How many of you ride without a helmet?

meanredspider

merak wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

Merak - your stats work against you. 4x as many pedestrians died but how many more pedestrians are there than cyclists? 8x as many motor vehicle occupants but how many more etc...etc

Answered in the other thread. If you are a cyclist and a pedestrian and a car occupant, the probability of serious or fatal injury was comparable in 2010 for the three activities.

Pedestrian deaths are likely to have fallen exactly because car design has radically improved in recent years. They are designed, tested and rated on pedestrian impact - particularly versus head injuries with likely head impact points designed to protect the pedestrian. The same design and testing is not done for impact with a cyclist.

And your point is?

And cycle helmets are not designed to protect cyclists against exactly the same injuries as car occupants. A car driver ( the one certain and most frequent occupant of a car) is most likely to strike the steering wheel with his face. Last time I looked my bike didn't have a steering wheel.

And your point is? Surely you should be advocating ful face hard shell helmets for car drivers.

The bottom line is that in 2010 if you cycled, walked and used a car you were roughly equally likely to die while carrying out each activity. So why PPE for bicycles and not for car occupants or pedestrians?

Basically none of your arguments stack up. You made h point about pedestrian fatalities reducing - my response was to show that highly likely to be as a result of improved car design.

A modern car is one giant piece of PPE. It's crammed full of active and passive safety devices.

Society accepts risks in return for utility and convenience. We could reduce accidents by making the national speed limit to 20mph. We could insist that drivers wear full-face lids. Neither would be acceptable. Instead we design safer cars and fit airbags.

Your final point is your worst - it's simply incorrect. And, even if it were, since 80% of cyclists wear helmets, it tells us nothing about helmet use.

Simonhi

Scotxr wrote:

As for grammar, thanks for pointing all that out. I will hand back my BSc and my PGcert straight away stating that CiD has found me out.

I would, seeing as you can't even get his name right.

It's CiB by the way ... Priceless

bompington

Simonhi wrote:

Scotxr wrote:

As for grammar, thanks for pointing all that out. I will hand back my BSc and my PGcert straight away stating that CiD has found me out.

I would, seeing as you can't even get his name right.

It's CiB by the way ... Priceless

Yep, we're all splitting our sides, how utterly hilarious :roll:

briantrumpet

My, this thread has it all: yet another interminable helmet debate which both 'sides' think is going to come to a logical conclusion, and people who make grammar/spelling mistakes correcting other people who make grammar/spelling mistakes. Now, if we could have an animation of paint drying, that would make it complete.

Honestly, if you want to get properly interminable and pointless helmet debates, and bad spelling and grammar, go to Cycle Chat. This thread is decidedly amateur in comparison.

sloppyschleckonds

Further evidence

http://bit.ly/q3fqqc

NickWi

An earlier reply included a comment "I hit the deck sufficiently hard to split my helmet into three pieces."

This is in fact evidence that the helmet didn't actually work properly. The lining of a helmet is desighned to crush and absorb impact. If the helmet splits then it didn't do it's job as the forces were redirected not absorbed.

The helmet debate is filled with urban myths on both sides and it does well to check the facts before jumping to conclusions.

tarquin_foxglove

SloppySchleckonds wrote:

Further evidence

http://bit.ly/q3fqqc

Ooh this is fun.

Some more evidence
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb0QjASuuqI

ooermissus

I am going to start a new thread: How many of you ride without a tin helmet? 8)

MattC59

NickWi wrote:

An earlier reply included a comment "I hit the deck sufficiently hard to split my helmet into three pieces."

This is in fact evidence that the helmet didn't actually work properly. The lining of a helmet is desighned to crush and absorb impact. If the helmet splits then it didn't do it's job as the forces were redirected not absorbed.

The helmet debate is filled with urban myths on both sides and it does well to check the facts before jumping to conclusions.

That was me who said that, and yes, it did do it's job. Helmets are designed to absorb the impact by discipating the energy. Whether that be by breaking or denting, it's still discipated the energy.

rolf_f

MattC59 wrote:

NickWi wrote:

An earlier reply included a comment "I hit the deck sufficiently hard to split my helmet into three pieces."

This is in fact evidence that the helmet didn't actually work properly. The lining of a helmet is desighned to crush and absorb impact. If the helmet splits then it didn't do it's job as the forces were redirected not absorbed.

The helmet debate is filled with urban myths on both sides and it does well to check the facts before jumping to conclusions.

That was me who said that, and yes, it did do it's job. Helmets are designed to absorb the impact by discipating the energy. Whether that be by breaking or denting, it's still discipated the energy.

