Helmet debate continues

wgwarburton

neiltb wrote:

... a friend of mine came off on a fire road at ~30mph and flew headlong into a breeze block sized rock. He broke 3 ribs was unconcious and lost his memory for 3 days....His helmet, well the 2/3 that were left looked OK.....

Have you even considered the possibility that he might have been less badly injured if he wern't wearing a helmet?

Cheers,
W.

fnegroni

WGWarburton wrote:

neiltb wrote:

... a friend of mine came off on a fire road at ~30mph and flew headlong into a breeze block sized rock. He broke 3 ribs was unconcious and lost his memory for 3 days....His helmet, well the 2/3 that were left looked OK.....

Have you even considered the possibility that he might have been less badly injured if he wern't wearing a helmet?

Cheers,
W.

I don't think that is relevant.

If someone decides to go at 30mph down a fire track with rocks on the side, he might as well take extra precaution and wear protective gear.
Whether it made a difference or not, we must then rely on the test results which show helmets are effective for the intended purpose.

What I want to understand is why the episode suggests that wearing a helmet is a better idea than not going at 30mph down a track with limited grip and with big rocks on the side.

It seems to me that most arguments are along the lines:

I once saw a guy jumping off a 200 ft cliff and die, he wasn't wearing a helmet.
I then saw a guy jump off a 20ft wall, wearing a helmet, and he only had a concussion/brain injury/broken legs...

Therefore I infer that everyone walking up/down stairs should wear a helmet, and it makes me want to wear a helmet whenever I go for a pee...

Instead of:

I infer jumping off a cliff or a high wall is stupid without the necessary gear (parachute/ropes/etc.) therefore I will ensure I will use such gear should I ever decide to attempt such a stunt in the future...

The Rookie

My opinions and I'll leave it at that

We are a high risk road user, we move too slowly on fast roads, we are harder to see (lower cross section) and we are vulnerable to impacts as we have a low mass. I'll leave pedestrians out of that as although they use roads, primarily they are not on the carriageway.

There may be 1% of accidents where a helmet may make injuries as a result of accidents worse though I suspect its less even that that small number, but any time you hit your head its likely to have made it better by some amount, all the anecdotal evidence doesn't really mean much as it can be twisted every way.

On that basis we should wear helmets and we should be required to wear them for the 'greater good' (NHS 'costs' and other related costs that have to be born by the rest of society if we are injured) in the same way motorcyclists are IMHO.

Simon

fnegroni

The Beginner wrote:

On that basis we should wear helmets and we should be required to wear them for the 'greater good' (NHS 'costs' and other related costs that have to be born by the rest of society if we are injured) in the same way motorcyclists are IMHO.

The government has already carried out calculation with actual figures, and concluded the greater good (NHS) does not need you or me or anyone else to pay £20+ a pop every time they accidentally drop their helmet.

neiltb

WGWarburton wrote:

neiltb wrote:

... a friend of mine came off on a fire road at ~30mph and flew headlong into a breeze block sized rock. He broke 3 ribs was unconcious and lost his memory for 3 days....His helmet, well the 2/3 that were left looked OK.....

Have you even considered the possibility that he might have been less badly injured if he wern't wearing a helmet?

Cheers,
W.

Look, I am not telling you to wear a helmet, obviously nothing is going to convince you it's a good idea, so don't wear one. I couldn't care less if you do, 'tis your noggin.

Would he have been more badly injured without, well we'll never know as he was but common sense tells me that the energy absorbed by the helmet would have been transmitted staight into wis head. Was he being reckless, he admitted he was (less experienced than I and I was jolding back and saw it unfold).
edited for spelling

wgwarburton

neiltb wrote:

Look, I am not telling you to wear a helmet, obviously nothing is going to convince you it's a good idea, so don't wear one. I couldn't care less if you do, 'tis your noggin.

Umm, on the contrary. I'd wear a helmet if there was solid evidence that it was worthwhile- that would convince me.

Would he have been more badly injured without, well we'll never know as he was but common sense tells me that the energy absorbed by the helmet would have been transmitted staight into wis head. ...

There's the rub: No hard evidence that common sense is telling you the right thing.

You assume that the helmet helped. What we don't know is if the injury was caused by the helmet hitting something that his head would otherwise have missed, or if the unconciousness was caused or made worse by an internal, rotational injury to the brain that wouldn't have happened without the helmet.

