How can wearing a helmet offer no protection from injury?

[mickle]

And also assume I am on Mickle's side...

You tha baddist.

 

[Mad at urage]

we were talking about disguising injury not protecting against it. You really must try and keep up with your own posts. Otherwise how can you expect to keep up with anybody else.

Or are you a punchdrunk ex boxer ?

You missed the bit about "increased the frequency of brain trauma which remains undetected and untreated, because the tell-tale signs of bruising and cuts are no longer present". Protecting against bruising and cuts can disguise the possibility of brain trauma.

Is that helmet obscuring your vision?

So let me get this straight. You are comparing martial arts injuries with cycling ones. Also you are stating that a cut to the head would indicate to you potential brain trauma. In martial arts the head is likely to recieve multiple blows in quick sucsession and yes in that a guard would hide the extent of injury suffered. Cycling falls tend to be infrequent in comparison and a person (especialy in a group) will be checked over and observed. A fighter is not checked after every punch or kick. It is bad science to compare the two.

As a first aider AFS, you should know that a single blow to the head can cause brain trauma. The head is also perfectly capable of taking a number of blows with no permanent damage.

If someone bends down beside their car and bangs their head on the door, causing bruising and laceration - they are at risk of brain trauma. If they fall of a bike and land on their head hard enough to cut the skin, they are at risk of brain trauma, if they slip and fall on ice, or over a kerb and hit their head hard enough to cause bruising they are at risk of brain trauma.

In any of these cases the risk is low, but it exists.

In other areas where head protection has been worn, it has been shown that the protection which prevents cuts and bruising but does not prevent acceleration damage to the brain (which is what causes the trauma) will in fact increase the incidence of undetected brain trauma. The comparison is valid: It involves blow to the head , of fairly low intensity and the danger of ignoring them.

Let me get this straight, you are saying that a fall on the head from a bicycle is somehow a unique form of impact to the head?

 

[lukesdad]

You missed the bit about "increased the frequency of brain trauma which remains undetected and untreated, because the tell-tale signs of bruising and cuts are no longer present". Protecting against bruising and cuts can disguise the possibility of brain trauma.

Is that helmet obscuring your vision?


As a first aider AFS, you should know that a single blow to the head can cause brain trauma. The head is also perfectly capable of taking a number of blows with no permanent damage.

If someone bends down beside their car and bangs their head on the door, causing bruising and laceration - they are at risk of brain trauma. If they fall of a bike and land on their head hard enough to cut the skin, they are at risk of brain trauma, if they slip and fall on ice, or over a kerb and hit their head hard enough to cause bruising they are at risk of brain trauma.

In any of these cases the risk is low, but it exists.

In other areas where head protection has been worn, it has been shown that the protection which prevents cuts and bruising but does not prevent acceleration damage to the brain (which is what causes the trauma) will in fact increase the incidence of undetected brain trauma. The comparison is valid: It involves blow to the head , of fairly low intensity and the danger of ignoring them.
Let me get this straight, you are saying that a fall on the head from a bicycle is somehow a unique form of impact to the head?

for starters I dont often wear a helmet oops ! See if you kept up with the threads and READ them you might start making sense. You were talking about masking injuries I then commented about other headwear then you went off on a tangent about protection.

 

[lukesdad]

I don't see that as a problem, it just proves, IMO, that different people meet different situations and emphasises the benefits of free choice.

I think we both agreed that we don't wear helmets on the roads anyway.

Do you see a problem with making sweeping statements to cover all riders in all disciplines ?

 

[lukesdad]

Huge and incorrect assumption. % of helmet measuring technique

I ll have to push you

 

[Cyclopathic]

If I may try to sumarise where we are with all this and perhaps even move it forward, it seems that there is some evidence that supports arguments for and against the wearing of helmets although there is nothing on either side that satisfy completely. Having read through as many posts as I could bear I would say that in general it appears that there is some evidence to show that helmets reduce injury in certain circumstances and that wearing them may also heighten the risk of certain other injuries.

I haven't read every post or even most of them but I can't remember seeing anyone calling for helmet wearing to be made compulsary ( I may be wrong) however the fear is amoungst the anti helmeters that a compulsary order will one day be implimented. Considering the many other things that it has been argued for to become law for cyclists which have not come to be I am doubtful that this will ever be made a law either. Besides anything it would be a logistical nightmare and create a lot more work for the police at a time when they are looking desperately to streamline their service.

