Do you wear a helmet on your commute?

[Drago]

[QUOTE 1996507, member: 45"]...to a drunk stumbling across a dual carriageway...[/quote]
Free Giro with every 6 pack of Stella?

 

[Theseus]

Why yous not wheres ur helmit whens yous a padestriens?

It's hard to argue with this statement.

Indeed, I wonder if b_b is from around these parts.

 

[beany_bot]

No, what is ridiculous is your bizarre insistence that we only consider one activity and deliberately ignore any others when assessing the need to wear a helmet.

I don't deliberately ignore others...Skiing, skateboarding, rock climbing etc etc, all good ideas to have helmets on.
Just not the quite frankly propostrious counter argument that you should wear one ever waking minute of your life.

Absolutely ridiculous argument and the only one the nay-sayers can come up with.

 

[StuartG]

Nope, sorry, still ridiculous. Your mother is awake for what 16 hours a day? Maybe more if she is elderly. You cannot expect anyone to wear a helmet for that period of time (unless your buzz aldrin).

I just don't get you. A week last Saturday I cycled 130 miles. I'm slow, it took 13 hours. So that's a reason not to wear a helmet? And if you believe they are of significant use that PRECISELY when I should have been wearing it. What therefore is the point wearing one for 5 minutes popping down to the local shop where the probability of a fall in comparison is a tiny fraction? Why then wear one at all?

My mum has to wear a nappy 24/7. That's worse than any helmet. Your point is self-defeating

 

[Drago]

No, what is ridiculous is your bizarre insistence that we only consider one activity and deliberately ignore any others when assessing the need to wear a helmet.

I can understand that pedestrians may indeed fall and land on their noggin.

Having already mentione dmyself differences in velocity, and thus kinetic energy, please explain how walking and cycling are comparble in a) frequency of blows to the ehad, and b) severity of blows to the head.

Not saying you are wrong by any means. However, you've made a bold and very interesting comparison and we would like some science, or at least some well reasoned argument to back it up.

While we're in this vein, perhaps I could suggest seatbelts for armchairs

 

[Mo1959]

Well, living in rural Scotland I found another reason to wear a helmet. The local wildlife! Nesting season a couple of years ago and a buzzard dived at me several times when cycling, just skimming over my head. Last year my next door neighbour had the same thing but this time it made contact and he was scratched on his head and neck. A bit rare I suppose but just thought I would mention it.

Never used to wear a helmet but have started since starting back cycling this time. I think it is probably just a false sense of security?? Never actually checked on any statistics re whether they have saved lives or prevented injuries.

 

[StuartG]

Well, living in rural Scotland I found another reason to wear a helmet.

Which raises the old question of whether this (and the stone throwing episode in a parallel thread) are really cycling related. Could it just because you were around and would have been the same if you had been on foot? Be careful, unscrupulous souls here might interpret the answer as evidence for helmeting pedestrians

 

[Drago]

Have a look at the stats for head injuries and transport modes.

What stats? Do you expect us to go searching for evidence to support your contention?

 

[Drago]

Generally speaking, the evolution process has adapted the human form to survive the bulk of impacts that nature and gravity are likely to throw at it. The viatal organs are englase in a bony yet flexible cage. The brain is suspended in a shock absorbing fluid inside a rigid dome of bone. Of cource, cavemen will have fallen off clifffs etc, but even the mighty mother nature can't account for everything.

Indeed, nature can't account for cycling the velocities involved are un-natural in the sense that evolution has never accounted for this in the current design of the human form. It has the ptoential to cause the type of injury that nature never had in mind when it started tinkering with home erectus (snigger) and is why some of us choose to wear helmets.

accidents will happen, and the mdoern environment with stairs, laddrs, Stella Artois etc is also beyond the scope of evolution. Nevertheless, in terrms of transportation the human body is still best able to protect itself from injury in it's designed, eveolved form, walking upriggt on 2 legs.

don't wear a helmet on a bike, I'm fine with that if that's your choice. but justifying not wearign a lid (not that you need to justify it to me anyway) by pointing out epdestrians dont wear them is pretty funny, when this is the human bodies designed (or adapted) nature mode of motion.

Now, seatbelts for toilets might be an idea...

 

[Norm]

[QUOTE 1996774, member: 45"]?.. because it diverts from the question at hand -whether helmets are of benefit to cyclists.[/quote]
And the answer is that there is no evidence either way?

 

[Drago]

PS, apologies for my truly astonishingly bad toping

 

[StuartG]

[QUOTE 1996774, member: 45"]That's right. But "we shouldn't because they don't" is equally bizarre, because it diverts from the question at hand -whether helmets are of benefit to cyclists. Whether they'll benefit toddlers or wrinklies is irrelevant to that question.[/quote]
I can't quite go along with that. There is a paradoxical arguement being made by some of us here. That is the question of helmets has been raised to a position of commanding its own subforum on CC, is mandatory in so many areas of cycling life out of all proportion to its possible efficacy.

We have two essential problems. Cycling is perceived as being more dangerous than it is. Helmets are promoted as a panacea that cannot deliver the safety people want. Its a decent parallel to people perceiving crime to be higher than it is and that bobbies on the beat are the solution. Its going to end in tears however much you want it to be that way.

We know how to police better, we know how to make roads and cyclists safer. But the solutions are not cheap and not easy to declaim from the stump. So we are stuck with pursuing agendas that can't deliver. Its largely a waste of time. And we waste time saying so 'cos it just won't go away ...

Good night. I got a bike to fix.

 

[ufkacbln]

What about Liam Neesons wife? OK she wasn't cycling but she fell over and took a bump to the head (easily done on a bike). Every single medical person who had anything to say on the matter (neurologists too I might add) said that a helmet would more than likely have saved her life.

To me, that's the end of the argument right there.

You are quite correct. She was standing on a slippery area, slipped and fell, knocking her head.

Absolute evidence that anyone standing on an icy surface should wear helmets.

You have translated the injury to a cycling fall, but how do you feel with people who take identical risks to the ones she did.


As you clearly point out, her death from a fall in snow should end the argument right there.... all these people should be wearing helmets?

 

[mickle]

[QUOTE 1996800, member: 45"]Yes.

The answer is that there's insufficient evidence either way.

Which is why this huge wheel keeps turning as those who want it to be a certain way try to build a case....[/quote]On the one hand there's no evidence that cycle helmets reduce death or serious injury. On the other hand helmets look stupid.

 

[Red Light]

Having already mentione dmyself differences in velocity, and thus kinetic energy, please explain how walking and cycling are comparble in a) frequency of blows to the ehad, and b) severity of blows to the head.

Blows to the head are far more common walking than cycling. Indeed head injuries in cars and in pedestrians are far and away the most common causes of head injuries. As for the kinetic energy you are indeed correct. The energies against which bicycle helmets are specified, designed and tested are ideal for pedestrians falling over and hitting their heads. Even at 15mph the kinetic energy is double the maximum kinetic energy a bicycle helmet is designed and tested to. They are designed basically for simple falls off stationary bikes. So they would be far more effective if worn by pedestrians than cyclists (although a big Japanese study found they weren't effective for pedestrians either)