I suspect you would dismiss these possibilities as justifications for not wearing a helmet, but there must be something that accounts for the lack of evidence that they reduce serious injuries- whether that's risk compensation (plausible in this scenario, I think!) or something else...

To me, it's not really about the compulsion argument anymore. I would really like to understand why it is that bike helmets don't work... and I would also like it if people stopped assuming that they do on the basis of "common sense" and anecdote!!! That's latter's just not going to happen, though!

Cheers,
W.

[edit] Maybe I should clarify "worthwhile"? I'm thinking along the lines of good evidence that safety is significantly improved by wearing one- significantly being enough of an improvement to warrant the minor inconvenience, given the low risks involved.

blott9b

Rides wrote:

I was taken out be a car in April, driver didn't see me and drove straight through the back of me. If I wasn't wearing a helmet on that ride I would have been dead / severe brain injury as the back of my head smashed his windscreen. The helmet took the full force of the impact.

For this reason alone I see there being NO argument on the subject. It saved my life!

It is highly unlikely that it did anything more than reduced the level of concussion, even the BMA when they narrowly voted to support compulsion did so on the grounds that it would reduce the cost of cosmetic surgery caused by lacerations, not that it would save your life or significanlty reduce brain injury.

Helmets have their uses and do provide some protection, the level of protection they provide is in most cases over estimated.
The argument that they should be worn because they provide some protection is an emotional one, not logical.

Helmets should be worn if they provide a cost effective reduction in risk / injury.
The risk of a head injury when cycling is very low, the level of protection given by a cycle helmet is a lot lower than people think.

If you are risk averse by all means go for the full protective gear worn when doing serious mountain biking, you will be reducing the risk of injury significatly (if you ever have an accident where you need them)

monkey7

Personal opinions, yes. Lack of hard evidence unlike for example seatbelts, yes. But is there a logic explanation? Let's take a look at that. Pure logic, no hard numbers, just an unbiased (as far as possible) view.

Note: I'm neither native english nor a medical expert, please don't shoot me for inaccuracies.

Say your head / neck can receive roughly three kinds of serious injury:
- Whiplash (neck keeps moving while the head is being kept back or the head is yanked too hard in one direction),
- Concussion (head is stopped too abruptly),
- Broken skull (the dutch schedelbasisfractuur, sorry I do not know the exact english word).

The whiplash is mentioned as main reason why the helmet would make cycling more dangerous; your head is bigger, so the chance that the head is held back while the neck is still moving is greater and the force of the head being yanked is greater because of the increased weight. Agreed, the chance of this is slightly higher.

The concussion is a tricky question. It is caused when the head suddenly slows down and the brain in fact 'bounces' on the inside of the skull. The way to avoid this is to make sure the head slows down slower, so the brain has time to slow down with it. This requires a helmet with either an inner and outer helmet and/or one that deforms as the pressure increases.

The broken skull is a question of simple mathematics. Bones snap or crack at a certain pressure per square inch. Let's assume the driver didn't see the cyclist in the first place so he cannot drive faster because 'the cyclist had a helmet anyway'. A helmet distributes the force of the impact to a greater area of the head, let's assume four times the area. This way the impact force on the cyclist could be four times as high before the bone would crack under the pressure.

About the replacement of helmets after a minor fall: imho that's just stupid. As long as there are no visible cracks in my helmet I don't replace it. I do replace it once it's older than 5 years (although I'm at 6 atm, need to replace it) as the helmet loses is ability to deform with the impact over time.

The dutch do have a greater awareness about cyclists in traffic. Most major roads within towns have 'cycling suggestion lanes' (fietssuggestiestrook) next to the regular lanes which only allow cars to drive on them in exceptional cases. Rural roads and motorways usually have a completely separate 'lane' (fietspad) for cyclists.

Personally? I do not wear a helmet when going to work (15km's one way, on a road racing cycle) or the shop (city cycle). When I'm on my mountainbike I always wear my helmet, those trees just get too close for comfort.

thelawnet

The Beginner wrote:

My opinions and I'll leave it at that

We are a high risk road user, we move too slowly on fast roads, we are harder to see (lower cross section) and we are vulnerable to impacts as we have a low mass. I'll leave pedestrians out of that as although they use roads, primarily they are not on the carriageway.

