What amuses and depresses me is that, in trying to find the actual legislation on the Mandatory Helmet Laws for Bicyclists, I found a number of what I would classify as 'liberalist rants' on the issue. The basic gist of these is "there's no proof that helmets reduce injuries, and we'd rather give up riding than wear a helmet so there nyah nyah nyah". It's the same kind of rant that characterises seatbelt laws in the USA - the kind of blinkered 'you can't take our rights away from us' attitude that treats getting injured or killed as a right on a par with free speech. Even I, with an almost non-existent knowledge of the studies they quote, can see the flaws in their reasoning; for instance, one page says cyclist numbers declined after the legislation and concludes that the latter caused the former, a classic post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. There's also plenty of straw man arguments thrown in - for instance, that a study showed that soft-shell helmets grab the ground and thus cause more twisting injuries, ignoring the fact that almost all of the helmets sold these days are light-weight hard-shell helmets.
Like the debate over global warming, it's sad to see people deluding themselves and sadder to see them trying to convince others of their own delusions.
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