Helmet, Yes or No?

roger_merriman

ah no the home is a killer,

alfablue

roger merriman wrote:

ah no the home is a killer,

I'll wear my helmet indoors then.

roger_merriman

best had, don't want to take chances

clodhoppa74

i just got into cycling after a fifteen year gap. for 5 of those i was in hospital/home/wheelchair due to being hit, side-on, by a car doing 60mph.

i wasn't wearing a helmet, so i look on that as my great escape. you won't catch me without my helmet now, as i feel i've had my chance, and might not get another. the helmet wouldn't have helpe din that instance, but i look on it like this:

i spent £300 on a bike
i spent £25 on gloves, which don't stop a car driving over my hand, but offers scuff protection etc should i fall.
i spent £20 on crudcatchers, just so i don't get that line up my back, and so i don't get a muddy front.

so to not spend £30 on a helmet to stop my head from bleeding seems a little churlish. and, to be honest, humans look odd on bikes, like a helmet is going to make you look any worse?

if you don't think helmets work, then write and lobby the companies that make them, because if you don't buy helmets, they don't have as much for R&D etc, and if you don't feedback to them, they don't know why you're not buying them.

besides, i find helmets fit nicely over the tinfoil hat i wear at all times, to be safe from the government mind probes.

jam1ec

whome wrote:

The reports based on population wide data don't show any improvement in injury figures with increased helmet use. So any effect must be negligible. Therefore other safety areas are where we should really be concentrating our efforts which can have real effect. Helmets are a distraction from the real safety issues.

You seem to be drawing conclusions from these studies to suit yourself rather than the full picture they may actually show...

In my opinion what the population studies show is that making helmets compulsory puts people off using their bikes, which in turn leads to lower numbers of bikes on the road, which puts the ones who continue to ride at greater risk. When you combine this extra risk, with the effectiveness of helmet wearing it evens back out to the same as the scenario before the law is introduced.

A possible conclusion from that is, wearing helmets improves the safety of individuals but making them compulsory is not helpful.

yr99jparkin

Think of it like this: If you fall off and crack your head on the floor will it hurt more:

A) With a helmet ON
With no helmet

??

Absolutely no argument here, statistics easily deceive.

WEAR A HELMET

Kieran_Burns

Did anyone see the Tour of Ireland with the guy who lost his back wheel on the bend on day 3? I think he locked up due to over-compensating for that sharp left hander on top of the mountain, hit some oil and off.

He must've slid a 100 foot on his helmet. :shock: If I ever had an argument for not wearing one - that one piece of film blew them all away.

DonDaddyD

Kieran_Burns wrote:

Did anyone see the Tour of Ireland with the guy who lost his back wheel on the bend on day 3? I think he locked up due to over-compensating for that sharp left hander on top of the mountain, hit some oil and off.

He must've slid a 100 foot on his helmet. :shock: If I ever had an argument for not wearing one - that one piece of film blew them all away.

Funny you should mention that because on page six I wrote this:

DDD wrote:

I watched the Tour of Ireland a few days back and saw a guy (he was second in the race) go around the corner lose control, fall, skid across the ground feet still attached to the bike and the top of his head firmly scrape the ground.

Now I probably won't be riding as fast as that guy and I'm probably not as skillfull a cyclist (I am) as that guy. But the truth is I'm not interested in Whome's statistics, fact is should I ever encounter a crash that sees my head hitting, sliding, scrapping the ground I want to know that its protected by a helmet so that should I survive there's a good chance I don't have to walk around with a skin graft or a massive scar on my head or worse.

Never have I witnessed the true value of a helmet than when watching that crash. Its not foolproof, its not 100%, but neither are seat belts, an air bag, crumple zones or a bumper. They are all precautions there to enhance safety and the chance of survival from certain injuries. In some cases they won't offer any protection from harm, sometimes they will be the difference between life and death and sometimes they will be the difference between walking away unharmed and having to go to the hospital to be bandaged up. Personally I'd rather have all those options available through wearing a helmet than none at all by not wearing a helmet. So I will continue to wear my helmet.

No one took notice of my post though....

But yeah the crash was horrible considering he slide on his head for a good long while. How his neck was intact I'll never know. One is for certain he'd have been worse off if he wasn't wearing a helmet.

biondino

While all these examples are statistically irrelevant on their own, it's worth noticing that no-one here has experienced or knows anyone who has experienced severe rotational brain injury (accepted even by the naysayers as the only disadvantage of riding helmetless - we'll ignore the one dude who measured how close cars came to his bike for the same statistical reasons as the above) but plenty have been in accidents where the helmet made no difference or a considerable positive difference.

lost_in_thought

I do wonder, dipping my toe into the helmet debate, whether the rotational brain or neck injuries are genuinely possible...

