Thanks to my helmet, I'm here to write this

[asterix]

Can we have a dedicated 'my helmet saved my life thread' section? Hidden away behind room 101 somewhere.

+1

 

[jeltz]

1st off new to the forum [hello], and back to cycling after 20 years.

May I ask if the anti-helmet people just find them uncomfortable or unattractive or is there some kind of debate about helmet wearing being dangerous?

 

[Randochap]

1st off new to the forum [hello], and back to cycling after 20 years.

May I ask if the anti-helmet people just find them uncomfortable or unattractive or is there some kind of debate about helmet wearing being dangerous?

Boy, you sure picked a good spot to stick your head in!

Welcome to CC! Better get a flame suit to go with the helmet

 

[bonj2]

While some people's compulsions indeed can lead to disaster, mandatory helmet use for cyclists is not one of them.

A disaster is when someone loses or ruins their life for the want of something as simple as a styrofoam hat.

Helmet use has been compulsory here for some years now and the sky has not fallen. Most people are happy to comply. A very small number defy the law and it is not widely enforced. However, if a cop decides to pull you over, there is a fine to pay. To me, that's not the big chance they're taking.

A-too-hip-for-helmet friend of my nephew's recently took a header off his "fixie" and ended up in hospital without a memory. Luckily it came back after a few days and (it appears) he has made a full recovery. I'm happy to say the result of this near-disaster was that he and my nephew went out and bought helmets -- to the general derision of their hipster peers.

Last year, a very experienced randonneur crashed behind me, after hitting a pothole. When I reached him, he was picking himself up, rather dazed. When he went down fast, his shoulder hit the road, then the side of his head. Without a helmet, we would have been making a visit to the hospital. As it was, he finished the ride. The long-term injury was to his shoulder ... not his brain.

Unfortunately, sans helmet, not all such incidents result in actionable lessons for the victims. If any good comes out of them however, maybe it's a lesson for others.

Kudos to the recent posts here, sharing close calls made more survivable by the judicious use of safety equipment.

It's obvious you can't appeal to those who have insulated themselves, not with styrofoam, but bulletproof rationalizations. However, your cautionary tales might save others from harm.

Speedy recovery.

 

[Riverman]

Sorry to hear about your incident, glad to know you're ok.

As a person who does not and has never worn a helmet I must say I'm very much won over by the helmet wearing crowd.

For me with not getting a helmet a lot of it comes down to lazyness. Sometimes it scares the shoot out of me to think how careless I have been with my life. It was only a few weeks ago that I almost came off my bike and landed in a hedge.

I think if you intend to make a habit of riding your bike you should get a helmet.

I also think wearing a hemlet is just another rule people want to break, for the sake of breaking rules. Ok it's not a rule persay to wear a helmet but I've notiiced those that I know who like taking risks also don't like wearing helmets.

 

[on the road]

It's not a risk to not wear a helmet.

 

[Hollyhillian]

Velvet
"On the strength of my injuries I went to Fiji where I got married and spent a month on honeymoon in Australia"

So you're saying that getting knocked off your bike lead to your getting married???

Blimey...Cycling is more dangerous than I thought....

 

[Fab Foodie]

While some people's compulsions indeed can lead to disaster, mandatory helmet use for cyclists is not one of them.

A disaster is when someone loses or ruins their life for the want of something as simple as a styrofoam hat.

Helmet use has been compulsory here for some years now and the sky has not fallen. Most people are happy to comply. A very small number defy the law and it is not widely enforced. However, if a cop decides to pull you over, there is a fine to pay. To me, that's not the big chance they're taking.

.

Hi
OK, Disaster is maybe a bit strong, but there are studies (Australia and somewhere else) that show that Helmet compulsion significantly reduced the amount of people that cycle, mostly POBs/everyday folk. A recent piece of news (On C+ or Bike Radar) stated that in a follow-up, that the health benefits of more people cycling in the population were way greater than the sad death of a very small number of cyclists (most deaths that get reported here would not have been prevented by helmet use). Helmet compulsion serves to emphasise that cycling is dangerous, when the reality is that it is a very very small additional risk to peoples everyday lives. Studies in the UK have also shown that drivers give a wider berth to cyclists without helmets than cyclist that are lidded. Theory is that subconciously there is some sense that the lidded cyclist is somehow protected.

I say disaster because globally the bicycle is part of the solution to many modern problems, sustainable transports, clean cities, health, economics. Right now there seems to be a slow but measurable rise in people taking to 2 wheels. Studies also show that the more people there are on bikes, the safer the roads become. This is easily seen in bike-happy cities like Oxford where I regularly ride. This is a good thing, I'd hate to see some clumsy legislation halt this change... Maybe not a disaster, but a big step backwards.


BTW. I've worn a helmet since the first hard-shell jobs in about 1982.

