Do you wear a helmet?

Wirral_paul

weadmire wrote:

Or put yet more clearly if helmets saved lives it would be obvious - the argument would be over. They don't and it isn't.

Seeing as you're so sure - do you want to share your PROOF and end the debate forever??

I personally never ride without a helmet and believe plenty of serious head injuries and deaths have been prevented by one (including me after smacking a rock when mountain biking). I dont need any proof with crash test dummies, or all the statistics in the world to convince me i'm probably better off with a helmet than without. As for the "speed that a helmet becomes redundant" argument, its probably a waste of time really considering it it as every accident is different and a 40mph glance on the helmet could be whole lot less severe than a "still clipped in" 0mph fall sideways onto a kerb edge.

For each of those who have crashed numerous times and are here on this thread to claim that helmets made no difference, there's probably a fair few cyclists who aren't here any more to tell us that a helmet may have saved them. To me that's all the justification i'll ever need!!

bompington

weadmire wrote:

But since your head is much more likely to hit the ground, or whatever else is in the way, if you are wearing one than otherwise

Evidence?

weadmire

Wirral_Paul,

I think you are missing my point in asking for the proof that will “end the debate forever.” The fact the argument has been banging on for 20 odd years is the proof that the benefits of wearing a helmet are far from clear cut. If the benefits were clear there would not be an argument, at the very least there would be much less of an argument. Presently 20 years or so on there is no less of an argument than there ever has been. The onus of proof lies with the pro lobby and they have struggled with it for as long as internet forums have existed.

Bompington, Evidence? It's broadly in two parts. My first four whacks had me always wearing my helmet and I always hit my head. Two of these falls were quite innocuous and at quite low speeds but I always whacked my head when I fell with a helmet. My next four had me without a helmet and they were much more severe impacts. In two of them I didn't hit my head. But as I said these eight were ones where I broke bones, I came off many times otherwise and did not hit my head when I was not wearing a helmet and I always hit my head when I was.

The last of the whacks I had wearing a helmet involved a pedestrian on the A26 in Southborough, Kent, it's between Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells. The pedestrian wasn't looking in my direction and stepped in front of me, there was no way of avoiding him and at the last moment I dipped my helmeted head to take the impact on my helmet. I glanced off one of his shoulders and weight forward ploughed headfirst into the ground. I was quite severely injured, face and left shoulder mostly. Looking back I realised if I had not been wearing said helmet I would not have led with my head and my weight would not have been so far forward: Much less likely that I'd have hit the road head first.

Whacks without a helmet: One was at the junction of Wormwood Street and Bishopsgate, the junction where a courier died last month. I was heading north at about 25mph when a driver, on his phone, before this was illegal, turned right off Bishopsgate into Wormwood Street. I did not have time to so much as touch the brakes, my front wheel hit the car just behind the front wheel arch sliding down the body work before fully engaging with the rear wheel arch, the bike with a Reynolds 853 steel frame folded in two and I got about 30 feet of air, landing beyond the junction. I did not hit my head.

Evidence II: A friend of mine was wiped out by an r sole in a van on Commercial Street. Like mine on Bishopsgate she got plenty of air. The driver was nicked and his insurers put up the usual dick head adversarial defence. An early question from the insurer's legal team was were you wearing a helmet. Her whack came some time after mine and by now helmets could apparently influence the claim through the BS of contributory negligence. In this case despite there being no head injury the insurer's lawyers keep banging on with the helmet question. After dealing with two half baked expert witnesses appointed by her lawyers - who had no real reply to the irrelevant helmet question - the victim asked the consultant who was treating her, Mr Tom Crisp, if he would offer his expert opinion. I believe the insurers lawyers were attempting to make the case if she did not hit her head the impact cannot have been as severe as claimed and therefore she was a malingerer and exaggerator. Of course they could not bring themselves to be completely clear with the accusation. Best to imply.

Tom Crisp is expert, he has been an orthopaedic consultant to the British Para Olympic squad, but he does not tart himself as a forensic expert. His evidence, which was accepted, was that helmets are more likely to cause an impact to the head because their mass and momentum, and its centre in an impact, will tend to overcome the hard wired muscular reflexes in most of us that will otherwise pull our heads out of the way of an impending impact as best as they can. These reflexes develop in proportion to the un-helmeted everyday mass of our heads. That might be opinion but it is certainly the case that an average helmet probably adds 5-10% in mass to an average head, and adds it to the head's extremity. Given the accelerations and decelerations we are talking of in impacts like falls I doubt anyone here can say said 5-10% extra would be controllable for necks other than those connected to the shoulders of F1 drivers and front row forwards.

