Can somebody summarise helmet-gate for me please?

[ufkacbln]

That top of the helmet hits first. My head then remains horizontal to the ground and my face doesn't come into contact with the ground. Common sense says that's the only way scratches got on my helmet and not on my face.
Wobble.

Think it through? I fall on my face not my head. Your implying I have brain damage. And no doubt you know that

Seems to be a bit of confusion...

You are unequivocally stating that you fell on your head and your face did NOT come in contact, then equally unequivocally state that you fall on your face and NOT your head.

Only one of thses statements can be unequivocally true........ which one?

 

[Profpointy]

There you go thats no to hard. the majority not saying find it to hard they are saying can't happen.
I hit the ground, helmet top hits first as will always happen as your head is higher than the rest of your body. My chin moves up and away from the floor not to the floor. My chin is moving towards my chest. the scratches show that.

mmm - so it protects your face because of leverage bending your neck if I've got his right. Is that really a good thing ?

 

[brand]

In that case the helmet is far too big.

Research by Rivara would suggest that a helmet with this much distance between skull and helmet would double the incidence of head injury when compared with a properly fitting helmet!

Your knowledge of helmets is a little lacking.

Personally I would bin it immediately and buy one that fits properly.....

it does fit properly it fits lovely. And it has loads of lovely padding making my head ultra comfy.

 

[JoeyB]

Brand, are you saying that this dude wouldn't have a burnt face if he wore a helmet? http://fat-pie.com/burntfaceman/

I got my summary in the first page or so, the rest has just made me laugh a lot. Adrian trolling and Brand biting...

 

[ianrauk]

I am an idiot

If you keep repeating it you might start believing it.

 

[summerdays]

Yeah that happens every time you come off a bike, obviously. Which explains why I'm here with no head impact and a broken humerus after last week's off

Get well soon!

 

[ufkacbln]

it does fit properly it fits lovely. And it has loads of lovely padding making my head ultra comfy.

As I said, your knowledge of helmets is sadly lacking if you believe this.

Seriously, you are endangering yourself and making your helmet into something that is more likely to cause injury than protect.

It is of course somewhat ironic that you make claims about the effectiveness of helmets and then choose to render yours ineffective!

 

[glasgowcyclist]

I am an idiot

Might be simpler to make that your new sig...


GC

 

[mcshroom]

Think it's time for this one again, though I doubt certain posters will give it much consideration

"It is well established that, if you weigh up the life-years gained through cycling (due to increased physical activity) versus the life years lost (due to injury), the health benefits of cycling far outweigh the risks involved. One widely quoted figure for the UK, acknowledged by Government, puts the benefit:disbenefit ratio for the UK at 20:1. Other ratios for other countries are higher still. (N.B. some of the academic references reduce the ratio by including the negative effects of pollution - however that's obviously irrelevant to the helmet debate. If you remove the pollution effect, the other references all come out with ratios above 20:1). But let's take 20:1 for the sake of argument.

From this, recent research shows that, if you tell people to wear helmets (whether by law or simply through promotion campaigns) and this reduces cycle use by more than 1 unit of cycling (e.g. one cyclist, or one km cycled) for every 20 who continue, this is absolutely guaranteed to shorten more lives than helmets could possibly save - even if they were 100% effective at preventing ALL cycling injuries (i.e. leg, arm, shoulder injuries as well as head injuries) for the remaining cyclists. That maximum threshold, beyond which you would be doing more harm than good, then drops further still - down to c2% - once you take account of the proportion of cycling injuries which are non-head injuries. And this is still assuming that helmets are 100% effective at preventing head injuries.

In fact, the evidence on the effectiveness of helmets has become increasingly sceptical over time. A recent literature review by Rune Elvik, an internationally recognised authority on road safety, found that the estimates of helmet effectiveness have progressively decreased over time, with the most recent studies showing no net benefit. In this same report he documents evidence that helmets increase the risk of neck injuries. In a separate report, Elvik has also found that helmet-wearers suffer 14% more injuries per mile travelled than non-wearers. The reasons for this are unclear, however there is good evidence that (at least some) cyclists ride less cautiously when wearing helmets, and that drivers leave less space when overtaking cyclists with helmets than those without.

The only clearly documented effect of enforced helmet laws (e.g. in Australia, New Zealand or parts of Canada) is to substantially reduce cycle use, typically by about a third. Reductions in cyclists' head injury have been similar to the reductions in cycle use, suggesting no reduction in risk for the remaining cyclists, and in some cases this appears to have worsened. In addition to the possible explanations in the para above, this may also be becuase reductions in cycle use undermine the "safety in numbers" effect for the cyclists who remain - see see www.ctc.org.uk/safetyinnumbers. A clear relationship has been shown between cycle use and cycle safety - cycling is safer in places where cycle use is high (e.g. the Netherlands or Denmark - or within Britain, in Cambridge or York). Telling people to wear helmets, instead of creating safe cycling conditions, is contrary to the aims of encouraging more, as well as safer, cycling.

From this, I hope it is clear that the effectiveness or otherwise of helmets is not the main point. As explained above, even if helmets were 100% effective, you would still be doing more harm than good if you deter more than c2% of cycle use by telling people to wear them. That's because the risks of cycling are not especially high, and the health benefits are SO much greater. You are about as unlikely to be killed in a mile of cycling as a mile of walking - do we also need walking helmets? - no, of course not! The idea that you need helmets to cycle is both a symptom of our massively exaggerated concern about the "dangers" of cycling, which results in such pitifully low cycle use in Britain.

In short, if we want to maximise the health, environmental and other benefits of cycling, we need to focus on creating safe conditions, and thus increasing cycle use. Resorting to helmets simply tackles the symptoms of the problem, not the causes, and thus deters people from cycling. This is pretty much guaranteed to shorten more lives than it could possibly save. Faced with both an obesity crisis and a climate crisis, the last thing we should be doing is driving people into increasingly car-dependent, obesogenic lifestyles."
Roger Geffen, CTC

 

[brand]

mmm - so it protects your face because of leverage bending your neck if I've got his right. Is that really a good thing ?

Slight bending of the neck. Untill recently I played Rugby as a Hooker I know with absolute certainty if I was risking my neck I have injured it enough times to know.. Anyway you seem to think I have an option on how I land. And are you actually saying I might be right and that I don't cut my face. You know that means your backing down

 

[mcshroom]

No it means you don't actually understand the debate nor the issue

 

[Mugshot]

How often have you fallen off onto your head?

I'm still waiting for an answer after asking in post #90, so don't hold your breath for one.

 

[brand]

As I said, your knowledge of helmets is sadly lacking if you believe this.

Seriously, you are endangering yourself and making your helmet into something that is more likely to cause injury than protect.

It is of course somewhat ironic that you make claims about the effectiveness of helmets and then choose to render yours ineffective!

You have no idea what my helmet is like. It fits perfectly. Because it is not exactly the same as a cycling helmet does not mean it is "ineffective". The padding is all round the head including the back of the head while your normal cycling helmet is more like a skull cap. Ie Crap. That ignores the fact that a lot of cyclist are wearing them to far back (opps not protecting there face would be another way of saying that). It also looks like a lot are buying ones that are to small for them.

 

[Scoosh]

MOD NOTE:
OK, we (you've) gone far enough with this and it's not going much further.

Time to Lock.