoting voluntary use. This can only succeed if people are persuaded that cycling without a helmet is too dangerous – try telling that to the Dutch and the Danes! If large numbers were encouraged to believe it to be true, it will kill London’s cycle hire scheme. One can only wonder whether he would welcome such an outcome. Helmet wearing and spontaneous cycling are incompatible. People won’t carry a helmet on the off-chance that they may want to hire a bike.

It seems to me, and I would hope everyone anxious to see the issue of seat belt and cycle helmet wearing resolved once and for all on the basis of evidence and reason, that the logical way ahead is to stop engaging in sparring through emails, comment on websites and in blogs. These media are an inadequate strategy to that end. It is obvious that a conference should be organised where proponents and opponents present their respective cases and that these are then debated and hopefully a sufficient degree of consensus reached as a result of this process.

The logical bodies to do so are PACTS and RoSPA. Can they be persuaded to take this on? Were they to do so, it would remove the suspicion that their failure to do so reflects a fear that they would lose the argument.

This is an important area of public policy that needs resolution on the way ahead, taking account of the wide implications of decisions directly or indirectly affecting most road users. Parliament should not have to continue to be heavily dependent on its Advisory Council’s recommendations when these appear to be open to serious challenge.

I’m a really big fan of yours… and probably one of the youngest at 25. I do find your line of reasoning very compelling.

But just trying to be clear. What are you saying that the government should do. It’s one think to refute trumped up claims of lives saved.

However, Helmet laws and seatbelt laws, to me, seem very different primarily because cars kill others. Therefore, the changed risk perception has the result of driving faster, breaking later etc. resulting more deaths to pedestrians and cyclists. If I understand you correctly, you argument that these deaths are more than the much smaller number saved by seatbelts OR that seatbelts change the risk perception to the point that no drivers lives are saved by seat belts.

With cyclists wearnig helmets there will be no ‘displacement’ factor. If the risk perception changes and cyclists take more risks it unlikely that many drivers or pedestrians will be injured. It’s going to be the cyclists. So it’s a more simple tradeoff. So the questions, I think, are:

QUESTIONS ABOUT INCREASED CRASHES:
Do helmets cause cyclists to take more risks?
Does the wearing of helmets, or the rules abotu wearing helmets, result in drivers being more agressive around cyclists?
Do the above two result in more crashes?
Do these crashes result in serious injuries/deaths?

QUESTIONS ABOUT CHANGE IN INJURY IF INVOLVED IN A CRASH
Are accidents with people wearing helmets generally similar or more/less serious than those who don’t?
If involved in an accident does wearing a helmet reduce the chance of being seriously injured or killed?

COMPARSION OF ABOVE TWO SECTIONS:
Relatively, would compulsary wearing helmets result in MORE is less deaths?
Does self selection of wearing helmet (ie not having a law) change this result for better or worse?

Have I got this right?

So assuming I have – it seems a really really hard question to answer. I’d love to know how you’d go about doing that (I’ve been involved with driver simulators… that might be ‘an’ angle).

Or, will it basically come down to a judgement call. If so, the judgement call that a helmet law is good seems to me to just be as justified as a helmet law is bad. There cannot be an objective right and wrong.

So, John: Do I have it right?

What do you think is the best option?

And, as a bit of a tease,

Do you wear a helmet riding?

Tristan Cooke
Brisbane, Australia
**********************************************

Tristan
Good questions.

And no, I have never worn a helmet. JA

The evidence fails to prove any sustained reduction in car occupant casualties as a result of the law. Even Mr Gifford accepts that casualties among other road users went up. The iniquity in the law is that it is people who are forced to wear seatbelts that increase danger to others – those who choose to wear seatbelts do not.

On this track record, any figures used to argue for compulsory cycle helmet use are likely to be both alarming and untrue.

The point remains that the figures are hypothetical and based on the assumption that driving behaviour is not influenced by the driver’s perceived safety.

This further hypothesis appears to me to violate Occam’s Razor. We know from the Munich taxi driver experiment and other sources that drivers’ behaviour changes with perceived safety. What Mr Gifford is saying is that he should be allowed to make any claim for efficacy he likes based on the assumption that seat belts do not cause this behaviour. I still cannot see any evidential basis for that opinion. Unfortunately I think this is looking like an article of faith not an evidenced position.

I don’t want to comment on the cycle helmets issue. As you may be aware, the PACTS’ position on helmets is that, yes, they can be effective in certain
circumstances. However, they are not a universal panacea: we also need to reduce the risk posed to cyclists by vehicles through speed reduction
measures. Voluntary promotion of helmets seems to be the most appropriate way forward.

On the effectiveness of seatbelts, the savings figures are based on an assumption that otherwise, we would have done nothing. In other words, we would not have undertaken encouragement of voluntary wearing during the 1970s but left it entirely to car occupants to make up their own minds. Your graph therefore has to forget about the red line and concentrate solely on the green and blue ones.

I appreciate that we are unlikely to reach agreement on this issue.

Best wishes

Rob