Having to wear a helmet to do a sportive

[Smokin Joe]

So, let's be clear. We are talking about TT helmets here?

No.

Most road helmets are teardrop shaped, not as extreme as TT helmets but still teardrop.

 

[Fab Foodie]

Is it the insurers though? Any sportive organisers on here confirm or deny ?
IME insurers are very very good at cutting through the BS and using statistics properly.
I have a (totally unfounded) suspicion that it is fear of litigation rather than insurance.

I reckon it's the insurers.
We need them at our club for training and TT's though not certain whether needed for club runs.
Insurance issues have curtailed aspects of our former training program.

At work insurers requirements are becoming far worst than H&S, I'm not sure how specific the evidence they use is, but it seems to me that any evidence that protects them is fair enough...

 

[ufkacbln]

Do you scrutinise helmets?

Do you ensure that they are well fitted, properly adjusted and of a suitable standard?

In particular do you accept EN1078 helmets?

( I am sure that you are aware that these are banned from competition in the US as they offer so little protection)

All sounds a bit like posturing with no real effect on safety

Are we going to get a reply?

Rivara the researcher who provided the "Holy Grail" of pro-helmet papers points out that :

Individuals whose helmets were reported to fit poorly had a 1.96-fold increased risk of head injury compared with those whose helmets fit well.

Poor fit of helmets may be associated with an increased risk of head and brain injury.

If this is a cosmetic approach with no real safety mesage behind it then admit it...

If you are serious ....why are provenly ineffective EN1078 helmets allowed and why are the helmets not scrutineered to ensure rider safety?

 

[jimboalee]

The answer is....

Go on an Audax. If you can get round a 200 Rando and have to wait for the Finish control to open, you'll thank yourself you didn't waste your money on a sportive.

 

[PpPete]

The answer is....

Go on an Audax. If you can get round a 200 Rando and have to wait for the Finish control to open, you'll thank yourself you didn't waste your money on a sportive.

lol..... waiting for control to open.... That's never going to happen to me.... helmet or no helmet.

 

[Threelionsbrian]

I'm in the for camp, i have saved a nasty bump on the head getting my bike out of the shed many times.

Personal choice maybe, but just putting my helmet on is a reminder of the dangers ahead on the road. I don't feel a lot safer although i hope should the worst come to the worst it would offer some protection. Events can set their own rules IMO if you don't like then tough don't ride. I did see a couple on the Classic as they passed me. DQ'd in my book.

 

[Fiona N]

I'm in the for camp, i have saved a nasty bump on the head getting my bike out of the shed many times.

There's good evidence to show that wearing a helmet, which effectively increases the size of your head, actually increases the likelihood on clunking your head on something. Just ask anyone who wears a helmet in a restricted space - cavers, climbers - all will be able to tell you about the number of times they've caught their head on something because they hadn't learnt to deal with the extra size.

Personal choice maybe, but just putting my helmet on is a reminder of the dangers ahead on the road.

Sadly, too many rather marginally competent cyclists feel safer with a helmet on (I have been involved with 'beginner' road cyclists groups so this is based on experience) - because the helmet reduces their perceived risk, they've actually endangered themselves more than if they rode without the helmet and improved their road skills/took more care.

 

[Threelionsbrian]

There's good evidence to show that wearing a helmet, which effectively increases the size of your head, actually increases the likelihood on clunking your head on something.

No i just made the opening height too low

see your point though.

 

[MacB]

No i just made the opening height too low

see your point though.

or you have an abnormally large head

 

[Keith M]

no helmet fine by me as long as if u get a head injury we dont have to finance treatment, fair?

Oh this old specious argument. Wrap yourself up in shoulder pads, knee protectors or cotton wool, there is always the possibility of an accident. The point is, how far do we want to go to restrict our personal freedom after we have all conducted our own internal risk-assessment. There are actually more head injuries to pedestrains that cyclists, yet I don't see anyone calling for everyday helmet wearing on the street - probably because helmet manufacturers would know thy would have no luck with that one.

I go back a way. Nobody in this country wore a helmet until about 1981, but about then our US cousins "invented" cycling. My first view of this was a party of US scouts on a cycling tour checking into Salisbury Youth Hostel about 1981/2 and we all rolled about laughing at these hulking great blokes all wearing their daft looking white Bell helmets. I guess because of who they were and some insurance jim-jams they had deemed them necessary, but even in the USA they would have been unusual. Take a look at Jennifer Beales in Flashdance cycling around Pittsburgh helmetless in 1983. Then some young guy joined our company about '83 and he wore one. A couple of us used to race him home. We'd take him on the straight and hammer him on the hill, but he always caught up with us at the intersections because he rode like a madman with no regard for safety.

