The CycleChat Helmet Debate Thread

[mjr]

The vast majority who commute, race or go the distance wear helmets

That is simply not true according to the last UK data reported by the European Transport Safety Council.

....and raise you a "Cracknell" evangelical paid helmet campaigner caught in a photo not wearing one

Oh come on, we can do better than that. How about this:

That's John Key, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, who has failed to repeal their cycle helmet laws but has been photographed repeatedly cycling without one, on cycle tracks, on carriageway, ...

 

[growingvegetables]

The vast majority who commute, race or go the distance wear helmets.

..... it would of course be churlish of me to ask for evidence.

Fwiw, on my commute it's about evens among the regulars. And one of the helmet wearers only uses it as a convenient carrier for his camera. Oooops - another fruitless can o' worms.

 

[mjr]

Fwiw, on my commute it's about evens among the regulars.

I humbly suggest that if someone commutes along the sort of hostile route that means they feel a helmet is/isn't necessary, then it's not really a surprise if many others make the same decision. This can lead to a lot of confirmation bias in our observations. I ride in several places (most often West Norfolk, Cambridge, Norwich and London) and I do notice how differently cyclists dress and behave in the different places - disappointingly to me, Norwich is currently the place where I see the most helmet-wearers.

Also, I strongly suspect that helmet-wearing is more common than the average among cyclechat participants, but I don't really understand why that is. I speculate that people here are disproportionately cyclists who have undertaken training where helmets were pushed or members of clubs which recommend helmets.

And one of the helmet wearers only uses it as a convenient carrier for his camera. Oooops - another fruitless can o' worms.

And Mr Schumacher is still "not good" http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/feb/04/michael-schumacher-ferrari-not-good

 

[Profpointy]

So your saying if they weren't wearing a helmet chances are they wouldn't have suffered a head injury as their head would not have struck whatever it was it struck. - now a helmet is only an inch thick, so head-object more than inch away no contact, head -object upto an inch away hits helmet, so the object cannot get closer to the head than a fraction of an inch or it would hit the head and so the helmet thickness would not have been a factor. - so the object can only have hit the head within a 1 inch zone and not gone beyond that zone. which means the impact that head is going to take is pretty minimal as the head will stop getting closer to the object. - (its only got a 1inch travel distance before it would have hit the object without a helmet on)
so as the head would never have made contact with the nasty sharp object it will get a bit of a jar as it comes to an abrupt stop - and then what?
Now of course you can never predict what happens in an accident - that jar may be enough to cause a concussion , on the other hand by stopping the head before it reaches the end of its arch it may stop a nasty neck strain injury.

its all luck in the end, - as they say - if your numbers up , your numbers up ;

as you well know I did not say that at all. "so you are saying..." then mis-stating what I said is lazy and dishonest.

What I said is it's all very well quoting an individual incident (unsaid - where they may or may not have helped). Howeve it is undeniable by even the most pro-helmet person that a helmetted head is bigger and also we know as a matter of fact that helmet compulsion hasn't helped in australia

 

[al78]

it's almost as if we've evolved a kind of bone helmet! Isn't nature wonderful.

It didn't work too well in my case. I was hit by a car last spring, unfortunately my head took the full impact to the kerb when I landed and suffered a severe head injury and brain trauma (rest of my body was unscathed). I had an induced coma and the neurosurgeons removed part of my skull to give my brain room to expand (otherwise it would likely be goodbye world). When they initially failed to get me out of the coma they gave me little hope, as the scans revealed major rotational injury where the left and right side of the brain had become disconnected, as though they had been sheared apart. They called my family in to a meeting telling them that if I didn't come round in two days then it was switch off time. By a massive fluke I started to show signs of life the following day, then shortly after regained consciousness.

I wasn't wearing a helmet at the time of the collision however a couple of neurologists state in their opinion that in this case a helmet would have made virtually no difference to the severity of my injuries. The one I saw yesterday afternoon said the most likely effect of a helmet would have been the surgeons would have had to remove pieces of broken helmet from my head. I wear a helmet now, not because I believe it will do much in the event of a similar incident, but more to give my family some piece of mind. Sometimes, thinking of the feelings of your loved ones, even if they may be misguided, is more important than taking a Mr Spock like attitude.

 

[MontyVeda]

It didn't work too well in my case. I was hit by a car last spring, unfortunately my head took the full impact to the kerb when I landed and suffered a severe head injury and brain trauma (rest of my body was unscathed). I had an induced coma and the neurosurgeons removed part of my skull to give my brain room to expand (otherwise it would likely be goodbye world). When they initially failed to get me out of the coma they gave me little hope, as the scans revealed major rotational injury where the left and right side of the brain had become disconnected, as though they had been sheared apart. They called my family in to a meeting telling them that if I didn't come round in two days then it was switch off time. By a massive fluke I started to show signs of life the following day, then shortly after regained consciousness.

I wasn't wearing a helmet at the time of the collision however a couple of neurologists state in their opinion that in this case a helmet would have made virtually no difference to the severity of my injuries. The one I saw yesterday afternoon said the most likely effect of a helmet would have been the surgeons would have had to remove pieces of broken helmet from my head. I wear a helmet now, not because I believe it will do much in the event of a similar incident, but more to give my family some piece of mind. Sometimes, thinking of the feelings of your loved ones, even if they may be misguided, is more important than taking a Mr Spock like attitude.

a very good post... shame it ended badly.