Why leave pedestrians out? Pedestrians do enter the carriageway, they have to cross the road (unless there is a subway or bridge). There are tens of thousands of pedestrian casualties, far more than cyclists, surely they should be looked at as well?

There may be 1% of accidents where a helmet may make injuries as a result of accidents worse though I suspect its less even that that small number

There might be 90% of accidents where a helmet might make injuries worse.

Why pull numbers out of thin air? It's total nonsense.

, but any time you hit your head its likely to have made it better by some amount, all the anecdotal evidence doesn't really mean much as it can be twisted every way.

Indeed, please come back when you have some non-anecdotal evidence to support your theories.

On that basis we should wear helmets and we should be required to wear them for the 'greater good' (NHS 'costs' and other related costs that have to be born by the rest of society if we are injured) in the same way motorcyclists are IMHO.

How about car drivers? Shouldn't they wear one? Far more motorists die of head injuries than cyclists, it would make more sense to provide for helmets for car drivers. Or at the very least individually ban cars that provide insufficient protection in accidents.

fnegroni

monkey7 wrote:

The concussion is a tricky question. It is caused when the head suddenly slows down and the brain in fact 'bounces' on the inside of the skull. The way to avoid this is to make sure the head slows down slower, so the brain has time to slow down with it. This requires a helmet with either an inner and outer helmet and/or one that deforms as the pressure increases.

Cycling helmets' inner lining are designed to compress under pressure: but since they were first invented, the inner lining has become harder and harder to allow for an increase in the number of vents, therefore reducing the cushioning effect:

James Cracknell was hit from behind: his skull was cracked at the back but the brain injury was at the front, where it is assumed the head hit the road. Again, the helmet didn't do anything in either of those.

About the replacement of helmets after a minor fall: imho that's just stupid. As long as there are no visible cracks in my helmet I don't replace it.

Same here: but you understand the lawyer's point of view: ones hemets are compulsory, it will become just a matter of arguing that the helmet was subject to small impacts in its life leading to the impact and became therefore useless. It is the helmet manufacturers who advice to change the helmet after any event in which the helmet might have been involved, even if no damage is visible.

I am with you on this one: I wear the helmet in situations where I think slow speed impacts outside of my control are very likely.

But then it is certainly down to personal judgement, can't be enforced by law.

neiltb

WGWarburton
Oh I get it now, your just arguementative. Good now I know to ignore you in the future.

wgwarburton

neiltb wrote:

WGWarburton
Oh I get it now, your just arguementative. Good now I know to ignore you in the future.

How do you figure that, then? Checked my posting history? You'll see a long history of abrasive, contentious trolls, I'm sure... :-)

Cheers,
W.

sc999cs

WGWarburton wrote:

neiltb wrote:

WGWarburton
Oh I get it now, your just arguementative. Good now I know to ignore you in the future.

How do you figure that, then? Checked my posting history? You'll see a long history of abrasive, contentious trolls, I'm sure... :-)

Cheers,
W.

Maybe it's your windswept hair (due to a lack of helmet) which makes you a troll?

wgwarburton

sc999cs wrote:

...Maybe it's your windswept hair (due to a lack of helmet) which makes you a troll? ...

Hair? Oh yes, I remember hair... Used to keep the sun off that did... handy.

Still , no need to bother with shampoo these days, and it needs washing more often than it catches the sun...

Cheers,
W.

PS. Who's that tripp-trapping over my bridge?

SlowingDown

It is unfortunate that most helmet wearers are unaware of the amount of protection a cycle helmet offers. There are lots of comments that granny on her shopper shouldn't have to wear one but people riding fast, in traffic should. In reality almost any helmet you can buy in this country is only designed and tested to protect against impacts with flat surfaces at low speed and no third party involvement. Protection is far less, potentially negligible, outside that scenario and there are some types of impacts that might be worse with the helmet on (wearers of helmet mounted cameras and metal-cased lights might like to dig out the info on this one).

I wear mine in full knowledge of this and I know that it wont save me in many circumstances. I wear mine by habit now, having started before I ever bothered reading the arguments for and against, and whatever level of protection it offers is fine with me as I don't find it inconvenient or uncomfortable to wear one. I'm also pretty sure my helmets have outperformed the expectations of them in two crashes and whether or not they 'only' saved me from 'cosmetic' injuries I'm glad it was my helmet/credit card that needed plastic surgery and not my head.