I think NickWi was jumping to the conclusion that just because the helmet split, it didn't absorb impact forces beforehand! As per a car crash; eventually the interior will be deformed given a big enough impact but it doesn't mean that the crumple zone didn't work.

Mind you, he is also jumping to the conclusion that an off hand comment on a forum is 'evidence', either way, of helmet performance in an accident!

MattC59

Rolf F wrote:

MattC59 wrote:

NickWi wrote:

An earlier reply included a comment "I hit the deck sufficiently hard to split my helmet into three pieces."

This is in fact evidence that the helmet didn't actually work properly. The lining of a helmet is desighned to crush and absorb impact. If the helmet splits then it didn't do it's job as the forces were redirected not absorbed.

The helmet debate is filled with urban myths on both sides and it does well to check the facts before jumping to conclusions.

That was me who said that, and yes, it did do it's job. Helmets are designed to absorb the impact by discipating the energy. Whether that be by breaking or denting, it's still discipated the energy.

I think NickWi was jumping to the conclusion that just because the helmet split, it didn't absorb impact forces beforehand! As per a car crash; eventually the interior will be deformed given a big enough impact but it doesn't mean that the crumple zone didn't work.

Mind you, he is also jumping to the conclusion that an off hand comment on a forum is 'evidence', either way, of helmet performance in an accident!

Plus, there's the blindingly obvious point that my helmet protected my head, thus working perfectly........................

Velomanuk

I don't always wear a helmet on my commute, and four weeks ago car turned across my path catapaulting me onto the ride, I sustained a concussion and a large gash on my head and an egg size lump, lots of blood and pain.

I think I may start wearing a helmet now

gmacz

I used to cycle for mile after mile without hands on the handlebar.
Great for balance and the no back pain.
Wind caught me between 2 houses as I was getting ready to go back to the car and was taking my coat off while cycling, down I went hard and fast on the road.
Never cycle without hands on handlebar anymore.

MattC59

gmacz wrote:

I used to cycle for mile after mile without hands on the handlebar.
Great for balance and the no back pain.
Wind caught me between 2 houses as I was getting ready to go back to the car and was taking my coat off while cycling, down I went hard and fast on the road.
Never cycle without hands on handlebar anymore.

???
:roll:

gmacz

I takes a painfull experience to knock sense into you.
As per the previous post, bang head and now going to wear helmet

cookdn

tarquin_foxglove wrote:

SloppySchleckonds wrote:

Further evidence

http://bit.ly/q3fqqc

Ooh this is fun.

Some more evidence
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb0QjASuuqI

Yep, in the Netherlands the demographics of cycling are turned on their head, it's the pedestrians that need helmets . Visit Amsterdam and I guarantee you'll accidentally end up in the path of a cyclist. Be warned they won't stop for anything.

Best regards

merak

meanredspider wrote:

Basically none of your arguments stack up. You made h point about pedestrian fatalities reducing - my response was to show that highly likely to be as a result of improved car design.

You didn't show any such thing. What you did was to make an empty speculation, an assumption without supporting evidence. It might be the case that that is one element in explaining some of the improvement in survivability of pedestrian accidents, but you have certainly not shown it to be so, and there are likely to be many other factors such as improved A&E procedures, more rapid first responder response, better triage, and so on But even it was so it does not negate my point that the survivability of pedestrian accidents has improved substantially more than the survivability of cycle accidents, so where is all this huge benefit of helmet wearing that we should expect to see if helmets make such a vast difference in the real world.

A modern3 car is one giant piece of PPE. It's crammed full of active and passive safety devices.

So it is, and more than 800 people still died in them in 2010. Are you suggesting that that figure would not be improved by the wearing of hard shell helmets by car occupants?

Society accepts risks in return for utility and convenience. We could reduce accidents by making the national speed limit to 20mph. We could insist that drivers wear full-face lids. Neither would be acceptable.

Exactly, so the actions we take are based on an assessment of, amongst other things, "acceptability". In order to determine whether any particular risk is worth taking we should make an assessment of the risk and the practical and social consequences of the proposed action. Unfortunately, as the data shows we don't always make that assessment rationally, and even more unfortunately, the "always wear a helmet" missionaries often portray certain kinds of cycling to be more dangerous than they are. The DoT data shows that, in the UK, the probability of dying on the road as a cyclist, a pedestrian or in a car are roughly comparable (this is unequivocally what the data shows). Now, if I'm a high mileage club cyclist, I might choose to wear a helmet on my club runs because not only does my mileage increase my probability of accident, but the nature of the cycling does. Ditto for riding my MTB on forest trails. On the other hand, when I'm pootling down to the shops I might choose, with equal justification, not to wear my helmet because the probability of accident is lower. And I want to be able to do that without the thing being turned into a moral or sanity issue.