 

[snorri]

Helmet use has been compulsory here for some years now and the sky has not fallen.

The sky has not fallen, but some Googling would suggest that like other countries introducing helmet laws, the levels of cycling have fallen. From my own observations, levels were not high before compulsion, so this is not good news.
The competitive nature of sport may well justify helmet wearing in cycle sport, but for utility cycling, helmet compulsion is not helpful in improving the overall health of the nation.

 

[semislickstick]

1st off new to the forum [hello], and back to cycling after 20 years.

May I ask if the anti-helmet people just find them uncomfortable or unattractive or is there some kind of debate about helmet wearing being dangerous?

Could be all that but also that the standard test certification only test the helmets safety to a 12mph crash and a drop of 1 metre, so not all helmets are the same, it's shape can lead to other problems, pointy bits, neck/head rotation injury's, sticking out a bit too much. Basically helmets are only tested to save you from yourself at slower speeds, not speeds you'd have with accidents involving cars.
I'd be more up for wearing one all the time if the standards were better.

 

[Randochap]

The sky has not fallen, but some Googling would suggest that like other countries introducing helmet laws, the levels of cycling have fallen. From my own observations, levels were not high before compulsion, so this is not good news.
The competitive nature of sport may well justify helmet wearing in cycle sport, but for utility cycling, helmet compulsion is not helpful in improving the overall health of the nation.

Ah, the old Googling analysis for amateur statisticians!

With awesome Google powers, it's easy even for "professional" statisticians looking to prove their thesis to get the "proof" they're looking for.

For instance, a "researcher" from New England, on the other side of the continent, decides that:

"Individual graphs of the two Canadian provinces representing 89% of injuries to child cyclists in legislation provinces1 are very revealing. For British Columbia (BC), the largest single-year fall (7.4 percentage points, from 39.9% to 32.5%) was from 94/95 to 95/96. This could not have been caused by legislation commencing in September 1996." emphasis added

In fact, if the author had local knowledge, she would have known that a comprehensive advertising campaign had taken place in the couple of years prior to enactment of legislation and helmet use in British Columbia was already seeing a major upswing by 1994 (that's when I began using one!) So the amateurish New England "study" reveals sweet FA.

Of course, bogus organizations attempting to discredit helmet use will happily quote the fallacious conclusions of such "research," saying it "exposes ... failures of the helmet laws [of] British Columbia."

Research with an agenda is no research at all.

I live in the cycling capital city of Canada. My amateur survey (based on the increasingly bicyclist crowded roads and commuter trails) reveals that helmet laws have had no effect whatsoever on bicycle use here. The city is scrambling to keep up with bicycle infrastructure, as is Vancouver and other Canadian Cities.

Forget Google. Come on on over and enjoy some of the greatest cycling territory on the planet .... but don't forget your helmet.

That's it for me on this topic. I'm going to put on my helmet and ride out into the sunshine.

 

[snorri]

That's it for me on this topic.

That's ok then.

 

[TVC]

Velvet
"On the strength of my injuries I went to Fiji where I got married and spent a month on honeymoon in Australia"

So you're saying that getting knocked off your bike lead to your getting married???

Blimey...Cycling is more dangerous than I thought....

Oh yes, though in my defence the now Mrs Curtain and myself had been engaged for 17 years, so it was a bit overdue. You certainly couldn't call me impulsive.

 

[ed_o_brain]

Sorry, got to chip in.

The main issue I have with "my helmet saved my life threads" is that it's impossible to determine whether the helmet was a significant factor in preventing death.

I accept that a helmet may reduce the potential for head injury. That said, where it has prevented death I would expect a serious head injury to still occur. In a less severe incident it could prevent a permanent injury.

If a person has an egg shell skull, it could keep them alive when they bump their noggin in a low speed fall from a bicycle. Otherwise it will prevent concussion and other superficial wounds.

I don't think a helmet is really going to mitigate the injury risk following collision with a motor vehicle.

Not enough is known about the actual protection a helmet offers and the adverse effects of wearing one, e.g. risk compensation, complication of other possible injuries, a vote for compulsion, victim blaming etc.

 

[Davidc]

Glad to hear you're going to be OK and hope the car driver gets prosecuted. (Trouble is in the UK you're only a cyclist and she was in King Car and so can't be to blame).

Not wearing a helmet would certainly cause me serious injury - administered by Mrs C, who's convinced they're a good idea.

They certainly help avoid injury from the low bridges along canal paths, and from low branches in hedgerows.

I'm not convinced by the reduction in cycling numbers argument against compulsion. I've never seen research that shows a reduction in car use after compulsory seat belts came in, motorcycle use after compulsory helmets came in, or any other case where compulsory safety equipment has affected take up of anything.

Properly researched & published evidence please.

(Could be facetious and ask for the evidence that mobile phone use whilst driving decreased after it was banned!)