In a cycling context - like helmets and jumping traffic lights, (see the links in the text that describes this t shirt): http://weadmire.net/tshirt/traffic-lights-t-shirt – the risks we take are not as clear cut as people like to think.

snorri

Wirral_Paul wrote:

I personally never ride without a helmet and believe plenty of serious head injuries and deaths have been prevented by one (including me after smacking a rock when mountain biking).

The "helmet debate" stems from concerns that helmet wearing may become compulsory for on road cycling.
The arguments, for and against, are based on the risks faced by the on road utility or leisure cyclist. There is as far as I know no "helmet debate" relating to helmet wearing for off road or sporting events.

Wirral_paul

weadmire wrote:

Wirral_Paul,

I think you are missing my point in asking for the proof that will “end the debate forever.” The fact the argument has been banging on for 20 odd years is the proof that the benefits of wearing a helmet are far from clear cut. If the benefits were clear there would not be an argument, at the very least there would be much less of an argument. Presently 20 years or so on there is no less of an argument than there ever has been. The onus of proof lies with the pro lobby and they have struggled with it for as long as internet forums have existed.

The point i was making is that you stated at the point that "helmets save lives" - that they dont and want to know what makes you so sure as to go on a public forum and state this?? I agree that there is no conclusive proof either way - but still you see fit to state otherwise (because in your own crashes you havent been killed or suffered a serious head injury??).

What do you base your statement on?? Is it really wise to suggest to potential newbies reading this thread that wearing a helmet is a good idea? Could you sleep if someone read your comment, didnt wear a helmet, and then died of head injuries in a future accident if you found out that they took your statement as gospel?

We all have the option as to helmet or no helmet - but i think its wrong to suggest to anyone that helmets are pointless!!

Why is the onus of proof on the "Pro" lobby?? This isnt a court where we have to show beyond reasonable doubt that helmets save lives.

Wirral_paul

snorri wrote:

Wirral_Paul wrote:

I personally never ride without a helmet and believe plenty of serious head injuries and deaths have been prevented by one (including me after smacking a rock when mountain biking).

The "helmet debate" stems from concerns that helmet wearing may become compulsory for on road cycling.
The arguments, for and against, are based on the risks faced by the on road utility or leisure cyclist. There is as far as I know no "helmet debate" relating to helmet wearing for off road or sporting events.

I fail to see the relevance of where the debate stems from within this thread - ie compulsory in law. Personally i'm against them being compulsory for adults but that doesnt mean i dont think everyone should be encouraged to wear one, and against statements on public forums that helmets dont save lives without providing any evidence to back this up beyond "I'm not dead so thats the proof"

weadmire

Snorri,
Eh? The argument had been done to death long before the compulsion brigade started being gobby. I took one thread to about 60 pages on a now defunct LCS website after being hit from behind. My bike, it had a carbon frame, was wrecked, it was quite a heavy impact. The back of my head had engaged with the windscreen wiper spindle of the van. I had a cut but no bruising. On the thread I happened to observe that had I been wearing a helmet, given they stick out some way at the back, I might have been saying if I hadn't been wearing one I might have....etc. And backing it up with some images of a broken helmet. I recall someone with a degree in Astrophysics from UCL, calling himself Leggy Blonde, being a key protagonist. He went off on one to the point of mentioning his academic credentials. The whole thing had nothing to do with compulsion, racing, mountain biking, leisure, road or any other subdivision of cycling, nor for that matter have any of the others I have taken part in.

Now you come to mention it I think the mention of compulsion in the context of helmet arguments is mainly an attempt to refresh a tired topic. It gives people who like to promote the wearing of them the opportunity to seem broad minded – I wear one but I do not agree with compulsion because it will reduce the number of people cycling and that.... etc etc. You will have read loads of comments like that.

weadmire

Wirral_Paul,

Am I persuading you? Your arguments have become incoherent.

Newbies? Helmets either work to the point they are worth wearing or they don't. On the strength of my experience, and I haven't described it all, I think at best they only save wearers from the risks they enhance – your head is more likely to hit what might be in the way when you are wearing one, your head might be cushioned to an equal opposite degree because you are wearing one. Beyond that things seem to stack up against them, risk compensation being the most obvious area I have experience of.

weadmire

Wirral_Paul,

(because in your own crashes you haven't been killed or suffered a serious head injury??).

