metro article on helmets

[mickle]

Helmets ....... a knock to the head will be far less severe if wearing one.

I'd be interested to see any evidence you can produce which supports this assersion.

 

[thnurg]

I'd be interested to see any evidence you can produce which supports this assersion.

The only real evidence is my own severe crash in 1995. I chipped a bone in my right thumb and seriously mangled my helmet. I'm so glad it was the helmet that was mangled and not my head.
However, a friend of mine, who was a keener cyclist than I ever was, had a similar accident around the same time. With no helmet he suffered head injuries that robbed him of the next year of his life and he has not gone back to cycling since.

 

[Red Light]

[QUOTE 1777486, member: 45"]So when you said that promotion and compulsion were both own goals, you only meant compulsion? If you didn't, then you're confusing the two.[/quote]

Let me spell it out for you in words of one syllable. Studies show helmet promotion puts people off cycling. Other studies show helmet compulsion puts people off cycling. Therefore helmet promotion is a health own goal. And helmet compulsion is also a health own goal. No confusion. Comprendez?

 

[Red Light]

[QUOTE 1777493, member: 45"]I didn't.

You said it was said to your daughter a number of times.

I said that I'd never heard it mentioned in the unit where I worked.[/quote]

So why do you think they unanimously said that in A&E and yet the neuro experts in the TBI unit never said it?

I said I didn't compile stats. Again, you're manipulating things to try to add weight to the argument. The more you do, the more it discredits what you have to say. It might help you therefore if you didn't.

You spent four years there in a neurosurgery unit where they had no knowledge of the circumstances in which the injury was inflicted and you can't even make an informed guess about how many were RTAs, pedestrians and cyclists?

Neither had been wearing a helmet. Where's this line going to get you?

I thought you said you didn't compile figures

Medically qualified to what?

If you are after trying to discredit anything I've said by claiming that I'm not "medically qualified" then please, go ahead....

Just interested whether you were actually involved in the care of the patients or had any knowledge of what had happened to them and what their condition was. Because first of all there are all sorts of statistical reports that need to be submitted to the HES so the data you say was not collected is collected and second I would be extremely surprised if people were being treated for brain injuries without the medics and nurses involved having knowledge of the circumstances in which their injuries were inflicted. It is kind of a fundamental part of the assessment of the patient and what injuries they may have suffered especially as in the brain many of the injury mechanisms are not easily identified except by knowing whether the impact was diffuse or focal, fast or slow deceleration/acceleration coup/contre coup or rotational etc etc and looking for the symptoms to emerge. You have professed great knowledge of head injuries through four years on the unit. For all we know that could have been four years as a porter, cleaner or chaplain rather than anyone involved in the medical care of the patients.

 

[Little yellow Brompton]

The only real evidence is my own severe crash in 1995. I chipped a bone in my right thumb and seriously mangled my helmet. I'm so glad it was the helmet that was mangled and not my head.
However, a friend of mine, who was a keener cyclist than I ever was, had a similar accident around the same time. With no helmet he suffered head injuries that robbed him of the next year of his life and he has not gone back to cycling since.

I can't believe we are this many pages into a helmet thread and yet again someone new comes up with the bilge of" my helmet broke so it must have saved me" is there any other piece of "safety equipment" that uses the same measurment for "success"? I ask because I can never remember anyone ever saying
"My seatbelt snapped and saved my life" Or "My flak jacket split, and if it didn't my chest would have" , maybe even "My brakes disintegrated , and if they hadn't I woudn't be here today" Why are helmets credited with such wonderful powers?

 

[screenman]

Air bag, seat belt tensioner, well I am sure there are others.

LYB do you not even think the helmet might have absorbed a lot of pressure before it broke?

 

[Norm]

Let me spell it out for you in words of one syllable.

Let's take that literally.

show puts off. show puts off. is a health own goal. And is a health own goal. No. Comprendez?

TBH, non, je ne comprends pas.

 

[Little yellow Brompton]

Air bag, seat belt tensioner, well I am sure there are others.

LYB do you not even think the helmet might have absorbed a lot of pressure before it broke?

I've never heard anyone claim that "my airbag burt, it must have saved my life! " or "how much worse would the accident have been if the seat belt pre tensioners hadn't ripped off their mounts?"