I wonder if anyone here would strongly object to things remaining as they are with helmets being a matter of choice, and if so what would those objections be and what would you suggest is the reasonable alternative? Also can anybody think of a way to test helmets or to gather and collate data that would show catagoricaly whether or not it is better to wear a helmet or not. Or perhaps it would show that under certain riding conditions a hemet is advisable wheras it may not be so under other conditions.

I think both sides have to be careful not to let their personal preference about wearin helmets influence the way they interperit evidence of either persuasion.

 

[Red Light]

.

I haven't read every post or even most of them but I can't remember seeing anyone calling for helmet wearing to be made compulsary ( I may be wrong) however the fear is amoungst the anti helmeters that a compulsary order will one day be implimented. Considering the many other things that it has been argued for to become law for cyclists which have not come to be I am doubtful that this will ever be made a law either. Besides anything it would be a logistical nightmare and create a lot more work for the police at a time when they are looking desperately to streamline their service.

Compulsion is already here and in the past year there have been three attempts at compulsion in Jersey, Northern Ireland & the UK generally of which the first was successful, the second successfully fought and the third is in progress. This follows on from several other attempts over the last seven years in the UK. On top of that many events are already making helmets compulsory if you want to participate.

To dismiss compulsion is foolish - but for the efforts of a small number of people helmets would probably already be compulsory in the UK by now. It was only concerted efforts to inform members of the House of Lords that got amendments to the Road Safety Act 2006 rejected.

 

[Little yellow Brompton]

I ll have to push you

Oh sorry! If I member correctly , the wearing figures In most studies are done by observation. So head injuries from on and off road are counted as cyclists but only road cycling is counted for wearing.

 

[benb]

If I may try to sumarise where we are with all this and perhaps even move it forward, it seems that there is some evidence that supports arguments for and against the wearing of helmets although there is nothing on either side that satisfy completely. Having read through as many posts as I could bear I would say that in general it appears that there is some evidence to show that helmets reduce injury in certain circumstances and that wearing them may also heighten the risk of certain other injuries.

I haven't read every post or even most of them but I can't remember seeing anyone calling for helmet wearing to be made compulsary ( I may be wrong) however the fear is amoungst the anti helmeters that a compulsary order will one day be implimented. Considering the many other things that it has been argued for to become law for cyclists which have not come to be I am doubtful that this will ever be made a law either. Besides anything it would be a logistical nightmare and create a lot more work for the police at a time when they are looking desperately to streamline their service.

I wonder if anyone here would strongly object to things remaining as they are with helmets being a matter of choice, and if so what would those objections be and what would you suggest is the reasonable alternative? Also can anybody think of a way to test helmets or to gather and collate data that would show catagoricaly whether or not it is better to wear a helmet or not. Or perhaps it would show that under certain riding conditions a hemet is advisable wheras it may not be so under other conditions.

I think both sides have to be careful not to let their personal preference about wearin helmets influence the way they interperit evidence of either persuasion.

I absolutely respect the right of people to choose whether to wear a helmet. I would like that choice to be fully informed, and the limitations of helmets to be more widely known.

But: we're already experiencing compulsion via the back door; with many events and training courses now stipulating helmets are mandatory.

So the rights of people who choose to wear helmets are not, and likely will never be, infringed. The rights of people who choose not to wear helmets are being infringed daily.

 

[ufkacbln]

We also have the bizarre situation where cyclists are excluded from the proven benefits of training in favour of the unproven benefits of helmets.

 

[lukesdad]

Well at last we ve got to the point. If you d declared this at the start, and fought it on a pro choice issue. I dont think anybody would have disagreed,

 

[lukesdad]

Have you really missed the fact that this is the point? I'm fairly sure that I have stated it quite openly and clearly. Have people not said to David K enough times "no one cares if you wear a helmet, go on knock yourself out (figuratively obviously), what we don't want is the ill informed endorsement of helmets and the support for compulsion"

Back again so soon ? You just can t help yourself can you

 

[david k]

Back again so soon ? You just can t help yourself can you

+1

 

[theclaud]

+1

 

[Dan B]

Possessed by the spirit of George Bernard Shaw again I see.

"all progress depends on the unreasonable man"?