Do you wear a helmet on your commute?

[mickle]

Of course. I keep saying it, but the helmet debate is not, and has never been, about helmets.

Sooo.... were not arguing about arguing about arguing about helmets?

 

[Drago]

Of course. I keep saying it, but the helmet debate is not, and has never been, about helmets.

What's it about then?

 

[theclaud]

What's it about then?

It's about the social meanings of cycling. It's about politics. It's about pleasure. It's about how we live.

 

[Drago]

I thought it was about Helmets!

 

[theclaud]

I thought it was about Helmets!

Nope. Definitely not about helmets. I mean, what on earth could people possibly find to say about those!

 

[Wobblers]

Its a piece of safety equipment. which can and will save your life.
For instance a cyclist who will die sometime soon in my local area, who is in hospital. Didn't wear a helmet and one would have saved him. Hes now in coma and they are just waiting for him to die now. Horrible but true. Horrific head injury. They had to remove part of his skull to release pressure building up around his brain.
How i know?
In a sick turn of events a driver i caught on camera... its her friend.

A helmet will absorb 50 J of impact energy. From your description, that "horrific head injury" involves diffuse axonal injury and most likely skull fracture. The energy required for those types of injury exceed 500 J. In other words, it is extremely unlikely that a helmet would have altered the outcome.

Not incidently, diffuse axonal injury is mostly a result of severe rotational forces - which a helmet is not able to mitigate in any way.

 

[Red Light]

How many pedestrians fall off their invisible bikes and get their invisible handlebar through the skull?

Next he'll be telling us pedestrians should have 1.6mm of tread on their shoes, or reflectors bolted to their arrisses.

Don't know about you but I have slicks on my road bikes - no tread required. But I suspect the number of pedestrians with a handlebar through their skull is the same as the number of cyclists with a handlebar through their skull aka zero. OTOH their are some 30,000+ pedestrians per annum who are seriously injured on the highway and of those just under half had a head injury. That's a massively larger number than the number of cyclists with a head injury.

 

[Red Light]

Yes, because the thread isn't about pedestrian head protection.

Where did you get that idea from? Its about "Do you wear a helmet on your commute?" Do people not commute on foot?

 

[Wobblers]

Because riding on a road there is a significantly greater chance of a fatal head injury. There are greater hazards e.g. moving motor vehicles and a higher risk e.g. you are also moving at speed on the road. I carnt believe I had to entertain that question with an answer. It’s called a risk assessment.

Could you supply proof to support this statement?

 

[Norm]

Bit of a niche interest, that one. I sort of see where Mr Paul is coming from - I think he's saying that making statements that challenge common sense makes people think you are barmy. But on the other hand the very point of the helmets-for-pedestrians argument is its absurdity, and whilst all statistics elide specifics, they also tell truths, and the truth that they tell in this case is that trying to get people to go about their normal business wearing large pieces of polystyrene on their heads, and making out that they are reckless if they don't, is ridiculous. Helmets are ridiculous. It is ridiculous that we argue about it so much. When people ask us why we are not wearing a helmet, we should treat it as the ridiculous question it is.

Marry me, TC!!!

 

[Wobblers]

[QUOTE 1997725, member: 45"]Untrue. You're mixing up, and misunderstanding the difference between design and testing, and your figures are wrong anyway. But you know that.

Let's keep it real folks...[/quote]

I've already pointed out in another thread that bicycle helmets are designed to pass the prescribed tests. And sound engineering practice is to assume failure will occur if the load exceeds the test load. For instance, a crane will have a specified safe working load. A competent design will ensure that there is a safety margin above the SWL, but it cannot be gauranteed or expected. To exceed the SWL is criminal neglience for good reason.

Likewise, you cannot expect a helmet to offer more protection than the 50 J impact load it has been tested and designed to - and indeed most helmets fail to meet the older Snell standard (which requires three separate 75 J impacts).

[QUOTE 1997753, member: 45"]Clarity. Supporting those who misunderstand and challenging those who deliberately misrepresent.[/quote]

Bluntly, User, and I am sorry if I've got this very wrong, I can't help but feel that you're trying to deliberately misrepresent the engineering meaning of testing by trying to imply that there is some safety factor that you can rely upon. There isn't.

 

[Wobblers]

[QUOTE 1998084, member: 45"] My point about the vaguety of the stats is twofold. Firstly it's wilfully misused to deceive people, as we see on here very regularly, and it's tedious having to point that out every time it's thrown out. Secondly, it sets off the common sense trigger in the general public, because the claim doesn't make sense. So the public think we're defensive nutters and take little notice. And so it's very unhelpful in both respects in the goal which should be about education and having an honest and open dialogue.

Again, I'm repeating myself.[/quote]

Whch statistics are wilfully misused? Seriously, I'd be interested to know, so that I get a better undersatnding of what really is happening - and avoid using them.

 

[Wobblers]

How many pedestrians fall off their invisible bikes and get their invisible handlebar through the skull?

How many cyclists end up with their handlebars through their skulls?

Given the hardness of the human skull, and the average handlebar, are you seriously suggesting that 2 cm of expanded polystyrene will prevent this??

 

[Drago]

I know of one young lad dealt with by a colleague got the end of his BMX bars through his skull. Beyond that, if you want to know you'll have to go out and count them yourself.

 

[srw]

I've already pointed out in another thread that bicycle helmets are designed to pass the prescribed tests. And sound engineering practice is to assume failure will occur if the load exceeds the test load.

All of that is no doubt excellent engineering practice. I am not an engineer, and so not competent to comment. I am happy to accept your word on the subject.

But, and it's an important but, I suspect most people are also not engineers, and so not competent to comment. And probably also not capable of realising that they're not capable of comment.

However, we are all capable of logical thought. I'm tempted to suggest that it's part of the essence of what makes us human - no other species is systematically capable of the abstraction necessary to maintain a logical argument, and almost every human can follow simple logic, and spot simple logical fallacies.

And so I strongly suspect that when most people post, or say (and I've seen and heard both) "it's not designed to protect me above 12mph, so it won't", they believe they're making a logical argument, not an engineering argument. And that, however well it is backed up by engineering good practice and the law of negligence, is an out-and-out logical fallacy.