You are wrong about that. The most serious whack to the head I took came without a helmet. I was descending an 11% hill - for people who know the area it is on the lane that runs between Bells Yew Green, nr Frant, and Wadhurst Station. I was confronted by a car moving off from the rough bell mouth of the gateway to a field. The bell mouth covered a conduit for a drainage ditch and was on the left, the car was moving off diagonally and was struggling to go up the hill I believe from a standing start. The lane is narrow and the area adjacent to the bell mouth was strewn with grit and small stones. I thought I had escaped as I struggled to control the skidding bike but the bottom of my handle bars engaged the top of the offside of the front wing just as I thought I had got past. The bike was pulled into the car and my head hit the offside windscreen pillar.

I was unconscious for about 20 minutes. The driver of the car involved drove away. I was found lying in the road some distance from my bike. Because there was no one else around the person who found me presumed I had just fallen off. Initially the police were not called because it was assumed to be a simple cycling incident.

My facial bone was broken diagonally from around my right eye socket to a point just above my right front tooth. I spent the night in one of the worst hospitals in SE England, Tunbridge Wells General, now closed. The very large gash above my right eye caused by the lens of my spectacles was sewn up by a drop dead gorgeous Greek doctor who explained her motivation in coming to T Wells General as the value of the intensity and amount of UK A&E work being the equivalent of about 5 years of Greek experience in about 12 months. Because my facial bone was broken I was transferred to the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead the following morning - they specialise in this sort of injury.

The consultant I dealt with questioned me closely and among other things wanted to remove the stitches above my right eye and replace them. He looked at me meaningfully in this regard and told me he could diminish the amount of scaring by changing said stitches. The Greek Doctor needed more practice apparently.

One of the more uncomfortable questions he asked concerned wearing a helmet. This was a difficult question. Among other responsibilities I had a wife and four children. I naturally felt this time round I had taken my helmet reluctance too far. You can therefore understand my surprise when he said it was probably just as well since my face had clearly absorbed a good deal of the impact and would recover but that it was possible that had I been wearing a helmet I might have broken my neck and been killed or rendered quadriplegic. Seeing my discomfort at being asked the helmet question he might have been being sympathetic, but it did not strike me that way.

You ask about my attitude to advising people new to cycling about helmets? Broadly similar to my advice about traffic lights. Bin anxiety, look for traffic not lights; risks are less obvious than they seem. I don't know how many offs you have had, I am guessing not many. If this is so and a mother is influenced by you and your inclination to helmets, to the extent she straps some heavy lump to her offspring's head, only to see them disabled for life in some minor fall because the useless helmet caused said offspring to go down on their heads - how would you be sleeping?

Wirral_paul

weadmire wrote:

Wirral_Paul,

Am I persuading you?

Errr no - the bullshit you write wouldnt convince anyone i'm sure - especially after you admit to having been knocked out when not wearing one!! To be honest - your post suggests some brain damage has been caused in your crashes!!

You're seriously in the minority with your views about helmets. You want to convince yourself that wearing a helmet causes more problems than they solve then be my guest!!!

weadmire

Wirral_Paul,

“Bullshit” Please identify what you consider to be bullshit in what I have written or retract the remark.

You are right I probably did damage my brains, particularly in the last whack I described, but I know I have enough left to be getting by.

“Convince myself”. I think the person doing the self convincing here is you. Otherwise please fill us in on why you are already convinced, or is your inclination to promoting helmet use a matter of your worry about being in a “minority”?

Have you ever fallen off, is so please let us have the details.

bompington

OK, my turn to bang my un-helmeted head against a particularly thick brick wall...

weadmire wrote:

One of the more uncomfortable questions he asked concerned wearing a helmet... he said it was probably just as well since my face had clearly absorbed a good deal of the impact and would recover but that it was possible that had I been wearing a helmet I might have broken my neck and been killed or rendered quadriplegic....

It's funny, anti-helmeters often (correctly) dismiss comments by doctors of the "your helmet saved your life" variety, on the grounds that you just can't tell.
But here you are quoting an even more far-fetched speculation. Where is the evidence for these famous rotational injuries?

weadmire wrote:

If this is so and a mother is influenced by you and your inclination to helmets, to the extent she straps some heavy lump to her offspring's head, only to see them disabled for life in some minor fall because the useless helmet caused said offspring to go down on their heads

Errr, have you ever actually held a helmet in your hands? They don't weigh very much, you know.

In short, I doubt there is much, if any evidence, of helmets making injuries worse in a crash.
Presumably, since helmet-wearing is much more common than it used to be a few years back, the proportion of KSIs in cycling accidents must have gone up, right?

weadmire

Bompington,

To rewind a little: something you or perhaps Wirral_Paul struggled with is precisely my point that indeed you cannot tell. That, as I said before is why the argument continues to rumble on. If helmets worked it would clear by now. It isn't. We have had incoherence from Wirral_Paul and now some of the same, helped on with an attempt at insults and patronage, from you.

