Pro-helmet article on BBC One Show right now

[David_widnes]

I never liked wearing a helmet until the day i came off and bounced the back of my head on the road , i wasn't hurt at all jumped up and looked at my helmet and found a 4 inch crack running along my helmets polystyrene core i had heard that the helmet maker MET will replace an accident related damaged helmet free of charge as part of a research programme so i sent it away and i was amazed when i received a new helmet and a letter informing me that the damage to my helmet almost certainly saved my life as they do some sort of damage analysis that occurred to the helmet and they can work out the force impact to the helmet due to the type of crack in the polystyrene.

So you wear a helmet if you want but i will NEVER ride another bike in my life without a helmet.

 

[blubb]

... a letter informing me that the damage to my helmet almost certainly saved my life as they do some sort of damage analysis that occurred to the helmet and they can work out the force impact to the helmet due to the type of crack in the polystyrene.

How do you think does a helmet maker make money? Obviously by selling helmets, therefore i highly doubt that analysis.

Somebody that relies on a product to be sold can't afford to be objective on the matter. No offence, but that was a bit naive.

 

[zexel]

 

[Dan B]

Dr Ian Walker arguing saying "it's a little more complicated than that"

I want that on a t-shirt. Where can I get that on a t-shirt?

 

[MacB]

How do you think does a helmet maker make money? Obviously by selling helmets, therefore i highly doubt that analysis.

Somebody that relies on a product to be sold can't afford to be objective on the matter. No offence, but that was a bit naive.

as part of their marketing budget I'd say that was money well spent, they've got another evangelist touting their products, and all for the price of a bit of shaped polystyrene.

 

[billy1561]

as part of their marketing budget I'd say that was money well spent, they've got another evangelist touting their products, and all for the price of a bit of shaped polystyrene.

And on the other hand there is a cyclist with his brains intact who got a second helmet gratis.

 

[NormanD]

Helmet debate? ..where? where? .. grabs a packet of murry mint and waits

 

[MacB]

And on the other hand there is a cyclist with his brains intact who got a second helmet gratis.

One half of that statement is factually correct the other half is implication based on your guess, based on his guess, backed up by some marketing blurb.

Come on, it's not even subtle, you can't be that gullible

 

[billy1561]

One half of that statement is factually correct the other half is implication based on your guess, based on his guess, backed up by some marketing blurb.

Come on, it's not even subtle, you can't be that gullible

So where is your proof Mac that the marketing does indeed incorporate a 2nd claim?
Or is that a guess too?
My point is simply the guy is very happy with his choice of head protection and subsequent replacement. Why pick it apart?

 

[NormanD]

Murry Mint anyone?

 

[Davidc]

... i received a new helmet and a letter informing me that the damage to my helmet almost certainly saved my life as they do some sort of damage analysis that occurred to the helmet and they can work out the force impact to the helmet due to the type of crack in the polystyrene.

So you wear a helmet if you want but i will NEVER ride another bike in my life without a helmet.

Of course the analysis was done by an independent research organisation with no financial interest in promoting cycle helmets wasn't it? They repeated the accident as closely as possible using a crash test dummy in order to reach this conclusion didn't they?

In all of this we seem to have again lost sight of the statistics. Head injuries while cycling are rare. Serious head injuries are very rare. Fatal head injuries are even rarer. Just from the real world numbers it is very unlikely that your accident would have been fatal.

Properly conducted and independent research is needed. There hasn't been any. At present we have absolutely no real idea whether helmets help reduce accident injuries or make them worse. I, and I'm sure many others, would be interested to know, even if some numbskull on a TV programme doesn't.

 

[MacB]

So where is your proof Mac that the marketing does indeed incorporate a 2nd claim?
Or is that a guess too?
My point is simply the guy is very happy with his choice of head protection and subsequent replacement. Why pick it apart?

nowt to do with helmets, I'd pick apart any argument, offered up as factual, that is anything but. For example I can honestly say that I don't know, and cannot conceive of a way to prove, what the outcome of any given incident would have been had a helmet been worn/not worn. The pro helmet argument always boils down to the same thing:-

well, stand to reason doesn't it, hit bare head mucho hurty, hit cushioned/protected head then less hurty...end of case

this is often supported by such classics as, 'go and hit your head against a wall with a helmet and then without and tell me which ones hurts more', I could give more examples but they come down to the same crap.

I could as easily say, 'but I don't intend to hit my head against a wall, the ground or a car', and the response will be a 'what if' along the lines of better safe than sorry. But that ignores personal risk assessment, otherwise we'd all be foolish to leave the house without a helmet and, due to accidents around the home, should spend our lives wearing protective gear.

But what really gets my goat is the emotive embellishment that's indulged in by helmet evangelists(and probably evangelists of any nature) - as soon as I read 'I'd be dead/seriously injured but for my helmet' then the person has just blown their credibility. Then to further support this ludicrous position by using a bit of marketing blurb...yes Mr/Mrs X you'd be dead if it wasn't for our product, here have a freebie and make sure you tell everybody..... well my ghast just becomes truly flabbered

 

[Bigsharn]

Not anti/pro helmet here (well I am, but that's not being discussed here)... But that bloke who said "cycling without a helmet is just selfish", I would love to flatten him, how dare he say something that directly insulting on national TV and get away with it? Some people just deserve to be punched in the face.

 

[davefb]

I think my most amused 'eh', was on guardians CiF when there was a helmet 'debate'.. One bloke said that he felt you'd be an idiot to not wear a helmet and someone basically said 'BUT HOW DO YOU KNOW, ITS LIES'

the slight different from normal , was that the first bloke was a neurosurgeon who said he operated a lot on people who'd come off bikes without helmets.. so it was a bit wierd that 'some bloke on the net' was arguing with a medic who had first hand experience..

of course, this is now about 4th hand..

Its wierd, we wear gloves for our hands, glasses for our eyes, padding for our backsides,,, then moan about a helmet for our heads...

 

[idiot triathlete]

Hello there

It was my wife featured on the show (the lecturer who said that she'd probably be dead without the helmet). Sadly they cut what she had to say so the message didn't really come across. Mac, in her case it is not at all hard to conclude that she would have been far, far worse without the helmet. There was a rock on the road, about a centimetre and a half across, that made a big dent in the lid. Without the helmet I don't think anyone can doubt that it would have gone straight through the side of her skull, meaning that in addition to the other serious injuries she sustained she would have had a dirty depressed fracture in her skull, with lots of bits of bone and grit pushed into her brain. We were extremely lucky: the injuries she sustained should have left her in a hospital for the rest of her life as they were. Had she not worn a helmet I think she probably wouldn't have died, but the most likely outcome is that she wouldn't really have lived either.

Regarding the comment that it's selfish to ride without a helmet, well in my opinion that is true. Having been left coping with a toddler and a baby while my wife spent six weeks in a coma and then six further months in hospital, I can tell you that anyone who doesn't use simple and reasonable precautions to reduce the probability of their family members having to go through similar is indeed selfish. Of course, this depends on whether you think that wearing a helmet is a reasonable effort, and I can understand the argument if you think it's not - I know about the lack of real hard evidence either way on this question, and I agree about the eye-watering foolishness of the comment by the other lady about "forget about research" or whatever it was. Nonetheless, I disagree with you - just remember though that what you're risking isn't a clean death, it's spending the rest of your life having someone else wipe your bottom and not remembering who your children are or what you did this morning. Head injuries don't just destroy individual lives, they destroy whole families.

Rob