Your final point is your worst - it's simply incorrect

. well, the data comes from the DoT - but you seem to prefer what you feel sure is right to real data. Nevertheless, the fact is that in the UK in 2010, if you were a cyclist, a pedestrian or a car occupant, your chance of dying was roughly comparable for all three activities. Not per mile, not per trip, but in absolute probability.

neilo23

I'm glad that many of you weren't my parents when I was a child. I get the feeling that I wouldn't have been allowed to play on the climbing frames in the park or climb the trees in the fields near my house in case I fell, go to cub camp in case I flew of the rope swing or burnt my hands on the camp fire, practise my balance walking across the top of gates in my Luke Skywalker / ninja phase, go sailing in case I got my hair wet, etc, etc.... And as for the bike ramps we used to build at the end of the drive. Heaven forbid!

meanredspider

merak wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

Basically none of your arguments stack up. You made h point about pedestrian fatalities reducing - my response was to show that highly likely to be as a result of improved car design.

You didn't show any such thing. What you did was to make an empty speculation, an assumption without supporting evidence. It might be the case that that is one element in explaining some of the improvement in survivability of pedestrian accidents, but you have certainly not shown it to be so, and there are likely to be many other factors such as improved A&E procedures, more rapid first responder response, better triage, and so on But even it was so it does not negate my point that the survivability of pedestrian accidents has improved substantially more than the survivability of cycle accidents, so where is all this huge benefit of helmet wearing that we should expect to see if helmets make such a vast difference in the real world..

What I did illustrate is that cars are now designed, tested and rated for pedestrian impacts and not cyclist impacts. I could include links if you like but you can clearly Google with the best. That's a clear difference over the time period stated between peds and cyclists. All of your potential causes for the difference seem to apply equally to pedestrians and cyclists so it would be difficult to see how they could explain any difference. What I'm setting out to demonstrate is that this issue is FAR more complex than your bald figures begin to touch upon. Throw into the mix 20 mph limits in residential areas and outside schools and a raft of other measures and it gets more complex still. The numbers are meaningless.

merak wrote:

A modern3 car is one giant piece of PPE. It's crammed full of active and passive safety devices.

So it is, and more than 800 people still died in them in 2010. Are you suggesting that that figure would not be improved by the wearing of hard shell helmets by car occupants?

Not at all. There will be clear and documented evidence of how nearly every single one of those 800 died. Whether a hard helmet in addition to all of the other safety devices would have helped them survive, I don't know. That's not my point. My point is that there are already a raft of safety devices in place. It's a law of diminishing returns. Some accidents for all intents and purposes are "unsurviveable". The other point is that the topic is well-studied, the data very clear, accurate and well recorded. The same is not true of cycling accidents. To illustrate my point, where is it recorded when you or I started cycling?

merak wrote:

Society accepts risks in return for utility and convenience. We could reduce accidents by making the national speed limit to 20mph. We could insist that drivers wear full-face lids. Neither would be acceptable.

Exactly, so the actions we take are based on an assessment of, amongst other things, "acceptability". In order to determine whether any particular risk is worth taking we should make an assessment of the risk and the practical and social consequences of the proposed action. Unfortunately, as the data shows we don't always make that assessment rationally, and even more unfortunately, the "always wear a helmet" missionaries often portray certain kinds of cycling to be more dangerous than they are. The DoT data shows that, in the UK, the probability of dying on the road as a cyclist, a pedestrian or in a car are roughly comparable (this is unequivocally what the data shows).

Your final point is your worst - it's simply incorrect

. well, the data comes from the DoT - but you seem to prefer what you feel sure is right to real data. Nevertheless, the fact is that in the UK in 2010, if you were a cyclist, a pedestrian or a car occupant, your chance of dying was roughly comparable for all three activities. Not per mile, not per trip, but in absolute probability.

What unequivocal data? The nonsense of this is that the number of miles registered vehicles cover is very accurately recorded - the MOT does it. Where are pedestrian or cycling trips recorded? Same goes for non-fatal accidents. Very accurately recorded for motor vehicles as it's a legal requirement. How can you begin to assess the risk (severity x likelihood) of cycling? You can't compare the activities.

Now if you say your probability of dying in absolute terms is the same, that pushes cycling way up the league - especially versus pedestrians (as we are pretty much all pedestrians at some point). And most of us are vehicle passengers at some point too. Only a fraction of us are cyclists.

STEFANOS4784

I never leave home without my helmet.