Tom Crisp, the orthopaedic surgeon I referred to in a previous post, represented the person who was smashed up in Commercial Street as her expert witness. The process was interesting. As I said tarting his credentials in the forensic market place is not his bag. He is more performance than credentials, more vocation than venal you might say. Lined up against him were the credentials rich appointees, not to say puppets, of the insurance company. The settlement was quite a lump, six figures, the stakes were high. Tom Crisp's explanation as to why there was no head injury in a 20mph van/bike head on was forensically tested and accepted. I see you didn't comment on this, choosing instead to try and attack a remark acknowledged as being opinion perhaps motivated by sympathy.

You seem not to have been paying attention in asking whether I have handled a helmet. I can remember describing "Four with and four without". I wore one every day while cycling about 12,000 miles pa for many years and of course I was forced to wear one when I raced. I understand a human head weighs about 4kg. A good helmet will weigh about 200gms, about 5% of the weight of a head. Cheap helmets tend to be significantly heavier and children's heads significantly lighter. There are probably engineers who might be able to estimate what 5% -10% extra at an extremity does to the human ability to control things but if say jumping from just too great a height and your legs ability to control the deceleration are anything to go by – you will find your legs just collapse when you over drop the mark - 5% extra and a helping of acceleration may well be too much for most neck muscles. Tom Crisp certainly thinks so.

I don't think I said helmets make things worse in a crash. Certainly the consultant I quoted said it may have made things worse in the particular crash I described, but I said helmets probably only save wearers from the enhanced likelihood of hitting your head that wearing them delivers. I don't recall mentioning rotation, I took a full whack to the right side of my face and I didn't feel a thing at the moment of impact, I wouldn't know about rotation.

You mention KSIs. I presume you mean head injuries as a proportion of KSI's. Since you misquoted this I will assume the question is rhetorical, why don't you try and explain what you mean.

While we are waiting for Wirral_Paul to fill us in on what has convinced him perhaps you would oblige. Do you have experience of falling off, with, without or both, or are you buying and selling that which seems to be obvious?

bompington

Have you ever had the feeling that you're trying to communicate with a parallel universe?

weadmire

Bompington,

Like Wirral_Paul, I think you confuse your problems with what you would like to think are mine. Apparently now you are having a David Icke moment and seeing parallels. Should we take it that you don't have any experience to speak of? Are you just another buyer and seller of anxiety and convention in search of gravitas?

I think now is the time to say spare us the attempts at patronage, it's time to put up or shut up.

bompington

weadmire wrote:

Bompington,

Like Wirral_Paul, I think you confuse your problems with what you would like to think are mine. Apparently now you are having a David Icke moment and seeing parallels. Should we take it that you don't have any experience to speak of? Are you just another buyer and seller of anxiety and convention in search of gravitas?

I think now is the time to say spare us the attempts at patronage, it's time to put up or shut up.

No, I hope I have made it clear that I am quite aware of the thin and sometimes contradictory evidence for helmets. You on the other hand have, once one digs into your rambling posts (for goodness' sake, what on earth have greek doctors got to do with anything?), repeated quite staggering claims about what "might" have happened if you were wearing a helmet, to give just one example - it is you who needs to put up some evidence.

Wirral_paul

bompington wrote:

it is you who needs to put up some evidence.

No danger of that happening I am sure - rather post long rambling posts trying to make himself sound clever (while posting about how smart he is for ignoring red lights and not wearing a helmet, and using ONE accident and the "expert" opinion of some imaginary doctor (who is also an Accident Investigator - and so knows what would have happened) as his "evidence".

Clearly adding 200g to potentially lead to a small increase of the helmeted head hitting the ground is more important than the damage actually caused to the head - but hey ho - that doesnt fit his argument so gets ignored.

I'm sure we'll be back to the "expert" Tom Crisp shortly to prove every one who suggests that helmets probably save more injuries than they contribute to wrong.

Oh - and 8 years racing, 6 at 2nd Cat and a lot of crashes in my 20's when i didnt have the sense of self preservation i have now and was pretty much a lunatic descender. No head injuries though strangely.

weadmire

Wirral _Paul,

Please make your mind up, am I “clever” or “brain damaged”?

Imaginary expert? Introducing Tom Crisp: http://www.bmihealthcare.co.uk/consulta ... p_id=40375 Read it, I would say it is clear he knows of what he speaks.

