The CycleChat Helmet Debate Thread

[benb]

I do get the hump when I am called an "idiot", "fool", "moron" and other choice descriptions by someone who thinks a dramatic photo of a smashed helmet trumps all of the hard data we have that shows helmets do not offer a significant benefit.

 

[steve50]

Probably been linked on this thread before but for those who haven't already seen it.................http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1012.html

After reading the article I am convinced, helmets do NOT save lives.
http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1209.html

 

[Mugshot]

Probably been linked on this thread before but for those who haven't already seen it.................http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1012.html

After reading the article I am convinced, helmets do NOT save lives.
http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1209.html

What did you think before you read the article?

 

[benb]

And even highly qualified and experienced consultants are not typically experts in materials science, so will not have the expertise necessary to make a judgement on whether a helmet could have been beneficial in a specific incident.

 

[benb]

Probably been linked on this thread before but for those who haven't already seen it.................http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1012.html

After reading the article I am convinced, helmets do NOT save lives.
http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1209.html

Thanks, will bookmark those links.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

I'd love to agree completely but it depends on the journey. If your ride is only a few miles, or from train station to workplace, or further but at a serene pace, then you're right.

How long is a typical UK bike commute, do we know? Does it vary, markedly in urban, suburban and rural/cross-country contexts. (Mine was small town to small town 20km each way, when I ride solo in the UK now I consider it a miracle I survived.)

I ask because, in an attempt to get modal share up 50%, the authorities here are building so-called bicycle highways. Those I have explored are a mixed bag tbh, some off road, some just paint, but there are lots of them, lots of folk using them and some are over 20km long. My work colleagues coming in from the southern edges of Amager must be doing ?7km? Each way.

 

[Mugshot]

@steve50 http://www.cyclehelmets.org/0.html does get linked to every now and then in these debates. Unfortunately it is quite frequently described as anti-helmet in the same way as a number of the posters are.

 

[Mugshot]

How long is a typical UK bike commute, do we know?

Not sure about the commute bit but there was a load of data on average bike rides released by strava last year. Pembrokeshire was top on longest average distance, I like to think that was down to me. I'll see if I can find it.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

This bit keeps cropping up. Removing cars from roads makes cycling a much more pleasant activity. However it doesn't really matter in a helmet debate as cars are irrelevant . If you get smacked by a car at speed you can be wearing whatever you like on your head it's not going to play a part in the outcome

Key point for UK in bold above. FNRttC showed me that the problem isn't UK roads and infrastructure but rather the volume and speed of traffic on them, and the appallingly low standards of driving and driver behaviour.

And that realisation made me question everything in my (then) motor-centric head that I knew about road cycling. Including the need for a lid.

 

[Mugshot]

@GrumpyGregry Have a look HERE and HERE, there's lots of stats but more stuff if you search for the right things if that makes sense, it's "strava end of year insights" that you want to be looking for.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

@steve50 http://www.cyclehelmets.org/0.html does get linked to every now and then in these debates. Unfortunately it is quite frequently described as anti-helmet in the same way as a number of the posters are.

Cycling in cph has made me anti-helmet. Well that and pro-helmet evangelisers here and elsewhere. Portraying riding a bike as an activity that requires special clothes, special safety equipment, and a warrior - it is a helmet not a hat - mentality just puts people off riding bikes.

 

[Mugshot]

Cycling in cph has made me anti-helmet. Well that and pro-helmet evangelisers here and elsewhere. Portraying riding a bike as an activity that requires special clothes, special safety equipment, and a warrior - it is a helmet not a hat - mentality just puts people off riding bikes.

You are quite right as far as I am concerned and I will confess to being more than a little bit anti-helmet for exactly the reasons you've stated, that and the fashion bit, if I wear a hat like Froome I'll be able to ride like him.
I don't berate and abuse and threaten physical violence against those that do wear helmets, which they do to me (and you too I expect) nor do I do that to people that are walking or driving cars even though they seem to think it's acceptable to demand that I wear a particular item when riding my bikes, which is frankly astonishing. I think that that is where I see the difference, the anti-helmet slur is bandied about as if those that choose not to wear use the same tatics, I think it's a lazy insult from people that have had their arguments backed into a corner.

 

[steve50]

What did you think before you read the article?

I was 50/50, thinking maybe a helmet could help prevent serious head injury but it would appear I have been misled by manufacturers whose sole aim is to profiteer by being conservative with the truth.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

You are quite right as far as I am concerned and I will confess to being more than a little bit anti-helmet for exactly the reasons you've stated, that and the fashion bit, if I wear a hat like Froome I'll be able to ride like him.
I don't berate and abuse and threaten physical violence against those that do wear helmets, which they do to me (and you too I expect) nor do I do that to people that are walking or driving cars even though they seem to think it's acceptable to demand that I wear a particular item when riding my bikes too, which is frankly astonishing. I think that that is where I see the difference, the anti-helmet slur is bandied about as if those that choose not to wear use the same tatics, I think it's a lazy insult from people that have had their arguments backed into a corner.

As I have admitted elsewhere if I see someone riding a bike on the road in cph wearing a lid I think most likely they are some sort of "buffoon". And, nowadays, ditto for the UK.

They have full-kit-plonkers here to, but by and large they are wearing the kit of their own club or their own town team, and are riding with sufficient pace style and commitment that they are easily forgiven. UK male, middle-aged, full kit plonkers, apeing the pro-peleton, and, of course, wearing helmets almost to a man, with attendant macho-posturing, whilst bumbling through the Surrey Hills slightly faster than asthmatic donkey, and worst off all, needlessly braking on the descents... No, let's not go there.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

I was 50/50, thinking maybe a helmet could help prevent serious head injury but it would appear I have been misled by manufacturers whose sole aim is to profiteer by being conservative with the truth.

I don't think a manufacturer has every tried to sell me a helmet by pushing increased safety explicitly. I got my first helmet in 1995 along with my first mtb and bought it, uncritically, on the say-so of the lbs assistant.