Hoopdriver

Same here

Mark Alexander

Me either. Sometimes I even take my bike too.

Frank the tank

For some reason I always wear a helmet when riding my bike for pleasure but, never on my short (1 mile) commute to work.

Ironically, my commute to work is the only time I've been in collision with a motor vehicle.Fortunately I lived to tell the tale as it was a low speed job. Only a fortnight ago a friend of mine was killed riding his bike on the same bit of road. Unfortunately for him he was in collision with the back wheels of an artic.

I've often said to my missus, as it was to appease her I took to wearing a helmet on the road (always worn one off road) "Most cyclists die because they've been hit a ton of metal. Not because they've bumped their heads".

I believe it should be the choice of the individual unless we're talking small chidren in which case the parent should be responsible.

ollyridesfirst

This is why you wear a helmet:

http://youtu.be/S2oymHHyV1M

It's probably been posted somewhere else, but i thought it appropriate

Thebigbee

gmacz wrote:

I used to cycle for mile after mile without hands on the handlebar.
Great for balance and the no back pain.
Wind caught me between 2 houses as I was getting ready to go back to the car and was taking my coat off while cycling, down I went hard and fast on the road.
Never cycle without hands on handlebar anymore.

This has to be one of the most absurd posts on this absurd board for using a helmet lol!

Riding no handed - mile after mile - then taking your coat off. Sounds like you were showing off somewhat and weren't in full control of the bike anyway.

You then go on to say that you now wear a helmet.

Sounds like you were quite lucky that you didn't do a face plant and I do hope you don't ride like that on the road.

I think you need to wear a full face helmet so that you can indulge your passion for long distance no handed riding and perfecting your Superman impression on your bike.

Donk

Bobbinogs

OllyRidesFirst wrote:

This is why you wear a helmet:

http://youtu.be/S2oymHHyV1M

It's probably been posted somewhere else, but i thought it appropriate

I think it's fair to say "I never expected that"!!!!

gmacz

Bigbee, you need to read the posts again.
You have put a new meaning to everything I have written.
If you need help to understand the post and the ones either side, give me an email and I will explain.
English might not be your main language.

Thebigbee

gmacz wrote:

Bigbee, you need to read the posts again."

No - I only skimmed them as they are terminally dull. Your's stood out because it was so unintentionally funny and such a massive own goal!"

!You have put a new meaning to everything I have written."

Probably true because I possess the traits of a normal human being that is open minded. Those traits being common sense, open mindedness and the freedom of choice."

"If you need help to understand the post and the ones either side, give me an email and I will explain."

I don't need help or a private explanation thanks. You said that you rode "mile after mile" no handed, then decided to get changed. Please explain, not just for me, because you seem to ride a bike like a berk.

"English might not be your main language.

No - it might not be. But you certainly don't have a full grasp of the highway code or cycling etiquette do you?

I am unsure whether a helmet is actually worthwhile with a brainfart like you. Do you actually have a grasp of what you have written or has your no handed, clothes changing accident knocked your limited intelligence down from the low doubles to single figures?

By all means attempt to make an argument on this futile subject - you ain't gonna be a poster boy though are ya?!!

LOL

MattC59

Thebigbee wrote:

gmacz wrote:

Bigbee, you need to read the posts again."

No - I only skimmed them as they are terminally dull. Your's stood out because it was so unintentionally funny and such a massive own goal!"

!You have put a new meaning to everything I have written."

Probably true because I possess the traits of a normal human being that is open minded. Those traits being common sense, open mindedness and the freedom of choice."

"If you need help to understand the post and the ones either side, give me an email and I will explain."

I don't need help or a private explanation thanks. You said that you rode "mile after mile" no handed, then decided to get changed. Please explain, not just for me, because you seem to ride a bike like a berk.

"English might not be your main language.

No - it might not be. But you certainly don't have a full grasp of the highway code or cycling etiquette do you?

I am unsure whether a helmet is actually worthwhile with a brainfart like you. Do you actually have a grasp of what you have written or has your no handed, clothes changing accident knocked your limited intelligence down from the low doubles to single figures?

By all means attempt to make an argument on this futile subject - you ain't gonna be a poster boy though are ya?!!

LOL

bigbee............. WOOOOSH !

Escadrille Ecosse

This is great, it's got everything. Probably the only thing that might make it better would be a discussion on the relative risk/benefit of wearing or not wearing a helmet whilst riding though or waiting at red lights. Maybe whilst simultaneously eating a Tunnocks Caramel Wafer or other comestible of choice.

The only slightly unsettling thing was the video from Holland, all those bikes.....discuss