As ever, more than happy to be corrected, but it seems that in order for a rotational injury to occur, you'd have to have either a very small directional force, or a rotational force, or land square on your head.

It seems to me that a rotational injury attributable to a helmet would be equally attributable to a head...

And what exactly is a rotational brain injury?

alfablue

A rotational injury occurs when there is rapid torsional or twisting forces applied to the skull, the skull moves relative to the brain and casues damage. A glancing blow (rather than straight-on) is probably more likely to cause this, and the jagged design of some helmets (thus causing catching on the struck surface) are suggested as being a factor in increasing the risk of rotation. I have no doubt they occur, but whether the incidence is such that they outweigh the alleged protective effects of helmets is another matter.

biondino

Whereas I assert that such incidents are so vastly outnumbered by neutral/beneficial effects that they can almost be ignored. I mean, some people have probably choked to death while taking their medicine, but that doesn't mean they should go without just in case, right?

alfablue

biondino wrote:

Whereas I assert that such incidents are so vastly outnumbered by neutral/beneficial effects that they can almost be ignored. I mean, some people have probably choked to death while taking their medicine, but that doesn't mean they should go without just in case, right?

I tend to agree with you, though there is virtually no unequivocal evidence regarding this whole debate.

jedster

re rotational injuries

Rotaional injuries are a known problem in skiing but mainly with full face helmets.

In general skiers are encouraged only to wear chin guards/full face protection when skiing gates - the argument is that in the gates you have a decent chance of getting a pole in the teeth but away from the gates, the risk of rotational injuries (to neck or brain) out weighs the benefits face protection.

In recent years more skiers have been using full face protection as more and more people have been playing about with dropping cliffs (where there is a decent chance of getting your knees in your face) but this is still a minority sport!

Now I don't know how common rotational injuries are in cycling but I suspect they do happen.

Kieran_Burns

DonDaddyD wrote:

Kieran_Burns wrote:

Did anyone see the Tour of Ireland with the guy who lost his back wheel on the bend on day 3? I think he locked up due to over-compensating for that sharp left hander on top of the mountain, hit some oil and off.

He must've slid a 100 foot on his helmet. :shock: If I ever had an argument for not wearing one - that one piece of film blew them all away.

Funny you should mention that because on page six I wrote this:

DDD wrote:

I watched the Tour of Ireland a few days back and saw a guy (he was second in the race) go around the corner lose control, fall, skid across the ground feet still attached to the bike and the top of his head firmly scrape the ground.

Now I probably won't be riding as fast as that guy and I'm probably not as skillfull a cyclist (I am) as that guy. But the truth is I'm not interested in Whome's statistics, fact is should I ever encounter a crash that sees my head hitting, sliding, scrapping the ground I want to know that its protected by a helmet so that should I survive there's a good chance I don't have to walk around with a skin graft or a massive scar on my head or worse.

Never have I witnessed the true value of a helmet than when watching that crash. Its not foolproof, its not 100%, but neither are seat belts, an air bag, crumple zones or a bumper. They are all precautions there to enhance safety and the chance of survival from certain injuries. In some cases they won't offer any protection from harm, sometimes they will be the difference between life and death and sometimes they will be the difference between walking away unharmed and having to go to the hospital to be bandaged up. Personally I'd rather have all those options available through wearing a helmet than none at all by not wearing a helmet. So I will continue to wear my helmet.

No one took notice of my post though....

But yeah the crash was horrible considering he slide on his head for a good long while. How his neck was intact I'll never know. One is for certain he'd have been worse off if he wasn't wearing a helmet.

Sorry mate - I WAS going to trawl through the pages but foolishly didn't... the point we both made is still valid though - why not wear a helmet if it can reduce the injuries caused?

biondino

I think the overwhelming reason the anti-helmet brigade feel how they do is because they consider the whole concept of helmets - especially the fear that one day they'll become obligatory - is an infringement of their civil rights. Just like wearing a seatbelt, incitement to racial hatred, or sexual harassment laws are an infringement of their rights.

Kieran_Burns

biondino wrote:

I think the overwhelming reason the anti-helmet brigade feel how they do is because they consider the whole concept of helmets - especially the fear that one day they'll become obligatory - is an infringement of their civil rights. Just like wearing a seatbelt, incitement to racial hatred, or sexual harassment laws are an infringement of their rights.

Ah. Nanny state you mean?

biondino

Perhaps! But whatever your views on political correctness (and personally I am very happy to have all the above laws in force, but then I am a filthy pinko liberal), it shouldn't have anything to do with physical safety like a helmet so obviously does.

urban-commuter

Doesn't it depend on the circumstances?

