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0 pointsumanwizard9y ago0 comments

> The risk of a head injury that a helmet would prevent is much higher in a car

What is this based on? My own intuition is that the risk is many times higher on a bike.

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6 comments · 2 top-level

monort9y ago· 2 in thread

There are were 42000 brain injury-related hospitalizations for motor vehicle occupants per year, though this data is from before 2001.

https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/13379/cdc_13379_DS1.pdf (Table 10)

umanwizardOP9y ago

Sure but you have to normalize it somehow. Americans drive way more than they bike. I imagine if you calculated this per-time or per-distance, driving would still come out much safer for the brain than cycling without a helmet.

lmm9y ago

Again just from memory, driving is a lot worse per-time and per-commute, though a small factor better per-distance.

lmm9y ago· 2 in thread

I don't remember the source, take that as you will. Cars go faster which means a higher risk of collisions (less time to react etc.), and also a higher risk of head injury per collision.

umanwizardOP9y ago

Maybe I'm just a shitty cyclist but I've wiped out way, way more times on a bike than in a car. You can crash without it being a "collision".

lmm9y ago

Did you hit your head though? Even "low" speed for a car can be 20mph; you can hit a stationary object and be thrown around pretty severely.

That said yeah if you're "wiping out" more than like once every few years you're doing something seriously wrong (or at least taking an unnecessary risk). I've only once had any kind of incident on my cycling commute.

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