And am I risk-adverse...oh yes (you aint getting me on no plane sucker).

bails87

fnegroni wrote:

James Cracknell was hit from behind: his skull was cracked at the back but the brain injury was at the front, where it is assumed the head hit the road. Again, the helmet didn't do anything in either of those.

Just as you can't say "i'm alive, therefore I know that the helmet saved me", you can't say "he suffered an injury, therefore we know that the helmet 'didn't do anything'".

The injuries may have been worse without a helmet. there may have been 'rotational forces' involved and so his injuries were worse because of the helmet. We'll never know, so making statements like that is a little silly.

biff55

my 2 pence ;
conditioning the body to handle impacts and learning to fall / roll properly are elements that can aid your safety just as effectively if not more than wearing ppe ( helmets ).
many a time i've seen folk drop like a sack of spuds in low speed comedy collisions through poor balance and physical readyness.
granted , ths is an opinion bourne from years of rugby and martial arts which are way more dangerous than cycling and neither use helmets.
just an personal observation in this on-going debate.

RangerKris

After seeing a helmet split and taking the impact on my nephews head after a big crash no helmet no ride policy for me and my family as where the hit was it would have been right in the temple :shock:

blott9b

RangerKris wrote:

After seeing a helmet split and taking the impact on my nephews head after a big crash no helmet no ride policy for me and my family as where the hit was it would have been right in the temple :shock:

Again an emotional not logical argument, helmets are designed to work by being crushed, if they split they have failed to work as designed.

Banned member Porgy

biff55 wrote:

my 2 pence ;
conditioning the body to handle impacts and learning to fall / roll properly are elements that can aid your safety just as effectively if not more than wearing ppe ( helmets ).
many a time i've seen folk drop like a sack of spuds in low speed comedy collisions through poor balance and physical readyness.
granted , ths is an opinion bourne from years of rugby and martial arts which are way more dangerous than cycling and neither use helmets.
just an personal observation in this on-going debate.

This!! +1

I think I learned all this just be being the sort of kid who kept taking tumbles.

I was once run over by a fast moving car and even though I was sent through the air - came out of it with not even a minor injury to the astonishment of those who saw it.

I have never fallen on my head since being a kid when I had concussion and was taken to hospital. I'm convinced that elarning to fall properly is the key to avoiding serious injury. Absolutely amazed when I see people say that they wear a helmet becasue they have come off and hit their head on the floor several times. My answer has always been - well stop falling on your bleeding head then you idiot!!

Mind you - if that's something that you do a lot of then a helmet is probably a good idea.

supersonic

WG Warburton said:

I would really like to understand why it is that bike helmets don't work...

In what way don't they "work"? What circumstances? Is a very sweeping statement.

wgwarburton

supersonic wrote:

WG Warburton said:

I would really like to understand why it is that bike helmets don't work...

In what way don't they "work"? What circumstances? Is a very sweeping statement.

You would think that a big increase in helmet wearing would produce a corresponding reduction in head injuries/deaths etc. It's common sense, after all- protecting the head should make you safer.

It doesn't, which is wierd!

I wonder why not.

Cheers,
W.

Banned member Porgy

Head injuries can occur in all walks of life - I have sustained three head injuries working in the kitchen. I understand that you are more likely to sustain a major head injury travelling as a passenger in a car than when cycling. Only with cycling do people get so worked up about those who don't wear helmets. Why is that?

RangerKris

blott9b wrote:

RangerKris wrote:

After seeing a helmet split and taking the impact on my nephews head after a big crash no helmet no ride policy for me and my family as where the hit was it would have been right in the temple :shock:

Again an emotional not logical argument, helmets are designed to work by being crushed, if they split they have failed to work as designed.

But the helmet stopped his head being damaged so its done the job i felt it should have done. that would have been his head.

thelawnet

RangerKris wrote:

blott9b wrote:

RangerKris wrote:

After seeing a helmet split and taking the impact on my nephews head after a big crash no helmet no ride policy for me and my family as where the hit was it would have been right in the temple :shock:

Again an emotional not logical argument, helmets are designed to work by being crushed, if they split they have failed to work as designed.