As for absorbing pressure before it broke, I suggest you ask Mr Sundahl, the engineer at Bell , when they examined helmets which had been in accidents they found no evidence of compression, and as compression is how they are designed to work you might think that they would. What actually happens is that instead of crushing under the 70 joules delivered at <12mph that they are designed fo,r they get hit by hundreds of joules >12mph and so suffer a brittle mode failure because the loads are so far out of their design parameters.
Never forget the standards used for cycle helmets are one of the few standard that were created "backwards" the test(s) measured what the helemts on the market would stand* and then codified it. Cycle helmets started as the inner half of a motorcyce helmet, the outer shell is missing and that's the bit that stops the brittle mode failuer of the polystryene.



* And then the standards were watered down!

 

[ufkacbln]

Helmet promotion and helmet compulsion are different, but do have a very grey fuzzy overlap.

Helmets are not "compulsory" under UK law, however under the guise of "promotion" several training organisationsand several other cycle event operators have made them compulsory on their activities.



I do not support or take part in activities that make helmets compulsory.... I no longer organise fund raising for the Scouts either as this would mean excluding participants.

 

[thnurg]

"My seatbelt snapped and saved my life" Or "My flak jacket split, and if it didn't my chest would have" , maybe even "My brakes disintegrated , and if they hadn't I woudn't be here today" Why are helmets credited with such wonderful powers?

This is utterly irrational. A seatbelt is supposed to hold you in place, so it fails in its job if it snaps.
Have you never seen a picture of a flak jacket that has absorbed a bullet? It doesn't split but the impact is obvious. The fact that the jacket has a dent but the wearer is still alive shows that it has done its job.
Again, disintegrating brakes are failing to do their job.
But a mangled helmet? That shows that it absorbed much of the impact which is exactly the job it was designed to do. The helmet absorbed impact energy and prevented that energy from being absorbed by my skull and brain. Elementary physics.

 

[Norm]

But a mangled helmet? That shows that it absorbed much of the impact which is exactly the job it was designed to do. The helmet absorbed impact energy and prevented that energy from being absorbed by my skull and brain. Elementary physics.

It seems ironic to suggest "elementary physics" following an assertion that the helmet absorbed "much" of the impact. However, I feel that point will be lost.

 

[Little yellow Brompton]

This is utterly irrational. A seatbelt is supposed to hold you in place, so it fails in its job if it snaps.
Have you never seen a picture of a flak jacket that has absorbed a bullet? It doesn't split but the impact is obvious. The fact that the jacket has a dent but the wearer is still alive shows that it has done its job.
Again, disintegrating brakes are failing to do their job.
But a mangled helmet? That shows that it absorbed much of the impact which is exactly the job it was designed to do. The helmet absorbed impact energy and prevented that energy from being absorbed by my skull and brain. Elementary physics.

"But a mangled helmet? That shows that it absorbed much of the impact which is exactly the job it was designed to do" I suggest you go and find out what a helmet is meant to do and how it's meant to do it. Mangling is not part of the process.

 

[Red Light]

Helmet promotion and helmet compulsion are different, but do have a very grey fuzzy overlap.

Not in terms of the evidence though which MP seems not to be aware of.

The research particularly in Australia and New Zealand shows that helmet compulsion leads to a fall in the number of people cycling

Research in the UK by TRL shows that promoting helmets leads to a fall in the number of people cycling.

No confusion, no grey areas, two different bits of research, two results.

 

[Red Light]

[QUOTE 1777768, member: 45"]You should learn to count, but that aside....[/quote]

Yes, I know written comprehension is not your strong point. http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/syllable

You put the two together purposely to imply that any level of influence is the same. It isn't. You're confusing compulsion with promotion again.

No, you are having written comprehension problems again. It implies no such thing. Consider for example the two examples:

Helmet promotion/compulsion puts people of cycling
Guard dogs/burglar alarms deter burglars.

There is no implication that the magnitude of the effect for the two effectors is the same, just that the effects are in the same direction.

Australia/NZ research shows helmet compulsion puts people off cycling.

Transport Research Laboratory research in the UK shows helmet promotion puts people off cycling.

The health benefits of cycling far outweigh the risks ergo both helmet promotion and helmet compulsion are health own goals.

But I doubt you'll get it even now.

 

[Fab Foodie]

This is going well, anybody called anybody a Nazi yet, ICBA to trawl back through to find out ....