Benefits of wearinga helmet poll

meanwhile

I wondered what opinions here were about helmets...

Jon8a

Sweaty, yes
Uncool, either yes or no, I think no.
I don't expect to get hit
Probably useless if hit by a truck at 60mph

Still on balance a good chance it will do more good than harm so yes.

h i r 0

Twice I've had falls and while the impact was fortunately minimal my hat's saved me from what would've been some pretty bad grazing to my forehead and temples.

A girl at work was also told in casualty that her hat 'downgraded' her accident from a fractured skull to concussion.

I understand the arguments against, but personally I feel better with it on.

cjw

To save even more time I've just cut and pasted from the other thread below that mentions helmets...

To save time....

1. Helmets are good, they saved my life
2. Helmets didn't save your life and at best they do no harm
3. Bollocxs
4. With knobs on
5. Your mother is a hamster
6. And your father smells of elderberries

Repeat for 59 pages...

meanwhile

cjw wrote:

To save even more time I've just cut and pasted from the other thread below that mentions helmets...

To save time....

1. Helmets are good, they saved my life
2. Helmets didn't save your life and at best they do no harm

The one I'd like to see in one of these debates is "I was wearing a helmet and it didn't save my life!"

3. Bollocxs
4. With knobs on
5. Your mother is a hamster
6. And your father smells of elderberries

Repeat for 59 pages...

Yep. I'm curious about how many people adopt each position. Especially the position involving the hamster. Aka "the Richard Gere".

attica

What is the airspeed velocity of a laden sparrow?

I'm in the helmets are a good thing camp, probably are useless in a really major accident, but then again a full suit of armour would be as well.

dang65

h i r 0 wrote:

Twice I've had falls and while the impact was fortunately minimal my hat's saved me from what would've been some pretty bad grazing to my forehead and temples.

Same here. I've come off on black ice a couple of times. Bike just disappeared from under me and I landed bang on the tarmac, and hit my head both times - completely out of control. I really hate to think of the mess if I hadn't been wearing a helmet, so I wear one most of the time.

I'm not under any illusions about it saving me in a high impact collision with a vehicle, or a lamp-post, but anyone can fall off on a slippery drain cover or whatever, and that's when the helmet really is worth having IMHO.

I don't always wear one though. Just most the time.

meanwhile

Attica wrote:

What is the airspeed velocity of a laden sparrow?

Is it carrying a one pound coconut?

cjw

More importantly though, African or European swallow? Nee nee...

LostInTheWoods

The helmet debate reminds me a little of the introduction of the seat belt law back in the 70's. There were people who came up with (not) very good reasons NOT to wear a seat belt. Doesn't look cool, it is inconvenient, it will probably do more harm than good etc etc....

I personally can't understand why people would not wear a helmet. Like not wearing a seat belt, I think there is something wrong if I forget to put it on.

In Sweden it is compulsory for children under the age of 15 to wear a helmet, which I think is a great idea, and that is in a country with fewer cars and lots of uncrowded cycle paths.

Judging by the migratory pattern, I would say African swallow.....

woodgob

I don't munderstand the anti-helmet mentality. I've fortunately only had a couple of bad stacks on the road - one of which I was clipped my a car, spun sideways and landed with my back to the passing car, with my head making a significant impact with the rear wheel-nuts. I'm pretty sure that had I not been wearing a lid the back of my head would have been a bit of a mess. I've also had a lot of spills while off-road. Ultimately, I feel a lot safer wearing a lid. Whenever I don't I feel horribly vulnerable.

Mithras

I wear one, because it protects my brains more than my skull does.
It's an extra space for putting my employers logo on and it and it looks cooler than either my custodian helmet or flat cap.
Now if only Mrs Spence would allow me to wear shorts in the summer and give me a nice bike to ride I'd be a happy bunny.

DavidTQ

My reason for wearing the helmet is two fold,

1) It hopefully will never have a chance to save my life, but I dont like the idea of road rash in a minor spill either, I was blessed with good looks, I like to take sensible precautions to keep them in the event that my first line fo defence - safe cycling - fails.

2) it gives me somewhere to mount my helmet cam. I like being able to point my camera at people

I have cycled without the helmet and didnt find the sweat situation any better, but then I always wear a headband anyway which stops sweat being a "problem".

"coolness?" never been an issue for me fashion doesnt really bother me much, seriously is this school yard issues or something? Besides Im naturally good looking enough that I even manage to make wearing a helmet look good

Im not a believer in "magic" helmets, but I can see the principle that a bit of something resilient between my flesh and the environment is a good idea. If they were practical for cycling Id be happy enough to wear full motorbike leathers on the push bike, just for a bit of extra protection.

Belv

I wear one.

dirk_van_gently

ZZZZ

redddraggon

yawn

jam1ec

you missed:

might not save my life but will likely reduce injuries form smaller incidents.

thats why i wear one.

Bassjunkieuk

I wear one, and so far I've only had 1major and 1 minor fall. The major one resulted in me being thrown off my bike and into a lamp-post, and judging my how sore my jaw was I'm glad my helmet took the impact instead of my skull.