But the helmet stopped his head being damaged

There's no evidence for that.

supersonic

You could apply that logic to many scenarios - the airbag: did it save his life? My heart drugs - would I be dead if I had not been put on them? In my case, possibly, probably...

It doesn't, which is wierd!

Are you saying that helmets do not reduce the chance of a head injury, or severity, and therefore is no point in wearing them? Or just using that stat? ;-) I think the argument can be broken down into many different points which need to be examined ie type of accident, speed, type of helmet, road/off road, impactor etc etc before we can say categorically that they don't 'work' in any shape or form. Unfortunately the published stats and papers for both sides of the argument are hard work, and are often misleading and contradictory.

wgwarburton

supersonic wrote:

You could apply that logic to many scenarios - the airbag: did it save his life? My heart drugs - would I be dead if I had not been put on them? In my case, possibly, probably...

It doesn't, which is wierd!

Are you saying that helmets do not reduce the chance of a head injury, or severity, and therefore is no point in wearing them? Or just using that stat? ;-) I think the argument can be broken down into many different points which need to be examined ie type of accident, speed, type of helmet, road/off road, impactor etc etc before we can say categorically that they don't 'work' in any shape or form. Unfortunately the published stats and papers for both sides of the argument are hard work, and are often misleading and contradictory.

I don't see a lot of point in analysing any given incident- about the only thing you can be sure of is that the next one you look at will be different.

Aggregating over a reasonable sized population ought to show that there is a beneficial effect overall. So if, for example, head injuries, or numbers killed stepped down as usage stepped up you could imagine that there was a correlation. You could then reasonably say that there was evidence that helmets saved lives and that you would typically be better to wear one.

For motorcyclists this is clearly demonstrable. For cyclists it is not.

Fortunately, it doesn't matter that much. Cycling is fundamentally safe and you have to be really unlucky to be seriously injured as a result of riding a bike, so it's an academic discussion... or at least, it would be if people didn't rant & rave about fools riding without helmets and call for legislation to mandate them. I also worry (a little) that the level of faith people appear to have in helmets leads them to put themselves at risk due to ignorance. Putting yourself at risk consciously, when you know the score and make an informed choice is fine, but I feel uncomfortable thinking that someone believes they are safer than they are.

Cheers,
W.

dougzz

biff55 wrote:

my 2 pence ;
conditioning the body to handle impacts and learning to fall / roll properly are elements that can aid your safety just as effectively if not more than wearing ppe ( helmets ).
many a time i've seen folk drop like a sack of spuds in low speed comedy collisions through poor balance and physical readyness.
granted , ths is an opinion bourne from years of rugby and martial arts which are way more dangerous than cycling and neither use helmets.
just an personal observation in this on-going debate.

Yeah right. How many deaths in recent years from playing Rugby or Martial arts then?

shouldbeinbed

RangerKris wrote:

After seeing a helmet split and taking the impact on my nephews head after a big crash no helmet no ride policy for me and my family as where the hit was it would have been right in the temple :shock:

I've been that kid and was seeing major stars after an unavoidable crash that split my helmet into bits and may well have saved me a more serious injury, I was quite an advocate for the things for a long time but I'm getting more relaxed about wearing them thinkng about other helmetless sports injuries, falling out of my loft hatch, a much bigger car accident, reading the regular exchanges on here, following the links etc, seeing how many (proper) cyclist on the road don't have them and are still there day in year out and occasionally not wearing it just to see how I felt about riding 'naked' or because it was just too damn hot and uncomfortable back in June. I'm easy now whether I put it on or not.

I'll be wearing it all winter cos it gives a bit of a warm, keeps some of the rain off and I've put lights on it - I ride through some high wall twisty lanes so it makes me visible over the walls where my bike mounted lights don't and IMO higher up lights make me more visible in queues of traffic

further

Personally, I don't wear one and I've taken a tumble one time where my head did hit the ground. I was wearing a cap which ended up facing the opposite direction from its starting position. I didn't notice any damage to my head/brain but I wonder whether wearing a helmet would've resulted in my neck being twisted around instead?

It's just an anecdote and no more valuable than any of those anecdotes purporting to support the benefits of helmets. There's a need for better evidence to help people make an informed decision.

To that end, have there been studies using crash test dummies? Would it be possible to create different types of impacts using this method?