 

[ufkacbln]

It didn't work too well in my case. I was hit by a car last spring, unfortunately my head took the full impact to the kerb when I landed and suffered a severe head injury and brain trauma (rest of my body was unscathed). I had an induced coma and the neurosurgeons removed part of my skull to give my brain room to expand (otherwise it would likely be goodbye world). When they initially failed to get me out of the coma they gave me little hope, as the scans revealed major rotational injury where the left and right side of the brain had become disconnected, as though they had been sheared apart. They called my family in to a meeting telling them that if I didn't come round in two days then it was switch off time. By a massive fluke I started to show signs of life the following day, then shortly after regained consciousness.

I wasn't wearing a helmet at the time of the collision however a couple of neurologists state in their opinion that in this case a helmet would have made virtually no difference to the severity of my injuries. The one I saw yesterday afternoon said the most likely effect of a helmet would have been the surgeons would have had to remove pieces of broken helmet from my head. I wear a helmet now, not because I believe it will do much in the event of a similar incident, but more to give my family some piece of mind. Sometimes, thinking of the feelings of your loved ones, even if they may be misguided, is more important than taking a Mr Spock like attitude.

Mr Spock would come to a logical evidence based answer rather than emotional blackmail

I have a friend whose wife hates him cycling as she feels it is dangerous unneccessary and stupid when he has a car in the garage

Should he take a Spock like attitude or give up cycling?

 

[Fab Foodie]

try going to Cambridge or Oxford where the vast majority are in the slow non Lycra non helmet cohort

Oi .... less of the slow ....

 

[mjr]

How often does a family say something like "oh well, she's dead/seriously injured, but at least she was wearing a helmet" after a cyclist is involved in a nasty crash?

The main use of that sort of phrase on the web seems to be from forum randoms, often with crude distasteful followups. If the family comment on clothing at all, it seems to be "...even though..." rather than "...but at least..." so it doesn't seem like peace of mind.

 

[simongt]

The laws of physics dictate that one's head, being the highest & heaviest - for its size - part of the body, then coming off a bike involuntarily will likely involve a head / ground / vehicle contact. There are those of us I'm sure, who will be quick thinking enough to tuck the head out of the way in all circumstances thus avoiding nasty injury to same. However, as most of us are ordinary humans, then the head gets it most of the time - !

 

[martint235]

The laws of physics dictate that one's head, being the highest & heaviest - for its size - part of the body, then coming off a bike involuntarily will likely involve a head / ground / vehicle contact. There are those of us I'm sure, who will be quick thinking enough to tuck the head out of the way in all circumstances thus avoiding nasty injury to same. However, as most of us are ordinary humans, then the head gets it most of the time - !

Nope. With as much scientific evidence as has gone into the rest of this thread, 90% of my rare crashes don't involve my head hitting anything. I tend to use that split second to think "Oh no. Not my ribs. Again"

Now I'm not convinced but the number of non helmet wearers on CC not hitting their heads would suggest a trend

 

[Fab Foodie]

The laws of physics dictate that one's head, being the highest & heaviest - for its size - part of the body, then coming off a bike involuntarily will likely involve a head / ground / vehicle contact. There are those of us I'm sure, who will be quick thinking enough to tuck the head out of the way in all circumstances thus avoiding nasty injury to same. However, as most of us are ordinary humans, then the head gets it most of the time - !

I'm calling that bollocks.

 

[Fab Foodie]

Nope. With as much scientific evidence as has gone into the rest of this thread, 90% of my rare crashes don't involve my head hitting anything. I tend to use that split second to think "Oh no. Not my ribs. Again"

Now I'm not convinced but the number of non helmet wearers on CC not hitting their heads would suggest a trend

Touch wood ... None of my 'offs' in 40 years of road cycling have ever resulted in any head contact .... Even when I wore a helmet. It's anecdata of course.

 

[MontyVeda]

The laws of physics dictate that one's head, being the highest & heaviest - for its size - part of the body, then coming off a bike involuntarily will likely involve a head / ground / vehicle contact. There are those of us I'm sure, who will be quick thinking enough to tuck the head out of the way in all circumstances thus avoiding nasty injury to same. However, as most of us are ordinary humans, then the head gets it most of the time - !

If that were a fact than my rate of head injuries to offs ratio would be a lot higher than (virtually) zero.
Of course i could have suffered concussion each time i've fallen off my bike and whacked my head on the ground, thus, not remembering anything about those incidents.

 

[Profpointy]

The laws of physics dictate that one's head, being the highest & heaviest - for its size - part of the body, then coming off a bike involuntarily will likely involve a head / ground / vehicle contact. There are those of us I'm sure, who will be quick thinking enough to tuck the head out of the way in all circumstances thus avoiding nasty injury to same. However, as most of us are ordinary humans, then the head gets it most of the time - !

do you have any basis to think that or did you just make it up?

And is "the laws of physics dictate" the alternative to "it's common sense innit" - usually when what is said is nonsense