The minor accident was a slip on a wet corner and I my chin took the brunt then.
As some previous poster's have said it probably wouldn't make much difference in a serious crash, but then it's the smaller bits it really helps with and besides wearing or having a helmet with me lets other people know I'm a cyclist and hence why I'm dressed a bit different :-)

attica

I went out without a helmet once, it turned me into a frog...

attica

... It got better

dang65

Dirk Van Gently wrote:

ZZZZ

Gosh, yes. I'd forgotten about bees and wasps. Another good reason to wear a helmet.

squired

As a non-helmet wearer I seem to be in the minority in London. In cooler weather I wear mine, but as it gets warmer I don't. Having said that, I would, but it is a heat issue for me. I am unfortunate in that I get rather severe heat rash when I exercise. I have to wear the absolute minimum to try to keep myself cool as otherwise I am soon itching all over as the heat rash kicks in. A helmet in warmish weather is an itch fest after 5 minutes and almost unbearable a little while after.

If you don't have specific issues I think a helmet is a good idea. I've spent a lot of money trying to find a helmet for all weather and not managed to find one that works for me.

robmanic1

[wearing or having a helmet with me lets other people know I'm a cyclist and hence why I'm dressed a bit different :-)[/quote]

Doesn't the fact that you're on a bike give it away?

BUICK

I had a passing bee get caught in my helmet. It stung me and I went into anaphylactic shock - which stopped my heart and I would have died if I hadn't, as fortune had it, been hit by a Vauxhall Corsa driven by 4 teenagers, on their way back from a first aid course who'd recognized my predicament and knew that a firm knock on the chest and a surge of adrenalin was the only thing that could save me. When I took the helmet off in order to thank the 4 teens the bee was dead, and as Buddhists they were greatly dismayed by the unnecessary taking of a life, so as a mark of respect I don't wear a helmet anymore.

Plus, it messes up my hair and I'm vain.

None of this is true - except the part about my hair.

meanwhile

Very interesting poll results - faith in helmets seems very high.

I asked because I did a google search on what helmet to buy. I quickly identified the best unbiased expert on helmets in the UK - possibly the world - as being Brian Walker, whose company is responsible for helmet testing in the UK.

According to him:

- Helmets are designed to take about the level of force you'd get from falling off your bike while stationery. This is sometimes expressed as 12mph, but that's head velocity, not bike velocity. Don't forget the effect of gravity. Oh, and that's hitting a flat surface. Kerbs and lamp posts, etc, are worse.

- At speeds above 12mph, helmets don't have a subtractive effect. I.e. a 30mph is reduced to being the equivalent of an 18mph one. The helmet basically loses all effectiveness. Doctors in casualty wards don't understand this - they're not trained to, hence there are lot of "Thank God you were wearing a helmet" stories. In fact, often the helmet will have had no possible effect.

- The helmets currently on sale are much less effective at preventing injury than those in 1990. (My guess is because people like very light helmets with vents, and these are much less effective.)

- Helmet fit is crucial, and virtually no one except racers wear the correct fit of helmet, properly secured. A lot of current helmets can't be correctly secured. (Poorly fitting helmets are actually more comfortable than the correctly fitting kind - squishy comfort pads can reduce effectiveness.)

E.g. http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1081.html (If anyone is really interested, PM me with an email address and I'll send you a zip of the 20 or so documents I collected; detailed linking here would take hours.)

I cross referenced with John Forester, an MIT engineer who wrote "Effective Cycling" and is the main US forensic witness on cycles, and John Franklin, the UK equivalent and author of "Cyclecraft". I even found the guy who seems to be their Australian equivalent, who wrote "Cycling Safety" and he's positively anti-helmet, based on experience of Oz's compulsory helmet laws.

They broadly agreed, and stated most studies claiming to show evidence of helmet effectiveness against serious injury untrustworthy. In particular, the commonly cited "40-80% reduction in serious head injury" stat commonly cited is complete nonsense (the study was based on an atypical group, and methodologically flawed even for that group). Other positive "evidence" often comes from predictive studies, rather than actual experimental data. (Ie someone decides helmets provide a certain benefit, then crunches some numbers, based on his possibly incorrect assumptions.)

Most of all the standard argument that helmets reduce the chances of death while cycling substantially is nonsense. While its true that 70% of fatal accidents are due to head injury, virtually none of these come from a cyclist who has fallen off while riding slowly without being hit by a car, which is the only time a helmet will have an effect. (I found a wonderful break down of fatal and serious accident types at a US university, complete with cheerful pictures of cyclist flowing the air, PM me if you want all the links, etc, for this stuff.)

On the other side of the argument, there is evidence that wearing a helmet makes rotational injury to the head (very nasty) more likely, interferes with balance, and makes drivers treat the wearer more aggressively.

That's not to say that you shouldn't wear a helmet. They are undoubtedly valuable in reducing eg minor facial injuries. But if you do wear one, the factual evidence is that you should work uncommonly hard to make sure it fits, and that you won't be reducing your chances of a serious injury to any significant degree. You might be increasing them, paying for a reduction in minor injuries with greater risk of death. No one is really sure. (An increase in serious injuries fits stats on London accidents - minor injuries decreased with helmet use, but serious ones went up. Otoh, there are alternative explanations like a general upwards trend that was mitigated in the lower spectrum by helmet wearing.)

