I recently came across a website that managed to be both impressive and depressing. The link is http://www.cycle-helmets.com/index.html

I have no idea how old it is or even, precisely, who is responsible for it. What is impressive is that it includes a massive amount of data on bicycling, bike helmet use, and helmet legislation for several countries, but principally for Australia. Some of the data are presented as graphs and others in tables. The amount of work that must have gone into assembling all this is staggering. I somehow suspect it has not been updated recently but it is still worth a visit if you are looking for any statistics related to these topics.

So why did I find it depressing? Simply because the commentary and text make it clear that all this effort is intended to discredit and oppose helmet legislation. Clearly, nothing I read convinces me that the data well support their opposition but to be fair, this is a far site better than the usual diatribes unsupported by anything remotely ‘scientific’.

For the record, I am not convinced helmet legislation discourages cycling or even if it does, the effect is short-lived. More importantly, as I have argued elsewhere and repeatedly, I am also not convinced that casual cycling, by children or adults, can do much to enhance cardiac fitness or reduce obesity. By casual cycling I mean trips of a few kilometres, by children or adults, to and from school or work, at a pace much slower than racers or couriers. In other words, the kind of recreational bicycling that is typical or average.

But even though I remain unhappy about the goals of this website, I must admit it is well done and exhaustive. And, for the most part, it seems that the data are accurate, even if they are consistently misinterpreted.

PS – At the very end I found this note: 

This website is maintained by Chris Gillham, a print/radio journalist and web designer based in the West Australian capital of Perth.
The site has been on the internet since 2000 and the accuracy of its data has never been challenged by relevant authorities. All information on the site is sourced to academic and government reports.