Yes a helmet in a race situation is obviously logical, but should that then be made a strict rule applied to a Pashley jaunt to the boutique?

jedster

to be honest, very few poeple who post here seem to advocate compulsion (myself included). Most helmet wearers who write in support of helmets are either
a) trying to encourage the antis to wear helmets (nor force them too)
b) react aginst people implying that they are dumb for wearing a helmet.

Most of the antis seem to be motivated by
a) warding off compulsion (although frankly I see no serious moves being made in that direction in the UK)
b) resentment at the pressure they get elsewhere to wear a helmet (often by people who are quite ill-informed about cycling aand the pros and cons of helmets)

J

biondino

urban-commuter wrote:

Doesn't it depend on the circumstances?

Yes a helmet in a race situation is obviously logical, but should that then be made a strict rule applied to a Pashley jaunt to the boutique?

Just to be clear - although I think wearing a helmet is a no-brainer, I don't think adults should be compelled by law to do so. Children, I'm not so sure.

I don't think I want to persuade the antis to wear a helmet - they can do what they like. But I don't want beginners (who are most likely to need a helmet as they're most likely to have accidents, especially at low speeds) to be put off wearing a helmet by misleading statistics and spurious propaganda and some kind of weird libertarian agenda.

clodhoppa74

urban-commuter wrote:

Doesn't it depend on the circumstances?

Yes a helmet in a race situation is obviously logical, but should that then be made a strict rule applied to a Pashley jaunt to the boutique?

depends. are you getting your hair did?

let people not where helmets. let darwin sort it out.

Brixtonbiker

Wearing a helmet i am sure saved my life recently, I race with one, but had the worst off while cycling to the shop, hit a pot hole, went over the bars and landed on my head, this was at about 16 mph. Helmet destroyed. Head brusied, arms scatched to bits but i was fine.

Looking at the force the helmet took, I would guess that hitting my forehead with a sledge hammer would have had the same effect.
80kg catapulted at 16miles per hour has some force.
Add in a cheese grater to replicate the deep scatches on the helmets outer shell and you have some idea what my head unprotected would be like now.

Helmet was a Giro atmos. You get a half price replacement if you crash in it as well.

Has anyone who does not wear a helmet had a bad accident and still does not want to wear one?

always_tyred

Darwin was agrophobic.

Likely therefore he would have worn a helmet.

dirk_van_gently

F! me Not AGAIN?
YAWN!!!!

Simonb256

I generally use one when mountain biking but not on road very often.

A helmet only reduces damage caused by an accident not prevent it.

Im not saying they are pointless, as they definatly have their use. I just fail to see how it helps so much on road.
Ok so I go down national speed limit roads at 30'ish, which putting it that way makes it sound like im an idiot for not wearing one, as if I were hit there I would definatly know about it.

With a huge accident, a helmet isnt going to help that much, minor ones are usually just roadrash and a bruised ego and thats it. Its the ones inbetween where the helmets shine/

Infact I have had an accident where a helmet dramatically helped when a car cut me up whilst I was doing around 25, I bounced off the roof of said car and landed head first with bike on top.

However I learnt from that accident and feel that it could of easily of been avoided. Most, nay all the accidents I've been in could of been prevented and was down to experience.

In the end its the choice of the rider, and if they dont want to wear one, they dont have to. At speed of 30ish upwards then yeah I probably concur it is a good idea to wear one as your more likely to seriosuly hurt yourself if you come off. Saying that is a little do as I say not as I do, but again its still my choice.

The times/places I ride its either no traffic at all or rush hour traffic that can't move. The firs tof those is probably where I feel less confident as I know there may be some idiot who decides to speed and may not see me, though you cant really miss the sound of a car speeding towards you and you can decide then.

In a rush hour town/city you cant really go that fast. Im very cautious overtaking and refuse to undertake unless its neseccary to do so. So i feel alot more confident and safer also.

Thats my stance anyway.

Brixtonbiker

An accident is a specific, identifiable, unexpected, unusual and unintended external event which occurs in a particular time and place, without apparent or deliberate cause but with marked effects. It implies a generally negative probabilistic outcome which may have been avoided or prevented had circumstances leading up to the accident been recognized, and acted upon, prior to its occurrence.

alfablue

Brixtonbiker wrote:

may have been avoided or prevented had circumstances leading up to the accident been recognized, and acted upon, prior to its occurrence.

and it is because of my occasional failures to do so that prompt me to wear a helmet. No matter how experienced I get I am always liable to error (most of my offs have been entirely solitary affairs!).

Brixtonbiker

That is why i wear a helmet, You never know when your gonna have an accident. a helmet is a passive safety device, so its job is being done after all your active safety devices have been used up.

Active Safety Features - Active safety features help a rider avoid accidents. Tyires, brakes, handling, acceleration, and visibility all make important contributions to active crash avoidance.

Passive safety devices are those devices that help you survive during the crash.

biondino

Another vote for wear a helmet...