The actual impact that a helmet can cope with is about that you'd experience if you were walking or jogging slowly and tripped. Now, I thought I was going to get a helmet, but I actually spend less time on a bike than walking, so I'm less at risk of a bike than walking accident, and I actually "just fall over" less on a bike than my feet.

The Bicycle Helmet Research Foundation (BHRF) - which has an excellent board of experts - actually has a neutral opinion on the benfits of helmets for adults. The Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute, the main source of the usual "benefit" quotes, turns out to be one guy in the US with no credentials at all, except that he supposedly rides a pushbike.

In summary, I'm really surprised - and even shocked - at what I found.

Oh - the link on driver aggression and helmets:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/somerset/5334208.stm

Hopefully I'll be well enough tomorrow to get out of the house, and less prone to highly analytic essay posts. Hopefully with an exciting new bike, depending on the will of the ebay Gods. Pray for me.

meanwhile

BUICK wrote:

I had a passing bee get caught in my helmet. It stung me and I went into anaphylactic shock

You clearly need either to buy a bee strobe, or to spend several months studying with a bike messenger guru in New York. He catches the bees with his teeth and spits them out - there's a video on YouTube.

biondino

So in short, wearing a helmet in a bad accident won't help, but wearing it in a lower speed accident - maybe 90% of all accidents? - will help. Not a difficult decision.

meanwhile

DavidTQ wrote:

2) it gives me somewhere to mount my helmet cam. I like being able to point my camera at people

I'm pretty sure that carrying a camera on a helmet -

i. Makes the helmet potentially useless. Helmets are generally good with flat surfaces and bad with "anvils", which is what even a plastic camera will function as in an impact. You have to understand that the light construction of helmets is very delicate - they're not at all like motorcycle helmets.

ii. May well be more likely to cause brain trauma than wearing no helmet, especially if the camera is to one side, as I expect it is.

Of course, your odds are surviving are still excellent, especially if you rarely wear the thing.

meanwhile

biondino wrote:

So in short, wearing a helmet in a bad accident won't help, but wearing it in a lower speed accident - maybe 90% of all accidents? - will help. Not a difficult decision.

This is true if you forget:

1. Helmets might make serious injury more likely - driver aggression, rotational brain injury.

2. I didn't (I hope) say that I had found definite evidence that helmets DO work at low speeds. Only that they can only POSSIBLY work at low speeds. In fact, I just checked wikipedia (which I had ignored because article quality is often low, and I like to get the basic facts with bias first now a days) and found this:

In real accidents, while broken helmets are common, it is extremely unusual to see any helmet that has compressed foam and thus may have performed as intended. “Another source of field experience is our experience with damaged helmets returned to customer service... I collected damaged infant/toddler helmets for several months in 1995. Not only did I not see bottomed out helmets, I didn’t see any helmet showing signs of crushing on the inside.

I.e. the mechanism which is suppose to operate to reduce injury - without which helmets are worthless - only rarely works. If this is so, helmets virtually never provide a benefit - even at low speeds. This study was with children - understandable, as they are much more likely to benefit from low speed fall protection than adults. Adult heads might interact differently with helmets, but no one seems to have bothered to find out.

The whole helmet thing is very different from seat belt wearing, quitting smoking, or moderating drinking. In all these areas there is definite evidence of benefit. For cycle helmets, this doesn't exist. Wearing a helmet has to be a very personal decision - no one can say as a matter of fact that wearing a helmet will make you safer.

FatBurt

Are you BentMikey in disguise?

Because what you've posted is very similar (nigh on identical) infact to what he's posted in other threads a few pages back.

meanwhile

FatBurt wrote:

Are you BentMikey in disguise?

Because what you've posted is very similar (nigh on identical) infact to what he's posted in other threads a few pages back.

No, I'm not this Mikey person. I can't see why anyone would want to post the same stuff twice. Could you give me a link?

As for similar posts, if the guy took an unbiased look at the info available, I can't see what other conclusion he could have reached. Credible studies showing definite helmet benefits don't exist (especially not for the wimped out designs currently on sale) nor do adequate studies on potential dangers. The main experts are also easy to identify and give this message clearly.

Something else to think about: helmets are definitely worse now than in 1990. They should be much better. But is anyone putting pressure on the manufacturers to improve them? Even - or especially - the people campaigning for compulsory helmet wearing? I smell a rat - at the very least I suspect helmet makers of funding helmet advocacy groups, biasing the debate.

Oh - the other thing I found was there's no real link between helmet price and safety. But if you can find one that meets the old Snell standard, which virtually all current helmets fail, that will be much better. I'd look at http://www.smf.org/ for a list of helmets. One of these - that fits and you wear correctly - might do some good. Anything else is at the superstition level. You might as well as carry a rabbits foot and paint a lucky clover on your t-shirt - in fact that could work better if it was high viz.