Regarding your experience, I think we have a breakthrough moment: "No head injuries though strangely." Are you admitting not to having hit your head while while falling un-helmeted in your youth? To contrast and compare please let us have the detail of how things went when you fell when wearing one.

Bompington,

Would your mother say you are easily “staggered” or is it a question, as Shakespeare put it, that the lady doth protest too much? This cobblers aside let's have the details of your experience.

Regarding my “claims”, what claims? My claim, if you can call it a claim is that helmets seem to save wearers only from the consequences of wearing them, that they are a zero sum game. It is my conjecture that this is reflected in the clear lack of evidence that they work. This being reflected in the fact the argument about their efficacy has been ongoing for most the time Wirral_Paul has been riding a bicycle. You asked me for the evidence and I described some of the whacks I have had and one where I was intimately involved in the resolution of the claim against the insurers of the driver concerned. I also pointed out that wearing a helmet would make your head both heavier and, including the helmet, significantly larger. In saying otherwise you are letting your anxiety and prejudice interfere with your judgment.

bompington

weadmire wrote:

You asked me for the evidence and I gave you anecdotes, speculation and waffle

FTFY

weadmire

Bompington,

Please explain why you are fabricating quotes. Wirral_Paul and a few others besides probably hope you are waving, but we all know you are drowning....

Time for you to go down periscope me thinks.

bompington

weadmire wrote:

Bompington,

Please explain why you are fabricating quotes.

Just summarising for the benefit of the time-crunched ;-)

weadmire

Bompington,

And "FTFY"? More likely that everyone reading this thread sees you as a loser. Other helmeteers would have been counting on you and you have let them down. Probably best for you to admit it and slither off.

bompington

Very well, I have to admit that I am utterly defeated by your powerful arguments, compelling evidence, and excoriating invective.
I shall now slither off to lick my wounds.

tarquin_foxglove

bompington wrote:

weadmire wrote:

You asked me for the evidence and I gave you anecdotes, speculation and waffle

FTFY

It is refreshing that the anti-helmet lobby are now using anecdote, speculation & waffle, as that is usually the domain of the pro-helmet brigade with their endless 'last night a helmet saved my life' stories.

The AHL should also add emotional blackmail to their armoury to counteract all the PHB going on about family left behind, having something worth protecting, becoming a vegetable, with the clinching argument being the word "simples".

So here goes:
[AHL emotional blackmail]The idea that a piece of polystyrene and plastic will render the wearer immune to injury and not wearing one is negligent, gives credence to the notion that cycling is inherently dangerous.

If everyone agrees that cycling is inherently dangerous then car drivers can argue for a lower standard of responsibility if there is an accident and the cyclist (regardless of helmet usage) dies. "They knew the risk when they got on the bike, if they'd been in a car they would have been fine"

Every time you cycle with a helmet on, you are enabling motorists to kill cyclists with impunity[/AHL emotional blackmail]

Pross

I've always been pro choice but opting to wear a helmet myself but having read some of the above from weadmire I think everyone should where a helmet when reading this forum in case they stumble across one of his posts causing them to fall asleep and smash their heads on the desk!

Pross

weadmire wrote:

Bompington,

And "FTFY"? More likely that everyone reading this thread sees you as a loser. Other helmeteers would have been counting on you and you have let them down. Probably best for you to admit it and slither off.

Or possibly not - after the last few pages of drivel I've switched from pro choice to vehement advocate of compulsory helmet use.

weadmire

Pross,
Nah, you are troubled that Bompington has made such a mess of things, otherwise why wait so long to make your, falling asleep er... joke?

Fess up, you are in the I always wear one but I don't approve of compulsion brigade.

Helmets don't work and it shows

joshr96

Surely a cyclist of 50 years should know better. I have been cycling for...3 months now and have never went on a bike ride with out my helmet, as silly as it might look.

weadmire

Josh,
It is ill mannered to presume my motivation might be similar to yours, more so in the face of what has already been said. I will be kind and just say I think you are out of your depth....

shouldbeinbed

These route marches in ever decreasing circles of tedium & futility should be locked immediately by the mods and the naive fool or s**t stirrer that started them banned from the Internet for several lifetimes.

In short:

Some people think helmets are great & can produce Dr's and scientific studies to prove their point & think we should all bow to their world view and will not be dissuaded from it no matter what.

Some other people think helmets are the devils work and can produce Dr's and scientific studies to prove their point & think we should all bow to their world view and will not be dissuaded from it no matter what.

The rest of us find these people a bunch of mind numbingly tedious extremists who's views are not to be taken seriously & will continue to do our own thing whilst they waffle interminably, rant and dribble in their respective corners.