I watched helmet manufacturers work the health & safety ticket for all they were worth over the next ten years. They were into the local councils and through them to the schools, insinuating the idea. A work colleague had to wear one because his daughters bought him one and used moral blackmail on him. I even found Dorset County Council one day operating a promotional stand in Poole High Street for the sole purpose of "educating" people into helmet wearing. The guys on the stand seemed utterly bemused when I objected to them that I did not expect my rates (council tax) to be wasted this way, it was the helmet manufacturers' job to promote their product.

The helmet manufacturers achieved tipping point about 1990. So please excuse my long term cynicism, there is more commercial interest that safety concern here.

But I rejoice more of late . . . I am noticing a bit of a backlash.

Keith

 

[jimboalee]

Helmets are not a legal requirement in the UK.
It is my opinion the organisers of Sportives insist on their use because there are some pillocks who swerve across the road without warning due to inexperience of group riding.

 

[Smokin Joe]

Oh this old specious argument. Wrap yourself up in shoulder pads, knee protectors or cotton wool, there is always the possibility of an accident. The point is, how far do we want to go to restrict our personal freedom after we have all conducted our own internal risk-assessment. There are actually more head injuries to pedestrains that cyclists, yet I don't see anyone calling for everyday helmet wearing on the street - probably because helmet manufacturers would know thy would have no luck with that one.

I go back a way. Nobody in this country wore a helmet until about 1981, but about then our US cousins "invented" cycling. My first view of this was a party of US scouts on a cycling tour checking into Salisbury Youth Hostel about 1981/2 and we all rolled about laughing at these hulking great blokes all wearing their daft looking white Bell helmets. I guess because of who they were and some insurance jim-jams they had deemed them necessary, but even in the USA they would have been unusual. Take a look at Jennifer Beales in Flashdance cycling around Pittsburgh helmetless in 1983. Then some young guy joined our company about '83 and he wore one. A couple of us used to race him home. We'd take him on the straight and hammer him on the hill, but he always caught up with us at the intersections because he rode like a madman with no regard for safety.

I watched helmet manufacturers work the health & safety ticket for all they were worth over the next ten years. They were into the local councils and through them to the schools, insinuating the idea. A work colleague had to wear one because his daughters bought him one and used moral blackmail on him. I even found Dorset County Council one day operating a promotional stand in Poole High Street for the sole purpose of "educating" people into helmet wearing. The guys on the stand seemed utterly bemused when I objected to them that I did not expect my rates (council tax) to be wasted this way, it was the helmet manufacturers' job to promote their product.

The helmet manufacturers achieved tipping point about 1990. So please excuse my long term cynicism, there is more commercial interest that safety concern here.

But I rejoice more of late . . . I am noticing a bit of a backlash.

Keith

Very good post, Keith.

You've summed up precisely how people were blackmailed into accepting helmets as absolutely essential, when in essence they are largely a solution to a problem that never existed except in the minds of the high vis tabard and clipboard safety "experts".

 

[cyclecraig]

My helmet almost certainly saved my life or at least serious head injuries when I had my one and only really bad accident.

Thats about it really, I would never leave for a ride without one!

 

[Smokin Joe]

My helmet almost certainly saved my life or at least serious head injuries when I had my one and only really bad accident.

Thats about it really, I would never leave for a ride without one!

Every helmet debate throws up scores of people whose lives have been saved by wearing one. There must have been absolute carnage in the 100+ years before helmets came about...except that there wasn't. Deaths through head injuries caused by falling from a bicycle would have come up as a statistical zero.

 

[ufkacbln]

I even found Dorset County Council one day operating a promotional stand in Poole High Street for the sole purpose of "educating" people into helmet wearing. The guys on the stand seemed utterly bemused when I objected to them that I did not expect my rates (council tax) to be wasted this way, it was the helmet manufacturers' job to promote their product.
Keith

We had a similar case at a bike event, two nurses - no idea about fit, adjustment and / or use. Simply handing out subsidised polystyrene shells with a netting outer.

When challenged they had the same reply that their job was to make sure they were worn, not how as any protection is better then nothing!

When challenged about Rivara's paper stating that poorly fitted helmets would exacerbate any injury and make them 2 - 3 times as likely it was pointless, yet more "professionals" with no idea of evidence based practice.